Learning to Fly: A Practical Manual for Beginners

by Claude Grahame-White; Harry Harper

The question is asked, often, how long it should take a man to learn to fly. It is almost impossible, though, to specify any fixed time. A very great deal must depend on the weather. A pupil who joins a school in the summer is more likely, naturally, to complete his tuition quickly than one who begins in the winter. In periods when there are high and gusty winds it may be necessary to suspend school work for several days. But at such times the pupil need not be completely idle. Lectures on aviation are organised sometimes by the schools; while a pupil should have opportunities also—as has been mentioned before—of going into the engine-shop and studying the repair and overhaul of motors and machines.

It is on record that a pupil has learned to fly in a day, even in a few hours; but here the circumstances, and the men, were exceptional. Such an unusual facility represents one extreme; while as another, it may happen that a man, owing to a combination of adverse circumstances, is six months before he gains his certificate of proficiency. It may be taken, as a rule, that a pupil should set aside say a couple of months in order to undergo thoroughly, and without any haste, his full period of tuition. School records prove, as a rule, that the pilots who learn to fly abnormally quickly are apt to experience an abnormal number of accidents at a later date, due principally to a lack of real sound knowledge, which they should have gained during the period of their tuition. One must learn to walk before one can run, and this takes time; and the remark applies aptly to aviation. It is very necessary for the pupil to spend as much time as he can on the aerodrome. Much is to be learned, by an observant man, apart from the actual time during which he is engaged with his instructor. If he watches men who are highly skilled, he may gain many useful hints, though he himself is on the ground.

CHAPTER II

TEMPERAMENT AND THE AIRMAN

As aviation passed from its earliest infancy, and a number of men began to fly, the temperament of the individual pupil, and the effect of this temperament on his progress as an aviator, began to reveal itself. And temperament does play a large part in flying; as it does in any sport in which a man is given control of a highly sensitive apparatus, errors of judgment in the handling of which may lead to disaster. It is not, as a rule, until he has passed through his early stages of tuition, and has begun to handle an aeroplane alone, and is beyond the direct control of his instructor, that the temperament of a pupil really plays its part. Up to this point he is one among many, conforming to certain rules, and obliged to mould himself to the routine of the school. But when he begins to fly by himself, and particularly when he has passed his tests for proficiency, and is embarking, say, on cross-country flights, then this question of temperament begins really to affect his flying.

All men who learn to fly—numbering as they do thousands nowadays—cannot be endowed specially by nature for their task. There is indeed a wide latitude for temperamental differences—always provided that nothing more is required of a man than a certain average of skill. But if a man is to become a first-class pilot, one distinctly above the average, then the question of his temperament, as it influences his flying, is certainly important.

A rough classification of the pupils at a school—just a preliminary sorting of types—shows as a rule the existence of two clearly-marked temperaments. One is that of the man who is deliberate, whose temperament guards him from doing anything perfunctorily or in a hurry; the other is that of a man—a type frequently encountered nowadays—who while being quick, keen, and intelligent, mars these good qualities by a temperamental impatience which he finds it difficult or impossible to control, and which makes him irritable and restless at any suggestion of delay.

Now the first of these men need not to be wholly commended, nor the second entirely condemned. A capacity for deliberation, both in study and in practice, is very useful when learning to fly. It will protect a man from many errors, and render his progress sure, though it may be slow. But something more than deliberation is required in the aviator of distinction. There must be the vital spark of enterprise, the temperamental quality which is known as "dash," the quick action of the mind, in difficulty or peril, that will carry certain men to safety through many dangers. This imaginative power is possessed as a rule, though in ways that differ considerably, by the second type of pupil we have described—the restless, impatient man. But in his case this quality is, more often than not, marred by his instability; by the lack of that judgment which is so necessary to counterbalance imagination, but which is, unfortunately, not so often found.

A man who decides to become an aviator, and particularly if he intends to fly professionally, should ask himself quite seriously if his temperament is likely to aid him, or whether perhaps it may not be a danger. This point is certainly one of importance, though it cannot be stated directly or decided in so many words. There is a vital question at least that the novice should ask himself; and this is whether his temperament, whatever its general tendency may be, includes a sufficient leavening of caution. In the navigation of the air caution is indispensable. A pupil must remind himself constantly that, though it appears easy—and is indeed easy—to learn to handle a machine in flight, no liberties must under any circumstances be taken with the air. Every instant a man is flying he needs to remember the value of caution. In the air one cannot afford to make mistakes.