The Fun of It/Chapter 3

by Amelia Earhart

WHEN YOU LEARN TO FLY

EXCLUSIVE of those for glider pilots, there are four types^[1] of flying licenses to aspire to at present in the United States. The first is the private license which requires ten hours of solo time—that is, flying a plane alone. The second is the Industrial and the third the Limited Commercial (commonly called the L. C.), both of which require fifty hours solo. The fourth and highest type is the Transport license which requires 200 hours. This last is the only one which unre­strictedly permits its holder to fly passengers for hire or to give instruction.

The cost of obtaining a license varies from an approximate minimum of $300 to a possible out-of-pocket cost of $4,000 for the Transport grade. Of course, all that the schools can give is the training and supervised solo flying. The individual then must be examined by a Department of Commerce inspector, both in written work and in actual flying. The questions are on the plane, the motor, navi­gation, meteorology, Air Traffic rules and Depart­ment of Commerce regulations. The flying con­sists of landings and take-offs, with air manœuvers which easily show the pilot’s proficiency.

In a way, the time and money invested in secur­ing a Transport license is comparable to that necessary for preparing for other professions. A law or medical student spends several years in college and emerges the holder of a diploma. The diploma is really only a permit to gain experience, for the young lawyer or physician must sometimes work for a long period before being considered thor­oughly competent.

I had just passed voting age when I turned up for flying instruction. Most of my first lesson con­sisted in explanations on the ground. I was shown the two cockpits in the plane and I learned that the instructor sat in the after-one and the student in front. I saw the rudder bar and stick and was told that during instruction these controls are con­nected so that every movement made by the instruc­tor is duplicated in the student’s cockpit and vice versa. Obviously, therefore, the experienced pilot is master of the situation at all times, and can cor­rect any mistakes made by the pupil, or show how manœuvers should be executed. Much the same system could be illustrated by imagining automo­bile driving being taught by utilizing two steering wheels, duplicate brakes, throttle, and so on.

Piloting differs from driving a car in that there is an added necessity for lateral control. An auto­mobile runs up and down hill, and turns left or right. A plane climbs or dives, or turns, and in ad­dition tips from one side to another. There is no worry in a car about whether the two left wheels are on the road or not; but a pilot must normally keep his wings level. Of course, doing so becomes as automatic as driving straight, but is nevertheless dependent upon senses ever alert.

One of the first things a student learns in flying is that he turns by pushing a rudder bar the way he wants to go. (The little wagons most children have turn opposite the push.) When he turns, he must bank or tip the wings at the same time. Why? Because, if he doesn’t, the plane will skid in exactly the same way a car does when it whirls too fast around a level corner.

Perhaps you have noticed that the inside of an automobile race track is like a bowl with the sides growing steeper and steeper at the top. The cars climb toward the outer edge in proportion to their speed, and it is quite impossible to force a slow car up the steep side of the bowl. The faster the car goes, the steeper the bank must be and the sharper the turn.

A pilot must make his own “bowl” and learn to tip his plane to the right degree relative to the sharpness of his turn and his speed. A bad skid means lack of control, for a while, either on the ground or in the air, and of course is to be avoided. By the way, compensating for skidding is the same with a car or plane—one turns either craft in the direction of the skid.

The stick—as its name implies—extends up from the floor of the cockpit. It is a lever by means of which the pilot can push the nose of the plane up or down. It also tips the wings. By pushing it to the left, the left wing is depressed, and vice versa.

The rudder bar, upon which one’s feet rest, sim­ply turns the nose of the ship left or right, a move­ment to be coordinated with the action of the stick. Today, by the way, especially in larger planes, a wheel much like the steering wheel of a car is used instead of the simple stick.

In addition to the stick and the rudder, the novice must become familiar with certain instru­ments placed before his eyes, much as does a driver with a speedometer, gas gauge, etc., installed on the dashboard of his automobile. These instru­ments include a compass for direction, as well as others which show speed through the air, height above ground, revolutions per minute of the motor, and pressure and temperature of the oil. On planes equipped for all weather flying, several more are necessary.

To get back to my own lessons. After learning as much as I could possibly absorb on the ground, I was taken aloft. For what seemed a long time but was actually only about twenty minutes, I watched the movements of the controls as the pilot, in the rear cockpit, made circles around the field. Finally we landed and she, for my primary work was with a woman, talked with me some more.

The next time I went “upstairs,” I was per­mitted to try to make the plane fly level—and that was very, very hard, indeed. I did exactly what a novice in an automobile is apt to do—overcontrol and wobble about the road, no matter how he en­deavors to steer straight.

Besides skidding, a plane can stall as a car does on a hill. Chug-chug-chug—chug. Can the motor make the top? Chu-g-g. It gives a final gasp and “dies.” The car starts to roll downwards, but by­ jamming on brakes and starting the motor, the driver easily recovers control.

If a plane is stalled, the motor doesn’t stop nor does the vehicle slide backwards. Instead, it be­gins to drop nose first and the pilot has to wait until enough speed is attained to make the rudder and ailerons effective. Of course, with airplanes there is little or no control at slow speeds any more than there is with a motor boat when it is barely moving.

At several thousand feet, a simple plane stall should not be hazardous. However, if it occurs so close to the earth that there isn’t time to recover control, a hard landing, sometimes resulting in con­siderable damage, may be the outcome.

But in the air, as with automobiles, many acci­dents are due to the human equation. The careful driver, either below or aloft, barring the hard luck of mechanical failure, has remarkably little trouble, considering what he has to contend with.

After I was able to keep the plane pretty level, and go toward a designated landmark with a fair degree of accuracy, I was allowed the exciting ex­periment of trying to make a turn. After turns came landings, most difficult of all and requiring the most practise. In all, I spent with my instructors about the conventional ten hours, but my student period contained stunting before I soloed.

Perhaps I should explain what stunting is.

The Department of Commerce defines it as “any manœuver not necessary for normal flight.” This is a very inclusive definition. I am sure at least a hundred others would be necessary to explain it. Let’s try another approach. Just which stunts do flying schools teach? The answer to that query sounds more promising.

The fundamental stunts taught to students are slips, stalls and spins—three S’s instead of R’s. Loops, barrel rolls and variations and combinations of many kinds are included depending on the in­struction desired. The Army, Navy and Marines practise intricate and specialized manœuvers, per­forming many of them in formation.

A knowledge of some stunts is judged neces­sary to good flying. Unless a pilot has actually re­covered from a stall, has actually put his plane into a spin and brought it out, he cannot know accu­rately what those acts entail. He should be familiar enough with abnormal positions of his craft to re­cover without having to think how.

I have always regarded stunting as somewhat similar to driving in traffic. That is, it is a skill at­tained through practise in order to master a vehicle under as varying conditions as are likely to be en­countered. One can choose to drive only on de­serted country roads and one can fly only on good days over regular airways, when neither the knowl­edge of stunting nor traffic driving may be needed. But, to get from either craft its best performance and to be prepared for whatever may happen, both lessons should be learned.

An individual’s life on the ground or in the air may depend on a split second. The slow response which results from seldom, if ever, having accom­plished the combination of acts required in a given circumstance may be the deciding factor.

Suppose a car suddenly dashes out from a side street. Shall the driver on the main highway apply brakes to avoid a collision, try to get past by step­ ping on the throttle or swerve to one side? The problem can be worked out easily on paper, but only experience counts when there is no time to think a process through. The pilot who hasn’t stalled a plane is less likely to be able to judge correctly the time and space necessary for recovery than one who has.

Of course, stunting may be an art if perfected and practised by those who have the talent. It is popular for exhibitions where crowds like to see airplanes doing spectacular loops or dives or flying upside down. It should be understood that this precision flying is like tight rope walking—it only looks easy.

What are the uses of average stunts? Well, side slips sometimes come in handy in landing in a short field; stalls and spins in knowing what to avoid in normal flying. A vertical bank is necessary in a very short turn and loops and barrel rolls and their relatives and friends are mostly for fun.

I had fun trying to do them, anyway. So much so, in fact, I have sometimes thought that trans­port companies would do well to have a “recreation airplane” for their pilots who don’t have any chance to play in the big transports or while on duty. If a little stunt ship were available, the men could go up 5000 feet and “turn it inside out” to relieve the monotony of hours of straight flying.

The purpose of military stunting is quite distinct from that of civilian brands.

When I learned to fly, a physical examination was not necessary. Today, under the administra­tion of the Department of Commerce, no one may even attempt to learn without first establishing his physical ability.

So the first step taken by the flying candi­date must be to secure a medical examination. Throughout the country are physicians designated by the Department as examiners and they make the simple tests. I emphasize simple for myths of having to be whirled in chairs and undergo long trials in complicated machines are still talked about as if they were true.

Primarily the modern examination concerns eye­sight and muscular control, but general physical fit­ness is also a prerequisite. In addition to the fami­liar test for color blindness and general vision, the determination of depth perception is vital. This means the visual ability to judge distance. In a plane the pilot must know how far he is above the ground (even to a matter of inches, for expert han­dling) as the wheels skim over the surface of the field before they touch. Just so must a good auto­mobile driver be able to appraise the “holes” in traffic through which he must guide his car without bumping the other fellow.

The depth perception test is made with the ap­plicant sitting about twenty feet in front of a box­-like object. Through a small window he sees two upright sticks like miniature goalposts. To one is attached a string which pulls it forward or back. The examiner separates the “goalposts,” and the applicant must adjust them so that they seem to be on a line with each other and equidistant from him. Inability to bring them together within the limit of a few millimeters often ends a flying career before it has begun.

A candidate who ultimately seeks only a private license can “get by” with physical imperfections that would make him ineligible for a higher grade. The necessity for wearing glasses, for instance, would disqualify him except in the private classi­fication, and he would be passed for that only if the correction in his lenses was not too great.

Once a license is granted, a pilot is subjected to periodic examinations to keep his rating. This re­quirement is for checking on physical condition, as well as recording how much flying is being done. If some such practise were followed with

	CLIMB To ascend at a normal angle in on airplane. The angle is seldom steeper than the average hill you climb In your car.		CLIMBING TURN To ascend at an angle and turn to the right or to the left while climbing. It’s like climbing a snake hill in an automobile.
	ZOOM To climb at an angle greater than that which can be maintained in flight. Sometimes a zoom may be almost vertical.		45° BANK To turn in a circle with the wings at an angle of 45° to the ground. It's like a turn on a high banked automobile race track.
	STALL To climb at an angle so steep that on airplane loses its forward speed and “stalls.” it does not mean that the motor stops.		VERTICAL BANK To turn sharply in a circle with the wings in a vertical position. Plenty of altitude is needed when perform­ing this manoeuver.
			GLIDE To descend at a normal or gentle angle without the use of the engine. It’s like coasting down hill in an automobile.
			DIVE To descend steeply and rapidly tn an airplane, with or without engine power. A dive is the direct opposite to a zoom.

Courtesy Standard Oil Company of Indiana

Flying Maneuvers

	SPIRAL To descend in circles not unlike the coils of a spring. It is the opposite to a climbing turn and is a very simple manoeuver.		TAIL SPIN A condition resulting from loss of air speed. The air­ plane spins toward the earth, nose down—not fail down, as some think.
	SIDE SLIP To descend in a banked position. The plane slips sideward faster than it travels forward. Side slips are often used in landing.		SPLIT “S” TURN Starting as a loop, the airplane makes a 180 degree turn in a vertical bank, coming out in opposite direction.
	FORWARD SLIP To descend in a slightly banked position. In this manoeuver sideward slip and forward travel are approximately equal.		BARREL ROLL To make a revolution about the fore and aft axis of on airplane. This is a stunt frequently performed by military airplanes.
LOOP INSIDE To describe a vertical circle in an airplane, nose up and over. This is a military manoeuver and is considered a stunt.
LOOP OUTSIDE To describe a vertical circle, nose down and under. Only a few aviators have accomplished this. It is the most difficult of ail stunts.

Courtesy Standard Oil Company of Indiana

Flying Maneuvers

automobile drivers, there would doubtless be fewer acci­dents.

To fly doesn’t require a specialized kind of physi­cal make-up. Just normal coordination and good health, necessary to any physical activity, are sufficient. However, to excel in flying, the indi­vidual must have exceptional ability, just as a player, to excel in tennis, golf or baseball, must be above the average in his reactions, mentally and physically. Helen Wills Moody, Bobby Jones and Babe Ruth show just as unusual qualifications in their lines, as do Frank Hawks and Colonel Lind­bergh in aviation. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t take any more prowess to be a super­-flyer than it does to be a super something else.

For the normal person there is no particular strain in flying, whether as pilot or passenger, under good conditions. Certainly for the pas­senger, who has no responsibility, flying can be, by all odds, the pleasantest form of transportation wherever it is practical.

Most people have quite incorrect ideas about the sensation of flying. Their mental picture of how it feels to go up in a plane is based on the way the plane looks when it takes off and flies, or upon their amusement park experience in a roller coaster. Some of the uninitiated compare flying to the memory of the last time they peered over the edge of a high building. But they are mistaken. The sensation of such moments is almost entirely lacking in a plane. Flying is so matter of fact that probably the passenger taking off for the first time will not know when he has left the ground.

I heard a man say as he left a plane after his first trip, “Well, the most remarkable thing about flying is that it isn’t remarkable.”

The sensation which accompanies height, for in­stance, so much feared by the prospective air pas­senger, is seldom present. There is no tangible connection between the plane and the earth, as there is in the case of a high building. To look at the street from a height of twenty stories gives some an impulse to jump. In the air the passenger hasn’t that feeling of absolute height, and he can look with perfect equanimity at the earth below. An explanation is that with the high building there is an actual contact between the body of the ob­server and the ground, creating a feeling of height. But the plane passenger has no vertical solid con­necting him with the ground—and the atmosphere which fills the space between the bottom of the plane and the earth doesn’t have the same effect.

Many people seem to think that going up in the air will have some bad effects on their hearts. I know a woman who is determined to die of heart failure, if she makes a flight. She isn’t logical, for she rolls lazily through life encased in 100 pounds of extra avoirdupois, which surely puts a greater strain on that organ.

Seriously, of course, a person with a chronically weak heart, who is affected by altitude, should not invite trouble by flying. But if one can go above sea level safely, one can fly over the Continental Divide, for instance, with no more effect than if one drives or goes by train.

Consciousness of air speed is surprisingly absent when flying. Thirty miles an hour in an automo­bile, or fifty in a railroad train, gives one a greater sensation of speed than moving one hundred miles an hour in a large plane. On the highway every pebble passed is a speedometer for one’s eye, while the ties and track whirling backward from an ob­servation car register the train’s motion.

In the air, there are no stones or trees or tele­graph poles—no milestones for the eye, to act as speed indicators. Only a somewhat flattened countryside below, placidly slipping away or spreading out. Even when the plane’s velocity is greatly altered, no noticeable change in the whole situation ensues—eighty miles an hour at several thousand feet is substantially the same as one hun­dred and forty, so far as the sensations of sight and feeling are concerned.

“I would gladly fly if we could stay very close to the ground,” is a statement that I have often heard in one way or another. As a matter of fact, a plane 100 feet off the earth is in an infinitely more hazardous position than one 3600 feet aloft, all conditions being equal.

One woman told me that she always shut her eyes when the plane was coming down for a land­ing, fearing that if she kept them open, she would be dizzy. It seems to me a fair statement that for the average landing, the descent of the plane is much less noticeable than the dropping of the mod­ern elevator. It comes down in a gentle glide at an angle often much less than that of a country hill. As a result, unless the passenger is actually watch­ing for a landing, he is aware that he is approach­ing the ground only when the motors are idled.

Trouble in the air is very rare. It is hitting the ground that causes it. Obviously the higher one happens to be, the more time there is to select a safe landing place in case of difficulty. For a ship doesn’t fall like a plummet, even if the engine goes dead. It assumes a natural gliding angle which sometimes is as great as eight to one. That is, a plane 5000 feet in the air can travel in any direc­tion eight times its altitude (40,000 feet) or prac­tically eight miles. Thus it has a potential landing radius of sixteen miles in still air.

Sometimes a cautious pilot elects to come down at once to make a minor engine adjustment. Something is wrong and very properly he is un­willing to risk flying further, even though he may be able to do so. Just so the automobile driver, instead of continuing with, say, poor brakes, would do well to stop at once at a garage and have them adjusted. He will then make better time more safely.

All of which obviously points to the necessity of providing frequent landing places along all air­ways. Few things, I think, would do more to eliminate accidents in the air. With perfected motors the dread of forced landings will be for­gotten, and with more fields, at least in the popu­lous areas, “repair” landings would be an added safeguard.

Eliminating many of the expected sensations of flying doesn’t mean that none are to be anticipated or that those left are only pleasant. There are poor days for flying as well as good ones. Just as in yachting, weather plays an important part, and sometimes entirely prevents a trip. Even ocean liners are occasionally held over in port to avoid a storm, or are prevented from making a scheduled landing because of adverse conditions. Trains, despite the hundred years since railroads began, are still stalled by washouts and snow. In due time, planes will doubtless become as reliable as these older forms of transportation and learn to overcome their particular weather hazards as well.

The choppy days at sea have a counterpart in what flyers call “bumpy” air over land. Air is liquid flow and where obstructions occur there will be eddies. For instance, imagine wind blowing directly toward a clump of trees, or coming in sud­den contact with a cliff or steep mountain. Water is thrown up when it strikes against a rock and so is a stream of air diverted upward by an object in its way. Encountering such a condition, a plane gets a “wallop”—is tossed up and buffeted as it rolls over the wave.

There are bumps, too, from sources other than these land shoals. Areas of cool air and warm dis­turb the flow of aerial rivers through which the plane moves. The “highs” and “lows” familiar to the meteorologists—the areas of high and low barometric pressure—are forever playing tag with each other, the air from one area flowing in upon the other much as water seeks its own level, creat­ing fair weather and foul, and offering interest­ing problems to the students of aviation, not to mention varied experiences to the flyer himself.

The nautical boys have an advantage over the “avigators.” Constant things like the Gulf Stream can be labeled and put on charts and shoals marked. But one can’t fasten buoys in the atmos­phere. Flyers can only plot topography. Air, like water, gives different effects under different conditions. The pilot must learn that when the wind blows over a hill from one direction the result is not the same as that when it blows from another. Water behaves similarly. The shoals of the air seem a little more elusive, however, because their eddies are invisible. If one could see a down­ward current of air or a rough patch of it, plane travel might be more comfortable, sometimes.

Bumpiness means discomfort, or a good time for strong stomachs, in the air just as rough water does in ocean voyaging. There is no reason to suppose, however, if one isn’t susceptible to seasickness or car-sickness, that air travel will prove dif­ferent.

Some of the air sickness experienced is due to lack of proper ventilation in cabin planes. Many are not adequately ventilated for with the opening of windows, the heat and sometimes fumes from the motors are blown in. Adequate ventilation is one of the amenities which the planes of the future will have to possess.

Nervousness over the first ride is probably the greatest cause of air sickness. After the initial journey many passengers never have another sign of it. Of course, some people seem almost deter­mined to be ill. I have heard them say to airline attendants before they get in,

“Well, I’m going to be a very bad passenger to­-day.”

“Why do you think so?” asks the transport employee.

“I know I shall be sick.” And by concentrating thus on the idea, some do manage very nicely!

However, despite these folk, fewer than five percent of regular airline passengers succumb. The proportion is certainly several times as great on ocean going vessels on normal days, and many times greater on rough ones.

An interesting result is being noticed as the speed of commercial passenger airplanes increases. On the fast planes almost no airsickness is encountered. The bumps are felt as hard little jolts in­stead of a slow rocking motion. And the feeling one has is like that in a canoe which rocks lazily on wavelets compared with a very fast motor boat. In a motor boat the waves feel like little bricks against the bottom, but they don’t have time to affect the boat much before it has passed by.

Perhaps the greatest joy of flying is the magnificence of the view. If visibility is good, the passenger seems to see the whole world. Colors stand out and the shades of the earth, unseen from below, form an endless magic carpet. If anyone really wishes to see the seasons’ changes, he should fly. Autumn turns its most flaming leaves upward and spring hints its coming first for birds and aviators.

I have spoken of the effect of height in flattening the landscape, always a phenomenon in the eyes of the air novitiate. Even mountains grow humble and a really rough terrain appears comparatively smooth. Trees look like bushes and automobiles like flat-backed bugs. A second plane which may be flying a few hundred feet above the ground, as seen from a greater altitude looks as if it were just skimming the surface. All vertical measurement is foreshortened.

The world seen from the air is laid out in squares. Especially striking is the checker board effect wherever one looks down on what his brother man has done. Country or city, it is the same—only the rectangles are of different sizes. The city plays its game of checkers in smaller spaces than the country, and divides its area more minutely.

I am often asked about temperatures in the air. “Is it dreadfully cold up there?”

My answer is that it is likely to be cooler than on the ground, but that temperatures are relative. As a rule there is a drop of about two degrees for every thousand feet. Thus on a hot summer day the temperatures about 2000 are somewhat lower than those prevailing on the ground, but often one has to go higher to be comfortable. Everyone knows that unless one encounters a breeze, the tem­perature on a mountain 5000 feet high seems little more agreeable than that at its base. In a small open plane, as contrasted with the cabin ship, one would have a pleasanter time on a summer day, and conversely more discomfort in cold weather—as in an open car. Of course, at really high altitudes regardless of season the mercury drops far below freezing.

Lieutenant Soucek, who holds the international record for altitude, encountered a temperature of 89° below.

1. There is also one for autogiro pilots and one called Airline Pilot’s License for highly experienced Transport holders; these are rare.