not fly,” they will save their money and very naturally buy the cheapest trip available—which may or may not be the safest.
Now there is safe flying and that which is unsafe—exactly as there is safe or unsafe driving or boating. Parents, one or the other or both, should go with their children on the first ride. To see that the safeguards of a licensed pilot and licensed plane are in force is just as definitely a responsibility as overseeing other present-day activities. For the present generation is going to get off the earth some way or other!
Putting off doesn’t solve the problems of aviation. I have had mothers say to me, “I shall let my daughter fly when she is sixteen.” (Or eighteen or some other age, determined I don’t know how.)
“Why not now?” I have queried, only to be given funny or interesting but seldom adequate, answers. Sometimes I knew Daughter had already been up, so the explanation did not matter anyway.
Needless to say, I regret the necessity for this lack of cooperation, just as I do when parents without investigation forbid boys and girls to pursue subjects in college leading to an aeronautical career. That work may be the one field in which the young person may have the greatest aptitude, and it seems a pity to try to force him or her into another.
I have been rather severe on the parents in the foregoing. Perhaps I should turn to another im-
