November 8, 1944

Roswell Field

Nov. 8, 1944

Dear A.P.

I have finally broken down and decided to write again.  Even though we are on a tough flying schedule we don't have too many ground school classes and get a pretty good chance to sleep in the morning.

We are getting an average of 2 1/2 hours a day lately and are going on a 5 hour a day schedule tomorrow.  It gets awful tiresome but at this rate we are now going we will finish ahead of schedule.

Tomorrow we get our instrument check so by the time you get this I will know if I am to be a pilot or a co-pilot.  If I don't get checkitis or something I will have it made.  It will be tough concentrating for 2 1/2 hours but I guess I can stand it.

I may even get home for Thanksgiving if I am lucky.  We are due 7 or more days at the end of our training here and the end should come up in a couple of weeks.  If it does I will make tracks for the first plane going East and there should be a lot of them.  We may have a great Thanksgiving even yet.

Mother has been sending a lot of clippings from the papers about the problem of making Boston the center of air activity after the war.  If Boston is made the stopover on flights across maybe fellows like me can have a chance to find a job in what we like after the war.  Even though the competition for flying jobs after the war will be stiff the further I go in this training the better my chances get.

I was glad to hear you got down to Bridgeton last week.  I hope everyone was well and from what you wrote Grandpa seems to be his old self alright.

We got Radio Tokyo on our Liaison Set today and got quite a kick out of their broadcast.  They really have a lot of propaganda but it doesn't seem convincing to me.  We get it on 13.5 megs if you have a set.  You might get a laugh out of it.  They have a lot of good music anyway.  

For a recording and more details about Tokyo Rose, click here.

Well this is a rather brief letter but I am out of paper.  Well have to write again soon I guess.

With love

Austin

February 17, 1944

Ryan Field

Tucson Ariz.

Feb. 17, 1944

Dear A.P.

I vow right now to not write later than 2000 (8:00 p.m.) because I am very tired and need the extra hour of sleep.

I got your letter today and as I haven't written to you for some time I guess this one is due to you.  I got 4 different letters the day before yesterday but I can't answer them for a couple more days because I am again short of paper but have enough envelopes for the whole outfit.

A "Link trainer" isn't much of a plane.  It has all the instruments in it for cross country blind flying.  It has a two way radio although we only use it one way, instructor to student, no back talk.  They have 10 or 12 of these in a hanger and the instructors are non-coms who have had the training required to train others.

The instruments in the plane have identical sets upon the instructors table so that he can watch your altitude, air speed, rate of climb, etc while you watch them in the little plane.  You get a series of exercises on each lesson so that you get so that you can control your speed with the stick and not the throttle.  In the last lesson you get a chance to fly a course and to trace circles on a paper.  They are drawn by a machine that is synchronized to the trainer so that you can fly a course and have it traced for you to show your mistakes.

Link only lasts 5 hours so that every thing we learn is very elementary and little or no use in our present flying.

In our planes we have one way communication and it is of course from the instructor to student, again no back talk.  They use gas ports which is a rubber tube more or less that is attached to the helmet in such a way that the instructor can be heard very well.  The planes are equipped for electrical communication but we are not so we don't worry about it.

Today I had a check flight and it was not very much of a ride.  I gave him a pretty good ride and all he had to say afterwards that I had no dangerous characteristics and that my sight for a "forced landing" was not quite what he had picked out, my lazy 8s were appropriately what he wanted.  He didn't have any unfavorable comments however.

3 days ago I had a civilian check ride which was not quite so good.  He said that my torque correction in stalls was weak, my chandelles were not too good, my forced landing field was not too good but otherwise all right.  I also didn't try to gain enough altitude after a spin recovery.  I passed it all right. I don't have to sweat out any more check rides until I have completed 40 hours or more and that is not too long from now as I now have 36 hours to my credit.

From now on we will have to get 2 hours a day to finish on schedule.  I have 12 hours of solo now but must have 30 before the course is over so you see I have quite a way to go yet.  Everything is going according to schedule.  I have passed the 90 degree stage and the 180 degree as well and have only the 180 degree cross wind stage to go.

I got a letter from Aunt Emma the other day and she seemed to think that grandpa was coming along very well considering.

Well I must close now.  Tell Mother to write as soon as she gets her box and tell me what she thinks.

With love

Austin.