May 20, 1943
Thurs. 5:40 P.M.
Dear Folks:
I guess I better drop you a line again. We didn’t fly this afternoon because it rained. It really poured for a while. Yesterday I was in my solo stage. We call these rat races. A bunch of solo students line up in their planes side by side. We had 8 in our bunch. We then turn and go to the end of the field and take off one by one. We then fly around the traffic pattern and land again. We whirl around and go to the other end of the field and take off and go around again. We are supposed to do this four times. We call it rat racing because there is a continuous stream of planes going around. I was in the lead for our bunch and when I got around to take off the last man would be just landing. We are supposed to land in the first 1/3 of the field.
All the time we are doing this the instructors are down on the ground judging us. Each instructor judges somebody else’s students. We have to pass this before we can take a plane up and go outside the traffic pattern. I passed it okay so when we got back to the home field I was given a plane to take up and practice maneuvers by myself. That is a nice feeling to go up there and know that the instructor isn’t down there watching you. My instructor was over at the other field with another student. I had 1 1/2 hours in the air yesterday. Some fun!
One of the boys in my room cracked a plane up yesterday while landing. He landed on one wheel and cracked a place under the wing. So he has to take a check ride. The piece he broke costs about $2,000. A boy in the next room cracked one too. It did while in his solo stage.
Of the boys who were in A Flt with me at pre-flight school, 3 of them have washed out so far. One of the boys with my instructor had an army check ride yesterday and he washed out too. So that leaves only 3 students with my instructor and you can just bet he is going to do his best to get all 3 of us through. Two of us had our solo stage yesterday and the other was supposed to have his today. I have about 15 1/2 hours in the air so far. I will be having a 20 hr check any day now. A lot of boys wash-out on that.
I’ve got so I can land that plane pretty good now. I can set it down on 3 points with hardly a jar (sometimes). On that solo stage yesterday my first two landings weren’t so good. But my instructor said that my last two were so good that they passed me.
Well folks write and let me know how everything is. I suppose by the time you get this Murell will have come and gone already.
I hope everybody is feeling good. Say the corn down here is better than knee high.
Yours truly,
Alva
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