One of the difficulties of landing is owing to the fact that even training-machines cannot land at a slower speed than thirty-five miles an hour. If the wheels of the aeroplane, when they first touch ground, do not skim over the surface of the field, the machine is liable to “nose in” and turn a somersault. Indeed, that is why the pusher type of training-machine, with the propeller in the rear of the pilot, is being abandoned for the tractor machine, which has the propeller in front. If an accident does occur with a tractor the engine does not “climb your back.” One of the greatest dangers of flying a seaplane is due to the fact that the engine is installed not in the hull but high above the aviators’ heads, upon which it is apt to fall in case of a crash.
The student was next permitted to fly alone. Most machines were so strongly built that accidents were seldom caused by breakage, although, of course, before each flight the aviator and his mechanic critically examined his machine for broken parts. With a reasonable amount of care straight flying by daylight was comparatively safe.
In the French aviation schools, before the military birdman could pass his final examinations, he had to climb twice to an altitude of six thousand feet and spend an hour at a ten-thousand-foot altitude. If he passed that test successfully, he had to fly over a triangular course of one hundred and fifty miles and land at each corner of the triangle.
Before he could fly his machine on the battle-front the French flier had to know how to loop, to fall or dive at such a steep angle that his machine actually dropped through the air for several hundred feet before it flattened out—a tremendous strain on the wings of a machine—to side slip or round a curve with his machine banked at such an angle that it gradually slid toward the centre of the circle, to climb or tail dive at such a pitch that the aircraft actually slips backward tail foremost. Indeed, in the last days of training the student was encouraged to practise all kinds of stunts and tricks, for when an enemy descended on you from the clouds above and was sitting on your tail weaving a wreath of bullets from a machine-gun round you, your only chance of escape was by means of a loop, a dive, a side slip, or a roll.
Another interesting test a pilot had to undergo before he got his license to do battle was to ascend fifteen hundred feet, cut off all power, and volplane down in a spiral to a fixed point. To perform the manœuvre successfully required great skill. All the members of the famous Lafayette Escadrille had to undergo those tests before becoming fighting aviators, and Americans who received their final training in France had to go through the same training.
In our government flying-schools at Mineola in Long Island and the other flying-fields in Texas and other parts of the country, at San Diego in California, the students were put to similar tests of skill. In the private civilian schools, however, instructors rarely attempt to teach their pupils more than straight flying. But most aviators agree that every flyer ought to know the “stunts” in order to meet successfully any extraordinary situation that may confront him.
Of course the training for aerial observers, wireless operators, and photographers was very different from that of the pilots. In each case the instruction was peculiar to the science they were to practise, and it had little to do with aviation, only in so far as it was actually affected by flying. The men who took the pictures had to make a study of the science of photography. The same was true of the wireless operator. The observer, however, had to study topography and the use of the machine-gun, and target practice such as characterized the work of the pilot. In different countries this differed with the methods developed there. In England the pilot often shot at toy balloons in the air while chasing them with his machine or at targets on the ground. The same method was employed by the United States. Nearly all the great aces in the war were very clever shots, and Major Bishop attributed most of his success to his skill with the machine-gun.
Finally the Gosport system of training aviators was adopted by the British and the American armies because it permitted the training of tens of thousands of fliers at the same time. The principles taught were the same as those enumerated above. The system, however, reduces the time spent on each operation to the minimum, specifying the number of hours to be spent on each step in the course. Here is a sample of the outline of the training under that system:
STANDARD OF TRAINING
Part 1. Pilots—Flying Wings