September 19, 1943

Beloit College

Beloit Wis

Sunday. 19,

Well William,

I guess it is time for your letter to come.  It has taken a long time to get written and it might take longer if I had something special to do.  As it is Sunday is a rather dull time in town and Sunday mornings seem to be the best time to write.

I have now had exactly 5 hours flying time.  The last 1/2 hour was a check ride that was pretty good but still not too good.  My flight work in the air was fairly good but the landings were terrible.  It was taken on a hot windless day and hot rising air made landings impossible unless a lot of flying speed was lost.  You would come in for normally a perfect landing only to have to ship rise on the hot air and let you down with a terrific bounce.  I did it 3 times in a row.

In a landing you come in from an altitude of about 200' and made your turn into the wind.  As you come over the field you should be ready for the landing if you misjudge and come in too fast or too slow you just have to do the best you can.  When you reach an altitude of 20' you begin to pull back on the stick to lift the nose and you stall it in.  The conrtolls get mushy and hard to get reaction from.  When you hit the ground you have the stick back in your stomach.  Friday however when the controls got mushy and you pulled back on the stick for a landing you just started to rise and you had to go forward on the stick again.  This is in disagreement of flight rules so I had to make a couple of bounces before coming to a smooth stop.  That check was surely very poor from the landing stand point.

Friday was a funny day.  On my lesson flight I was flying over a river but to my dismay began to rise at an unheard of rate.  I stuck the nose down and went into a supposedly dive but even with the nose way below the horizon in what should have been a dive we continued to rise about 150'.  After we got out of that updraft the plane came down in a hurry.

Thursday we did stalls and spins.  I climbed the ship to 2500' and the instructor showed me stalls.  In stalls you have no (I hope) aileron control because it tends to act just the opposite to the intended purpose.  Therefore the stick is not used except to pull the nose up.  The nose up and the ship begins to mush through the air at this point the stick can be pulled way back and the plane drops forward into a dive.  You then gun the motor and pull out.

The spins are a lot more fun.  You go into a normal stall but give rudder in the direction you want to spin.  The plane falls off in the direction desired and the earth begins to whirl.  You pull it out by applying opposite rudder and forward stick.  What a sensation.

You better get someone to give you a few rides.  Then you will be converted to the thing also.

All the girls have come back to college and you can bet we are now going to have fun.  The only trouble is that in 2 weeks we will again be on our way.  You ought to see these mid-western girls.  I never saw anything like it in N.E.  It must be because I didn't get around much when I was back home.  I think coed colleges are a coming thing; especially during war time when all the boys are not in school.

I have taken a few pictures lately so I expect that the next mail will bring a few of me and my roommate.  He is restricted this week because of less than a passing mark in one subject.  I should have gotten 3 extra hours for marks above 80% but the order didn't come through.

Your brother,

 Austin (The hot pilot)

P.S. Wish Mary a Happy Birthday for me.