“That’s what I want. It’s what he wants, too. Make it special, Grimshaw. I’ve great hopes of him, and don’t want him worked in a crowd.”
Dave understood that his kind employer was spending some money for his instruction. He felt duly grateful. He entered into his work with vim and ardor, determined to make rapid progress, to show Mr. King how he appreciated his friendly interest in him.
For three days Dave was with Grimshaw from ten to twelve o’clock in the morning and two to four in the afternoon. The rest of the time he was helping about the little building, where Mr. King made his headquarters. His employer was preparing to enter for the first day’s altitude prize. There was practicing to do, and the Aegis needed constant attention. Dave now knew how to oil it, keep the tanks full and clean up the monoplane.
Dave had heard that his gruff old tutor, Grimshaw, had been quite a balloonist in his time. A fall from an airship had crippled him. He was useful in his line, however, kept pace with all the new wrinkles in aviation, and ran a kind of school for amateurs.
From the first step in learning how to run the airplane, to the point when with a wild cheer Dave felt himself safe in making a brief flight all by himself, our hero’s progress was one of unceasing interest and delight.
The first step was to learn how to glide. Dave aboard the glider, Grimshaw and an assistant helped get the airplane under way. They carried the weight of the machine and overcame its head resistance by running forward at its own rate of speed.
Over the course Dave ran and repeated. As the glider cut into the air, the wind caused by the running caught under the uplifted edge of the curved planes, buoying up the machine and causing it to rise. At first Dave lifted only a foot or two clear of the ground. Then he projected his feet slightly forward, so as to shift the center of gravity a trifle and bring the edges of the glider on an exact level parallel with the ground.
“You see,” old Grimshaw would say, “you scoop up the advancing air and rise upon it. Keep the planes steady, for if they tilt the air is spilled.”
Dave soon learned the rudiments. He knew that in his first experiment he must watch out that the rear end of the skids or the tail did not scrape over the turf or slap the ground hard and break off. He kept the machine always under control, so it would not get tail heavy. He guarded against wing deflection, and the second day felt proud as a king when his tutor relented from his usual grimness, and told him quite emphatically that he would “do.”
“Never stubbed the toe of the machine, and that’s pretty fine for a beginner,” commented the veteran airman.