HOW UNCLE SAM TRAINS FLYERS
Student Aviators at Mineola Field Learn to Worry the Germans.
SOME TESTS OF SKILL SHOWN
Men Go Up About Half Mile, Then "Slide" Down at Sharp Angle—And, Say, This Is No Job for Nervous Man.
Mineola, L. I.—While hundreds of thousands of men in America are learning how to jab bayonets through German soldiers in a leisurely manner, some of the most promising embryo officers of the American forces are here learning how to destroy Boche birdmen. To judge by their training, they will do the job both efficiently and quickly.
Under the direct supervision of Bert Acosta, one of America's most successful civilian aviators, scores of candidates for commissions in the aviation section of the Army Signal corps are being taught to extricate themselves from the most dangerous positions imaginable while several thousand feet from the ground.
For military reasons it is forbidden for details of the fighting instruction for aviators to be made public. Here however, is an illustration of the dangerous situations the aviators are being put through:
While about two thousand feet above ground, with the machine going nearly straight up, let her quietly slip backward and downward, tail first, for 75 or 100 feet, then get the machine under control again, go up still higher, and try it once more.
It's quite easy—that is, it is easy to watch Bert Acosta or Edward Holterman, his first assistant, pull it off. All you have to do is to let the machine drop backward and downward until you feel that you have gone far enough, then pick up speed and make her go upward again. Simple!
Another simple little test of your skill as an aviator is to ride up 2,000 or 3,000 feet, then come down in a spiral, with the wings of the machine almost vertical. Acosta recommends this for nervous persons.
Notwithstanding the apparent recklessness of the flyers, each "stunt" is carried out in an absolutely scientific manner. Instead of courting danger for "the fun of it" the aerial movements are carefully planned with the factor of safety always being among the first things considered. Nothing is undertaken for exhibition purposes except to demonstrate how to escape death over the battlefield.
"To fly around putting the machine at all kinds of angles and going through all the manipulations may appear silly and dangerous," Acosta said. "As a matter of fact, it is the only safe thing to do when you are above an enemy's battlefield.
"Infantry officers in our training camps are telling their men that 'Ignorance courts death, in a battle with bayonets.' In the aviation service ignorance is certain death."
High in the ranks of the men seeking commissions in the aviation corps stands Capt. Cushman A. Rice, veteran of half a dozen wars on the American continent and a former member of the general staffs of three brigadier generals of the American army.
Captain Rice, "The Cuban Millionaire," made a fortune in Cuba following his resignation as a captain of infantry in the regular army in 1902. He is temporarily a sergeant in the corps of men slated to receive commissions. Recently he told how it feels when you make your first flight in an airplane.
"When Mr. Holterman, who was driving the machine, and myself were gliding along about 1,200 feet up, for some unaccountable reason I felt a strong desire to leave my seat and walk out on one of the wings to learn how it felt out there. I don't know why it was, but I felt that desire so strongly for about ten minutes that I almost had to go.
"Really you feel quite safe and secure, no matter how high you go, when you have confidence in the man driving the airplane—or when you are driving it yourself, if you really understand running it. Everything is so new and different way up there that you do not have time to think of being afraid."
Captain Rice will be among those whose time to go to France is rapidly approaching.
Captain Rice stands out as a man who took the hard road to a commission, although he could have had one without working for it. Notwithstanding the fact that he could have become a lieutenant colonel of infantry, because of his military record, he chose to enlist in the aviation corps and work for his commission, which he will receive at the end of the regular five months' training period. His military record includes participation in three Latin-American revolutions, the Spanish-American war as a captain in the regular army, the Philippine campaign in command of a detachment of mounted scouts and service in China.
A number of candidates here are awaiting commissions, which have been authorized, and will shortly leave for France to go into the last stages of their training over there. Additional candidates from the various ground schools will replace them.
The Star (Oneonta, New York) - Wednesday, October 3, 1917
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