I.
To his Father.
The Blue Bird, Brooklands Aerodrome,
Weybridge.
11th August, 1914.
Dear Dad,
Am getting on famously and having a most amusing time. After I wrote you yesterday I went out and had my first lesson. Mr. Stutt, our instructor [for the British and Colonial Aeroplane Co.], sits immediately behind you, controls the engine switch and covers your hand on the stick. He took me straight up two or three hundred feet and then volplaned down. He always does this with new pupils to see how they take it. I think I managed to pass the ordeal all right. I had two or three flights backwards and forwards, and then another turn later on in the evening. Stutt is an awfully nice fellow, very small but very capable. On all sides one hears him recommended. When in the air, he bawls in your ear, "Now when you push your hand forward, you go down, see!" (and he pushes your hand forward and you make a sudden dive), "and when you pull it back you go up, and when you do this, so and so happens," and so with everything he demonstrates. Then he says, "If you do so and so, you will break your neck, and if you try to climb too quickly you will make a tail slide." It's awfully hard work at first and makes your arm ache like fun. The school machines are very similar to the Grahame-Whites. You sit right in front, with a clean drop below you. We never strap ourselves in. The machines are the safest known, and never make a clean drop if control is lost, but slide down sideways.
When it got too dark we went in and had dinner, all sitting at the middle table. Could get no one to fetch my luggage, so decided to go myself after dinner. Unfortunately, I attempted a short cut in the dark and lost my way. After stumbling round the beastly aerodrome in the dark for an hour, I eventually got back to my starting point. I was drenched to the knees, and the moon didn't help me much on account of the thick mist. It was about 10.30 p.m., so I gave up my quest; the prospect of the long walk and heavy bag was too discouraging.
Photo: F.N. Birkett