May 4, 1943
Tues 7:00 P.M.
Dear Folks:
Well now is the time the boys will start to wash-out. After yesterday I was beginning to think I would be one of them. When I came in for the landing I almost took a wing off. I pulled the stick back too soon and I landed on one wheel, so my right wing was way low. I’ll bet the tip of the wing wasn’t over a foot from the ground. The instructor laughed about it when we got out of the plane. But I noticed he looked under the plane before he went up again–just to make sure it was in one piece. Some fun! I also did a 360 degree turn and when I got done the instructor said “Well that was pretty good except you had it in a dive all the way around.” But I had a better day today. Some of the boys get pretty down-hearted when they don’t do good. But shucks I didn’t. I just laughed and marked it off as a bad day. I had a better day today. I made a pretty good landing. But I’ll bet the instructor was pretty close to those controls. I think I sort of scared him yesterday.
Today I did six different kinds of stalls and I did fairly good on all of them. The instructor put it into a spin and told me to count how many times we went around. I guess I counted them correct. Yesterday one of the boys really scared him. The instructor told him to put it into a spin. He did it and then he neutralized the controls and then let them go. The boy said the instructor was as white as a sheet when the instructor brought it out.
One of the boys who has my instructor has quit. I don’t know why. He just came up to me this noon and said that he had just resigned and he didn’t fly this afternoon. I thought the kid was doing pretty good in his flying. The kid that went up last today didn’t do so good. The instructor told him that he gave him the worst ride that any student had ever given him. So I’m not the worst. Fact is I think I am the best of the four that my instructor now has.
Boy I’m telling you that there is a million things to remember in this flying. When I move my hand I have to move my foot too etc. It’s really a lot of remembering to do. If you forget one little thing the plane slips around the turn or jerks or something.
But there is so many stunts that we have to learn and each stunt takes a different movement. In these stalls there are six kinds, 3 with power on and 3 with power off. First you stall going straight ahead and up and then while turning to the left and then to the right. You can do these just with power off and then with power on.
What you do for a stall is this: You keep climbing until you get into such a steep climb that the plane can’t go any farther. It just stops and pauses right there in the air. It then seems to shudder. About that time it is time to start bringing it out of it. To do this you put the stick forward, then drop the nose and you start into a nose dive. You then open the throttle and bring the nose up and start climbing steep until you almost stall again. You then bring the nose down to level flight and bring the throttle back. See what I mean?
The reason they give us all these stunts is so that if we accidentally get our plane into a spin or stall or something like that, we will know what to do to bring the plane out of them. Before we are done here we will know every stunt in the books.
I’ve had several pictures taken of me lately. They can have cameras here. So I will be sending you a few snapshots of me. Well folks let me know how everything is coming with you folks. It is real hot down here. That makes bumpy flying.
Yours truly,
Alva
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