And I have flown! Wonderful. Oh, it was great. Saturday evening I went up for fifteen minutes as a passenger. Then Sunday morning we went up on my first ten minute lesson. When we were a hundred meters off the ground and had gone a quarter of a mile, the pilot gave the controls over to me and rested his hands over the side while I drove entirely alone. It is more simple than driving an automobile because there is no road to watch. A glance at this side, a glance at that, to see that the wings are level. The throttle is set full at the outset and forgotten till you descend. There is a speedometer to watch and that is all.
Of course this is just driving in a straight line through good air. Ascent is dangerous; landing, an art in itself. Every curve has its corresponding angle of bank, and the angle varies according to the direction of the wind relative to line of flight. Perfect carburetion is essential at all altitudes, but that all comes later. An understanding of air currents and their effects must become instinctive; so, after all, the statement that it is easy applies only where someone else is there to do the worrying and look after the important details, any one of which stands between the here and the hereafter. The pilot said I did well on my first two sorties.
Monday I went in to paint with the doctor, but he was going to an Allied musical fête given by the hospital for the reeducation of wounded soldiers, and so I accompanied him. Like all charity affairs, some of it was very boresome, but there was some very good music and one singer from the Opéra Comique of Paris. I shall go another day to paint with the doctor.
This letter has been written out on the field, and as it has been continued through three classes I had better mail it. Have not heard from home for ten days or more. Had a couple of letters from my marraine.
Son.
September 11, 1917.
Dear Family:
From the sky the world is just as beautiful as from the ground, but all in a different way. Fields and farms become checks and plaids in varied greens and browns. Stream necklaces and jeweled lakes bedeck the landscape around. Horizon lines jump back ten leagues, and clouds swim by in droves. The setting sun may rise again for him who mounts to fly. Man, groping about in great fields assumes his actual size and importance in the universe; instead of being the egotistical, dominating element in an unimportant foreground he shrinks to an atom, and the eternal infinite engulfs him. I can imagine a future life as a soul speeding through space, existing upon a sensation, a boundless view, and a breath of air.
The flying is progressing well. The monitor said tonight that he seldom had seen a pupil so apt, that I was doing well and would take up landings tomorrow. Twice today he let me take the aeroplane off the ground. I’ve had an hour and fifteen minutes of flying now and will soon catch up with the class, as far as ability is concerned. Our monitor is a wonderful teacher and a splendid flyer.
I’m just as busy as I care to be. Up at five o’clock; work, six to ten; lecture, ten to eleven; repose to three; lecture, three to four; work four to nine. I haven’t had time to mail this letter, but I’ll do it tomorrow.