THE TRAINING OF THE AVIATOR
The Great War, opening in Europe in 1914 and before its end
involving practically the whole world, including our own nation, has
had more to do with the rapid development of aircraft, both
dirigible balloons and airplanes, than any other agency up to the
present time. It tested widely and discarded all but the most
efficient. It established the relative value of the dirigible and
the airplane, so relegating the former to the rear that it is said
that the death of Count Zeppelin, March 8, 1917, was in a measure
due to his chagrin and disappointment. It stimulated at once the
inventiveness of the constructors and the skill and daring of the
pilots. When it opened there were a few thousand machines and
trained pilots in all the armies of Europe. Before the war had been
in progress three years there were more flying men over the
battlefields of the three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa,
than there were at that time soldiers of all classes enlisted in the
regular army of the United States. Before that war the three arms of
the armed service had been infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The
experience of war added a new arm--the aviation corps--and there is
to-day some doubt whether in importance it should not be ranked
above the cavalry.
[Illustration: "_America"--Built to Cross the Atlantic Ocean._ © U.
& U.]
When war was declared none of the belligerent nations had its aërial
fleet properly organized, nor was the aviation department in any of
them equal in preparedness to the rest of the army. The two great
antagonists did not differ greatly in the strength of their flying
forces. Germany possessed about 1000 airplanes, exclusive of about
450 in private hands, of all which it is estimated about 700 were
ready for immediate service. Fourteen Zeppelins were in commission,
and other large dirigibles of different types brought the number of
the craft of this sort available up to forty.
[Illustration: _Wright Airplane in Flight._]
France was stronger in airplanes but weaker in dirigibles. Of the
former she had about 1500; of the latter not more than twenty-five.
The land was swept for planes in the hands of private owners and, as
the French people had from the first taken a lively interest in
aviation, more than 500 were thus obtained. The French furthermore
at the very outset imperilled their immediate strength in the air
for the sake of the future by adopting four or five machines as army
types and throwing out all of other makes. More than 550 machines
were thus discarded, and their services lost during the first weeks
of the war. The reason for this action was the determination of the
French to equip their aviation corps with standardized machines of a
few types only. Thus interchangeable parts could always be kept in
readiness in case of an emergency, and the aviation corps was
obliged to familiarize itself with the workings of only a few
machines. The objection to the system is the fact that it
practically stopped all development of any machines in France except
the favoured few. Moreover it threw out of the service at a stroke,
or remanded for further instruction, not less than four hundred
pilots who had been trained on the rejected machines. The order was
received with great public dissatisfaction, and for a time
threatened serious trouble in the Chamber of Deputies where
criticisms of the direction of the flying service even menaced the
continuance of the ministry in power.
At the outset of the war Great Britain lagged far behind the other
chief belligerents in the extent of her preparations for war in the
air. As has been pointed out the people of that nation had never
taken the general interest in aviation which was manifested in
France, and there was no persistent Count von Zeppelin to stir
government and citizens into action. The situation was rather
anomalous. Protected from invasion by its ring of surrounding
waters, England had long concentrated its defensive efforts upon its
navy. But while the danger of invasion by the air was second only to
that by sea the British contemplated with indifference the feverish
building of Zeppelins by Germany, and the multiplication of aircraft
of every sort in all the nations of the continent. The manufacture
of aircraft was left to private builders, and not until the war was
well under way did the government undertake its systematic
supervision. The Royal Aërial Factory, then established, became the
chief manufacturer of machines for army and navy use, and acted also
as the agent for the inspection and testing of machines built by
private firms. Control of the Royal Flying Corps is vested in the
Admiralty, the government holding that the strategy of airships was
distinctly naval.
In the use of seaplanes the British were early far in the lead of
other nations, as we shall see in a later chapter. And in the prompt
and efficient employment of such aircraft as she possessed at the
opening of the war she far outclassed Germany which in point of
numbers was her superior. At that moment Great Britain possessed
about five hundred machines, of which two hundred were seaplanes,
and fifteen dirigibles. Despite this puny force, however, British
aviators flew across the channel in such numbers to the headquarters
in France that when the Expeditionary Army arrived on the scene it
found ready to its hand a scouting force vastly superior to anything
the Germans could put in the air. It is no exaggeration to say that
the Royal Flying Corps saved Sir John French's army in his long and
gallant fight against the overwhelming numbers of the foe.
Russia before the war had hidden her aeronautic activities behind
the dreary curtain of miles of steppe and marsh that shut her off
from the watchfulness of Western Europe. Professional aviators,
indeed, had gone thither to make exhibition flights for enormous
purses and had brought back word of huge airplanes in course of
construction and an eager public interest in the subject of flying.
But the secrecy which all the governments so soon to be plunged in
war sought to throw about their production of aircraft was
especially easy for Russia in her isolation. When the storm burst
her air fleet was not less than eight hundred airplanes, and at
least twenty-five dirigibles.
A competent authority estimates that at the outbreak of the war the
various Powers possessed a total of 4980 aircraft of all sorts. This
sounds like a colossal fleet, but by 1917 it was probably multiplied
more than tenfold. Of the increase of aircraft we can judge only by
guesswork. The belligerents keep their output an inviolable secret.
It was known that many factories with a capacity of from thirty to
fifty 'planes a week were working in the chief belligerent lands,
that the United States was shipping aircraft in parts to avoid
violation of neutrality laws before their entrance upon the war, and
that American capital operated factories in Canada whence the
completed craft could be shipped regardless of such laws. How great
was the loss to be offset against this new construction is a subject
on which no authoritative figures are available.
It was estimated early in the war that the life of an airplane in
active service seldom exceeded three weeks. In passing it may be
mentioned that by some misapprehension on the part of the public,
this estimate of the duration of a machine was thought to cover also
the average life of the aviators in service. Happily this was far
from true. The mortality among the machines was not altogether due
to wounds sustained in combat, but largely to general wear and tear,
rough usage, and constant service. The slightest sign of weakness in
a machine led to its instant condemnation and destruction, for if it
should develop in mid-air into a serious fault it might cost the
life of the aviator and even a serious disaster to the army which he
was serving. As the war went on the period of service of a machine
became even briefer, for with the growing demand for faster and more
quickly controllable machines everything was sacrificed to lightness
and speed. The factor of safety which early in the war was six to
eight was reduced to three and a half, and instances were known in
all services of machines simply collapsing and going to pieces under
their own weight without wound or shock.
About the extent to which the belligerent governments developed
their air forces after the outbreak of war there was during the
continuance of that conflict great reticence maintained by all of
them. At the outset there was little employment of the flyers except
on scouting reconnaissance work, or in directing artillery fire. The
raids of Zeppelins upon England, of seaplanes on Kiel and Cuxhaven,
of airplanes on Friedrichshaven, Essen, and Venice came later. It
has been noted by military authorities that, while Germany was
provided at first with the largest aviation force of all the
belligerents, she either underestimated its value at the outset, or
did not know how to employ it, for she blundered into and through
Belgium using her traditional Uhlans for scouts, to the virtual
exclusion of airmen. The effectiveness of the Belgian fight for
delay is ascribed largely to the intelligent and effective use its
strategists made of the few aircraft they possessed.
Wellington was wont to say that the thing he yearned for most in
battle was to "see the other side of that hill."
Napoleon wrote:
Nothing is more contradictory, nothing more bewildering than the
multitude of reports of spies, or of officers sent out to
reconnoitre. Some locate army corps where they have seen only
detachments; others see only detachments where they ought to have
seen army corps.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_The Lafayette Escadrille--First Americans to Fly in France._
(_Lufbery on left, Thaw on right._)]
So the two great protagonists of the opening years of the
nineteenth century deplored their military blindness. In the opening
years of the twentieth it was healed. All that Wellington strove to
see, all that the cavalry failed to find for Napoleon is to-day
brought to headquarters by airmen, neatly set forth in maps,
supported by photographs of the enemy's positions taken from the
sky.
Before describing the exploits of the airmen in actual campaign let
us consider some account of how they were trained for their arduous
and novel duties.
To the non-professional an amazing thing about the employment of
aircraft in war has been the rapidity with which pilots are trained.
The average layman would think that to learn the art of manoeuvring
an airplane with such swiftness as to evade the attacks of an enemy,
and to detect precisely the proper moment and method of attacking
him in turn, would require long and arduous practice in the air. But
as we have seen in earlier chapters, inventors like the Wrights,
Bleriot, and Farman learned to fly with but a few hours spent in the
air, with flights lasting less than ten minutes each. So too the
army aviators spent but little time aloft, though their course of
instruction covered in all a period of about four months.
Some account of the method of instruction as reported by several out
of the hundred or more American boys who went to fly for France may
be interesting.
As a rule the aviators were from twenty to twenty-five years of age.
"Below twenty boys are too rash; above twenty-five they are too
prudent," said a sententious French aviator. A slight knowledge of
motors such as would be obtained from familiarity with automobiles
was a marked advantage at the start, for the first task of the
novice was to make himself familiar with every type of airplane
engine. The army pilot in all the armies was the aristocrat of the
service. Mechanics kept his motor in shape, and helpers housed,
cleaned, and brought forth his machine for action. But while all but
the actual piloting and fighting was spared him, there was always
the possibility of his making an untimely landing back of the
enemy's lines with an engine that would not work. To prepare for
such an emergency he was taught all the intricacies of motor
construction, so that he might speedily correct any minor fault.
In our army, and indeed in all others, applicants for appointment to
the aviation corps were subjected to scientific tests of their
nerves, and their mental and physical alertness. How they would
react to the sudden explosion of a shell near their ears, how long
it took the candidate to respond to a sudden call for action, how
swiftly he reacted to a sensation of touch were all tested and
measured by delicate electric apparatus. A standard was fixed,
failing to attain which, the applicant was rejected. The practical
effect might be to determine how long after suddenly discovering a
masked machine gun a given candidate would take before taking the
action necessary to avoid its fire. Or how quickly would he pull the
lever necessary to guard against a sudden gust of wind. To the
layman it would appear that problems of this sort could only be
solved in the presence of the actual attack, but science, which
enables artillerists to destroy a little village beyond the hills
which they never see, was able to devise instruments to answer these
questions in the quiet of the laboratory.
One of the best known flying schools of the French army was at Pau,
where on broad level plains were, in 1917, four separate camps for
aviators, each with its group of hangars for the machines, its
repair shops, and with a tall wireless tower upstanding in the
midst for the daily war news from Paris. On these plains the Wright
Brothers had made some of their earliest French flights. A little
red barn which they had made their workshop was still standing there
when war suddenly turned the spot into a flying school often with as
many as five thousand pupils in attendance. "To-day that little red
barn," writes Carroll Dana Winslow, one of the Americans who went to
fly for France, "stands as a monument to American stupidity, for
when we allowed the Wrights to go abroad to perfect their ideas
instead of aiding them to carry on their work at home we lost a
golden opportunity. Now the United States which gave to the world
the first practical airplane is the least advanced in this
all-important science."
Arrived at the school the tyro studies the fundamentals of flying in
the classroom and on the field for two months before he is allowed
to go up--to receive as they express it, his _baptême de l'air_. He
picks motors to pieces, and puts them together, he learns the
principles of airplane construction, and can discourse on such
topics as the angle of attack of the cellule, the incidence of the
wings, and the carrying power of the tail-plane. More than any other
science aviation has a vocabulary of its own, and a peculiarly
cosmopolitan one drawn from all tongues, but with the French
predominating. America gave the airplane to France, but France has
given the science its terminology.
The maps of the battlefields of this war are the marvels of military
science. Made from the air they show every road and watercourse,
every ditch and gully, every patch of woodland, every farmhouse,
church, or stonewall. Much of the early work of the aviator is in
learning to make such maps, both by sketches and by the employment
of the camera. It is no easy task. From an airplane one thousand
feet up the earth seems to be all a dead level. Slight hills, gentle
elevations, offer no contrast to the general plain. A road is not
easy to tell from a trench. All these things the aviator must first
learn to see with accuracy, and then to depict on his map with
precision. He must learn furthermore to read the maps of his
fellows--a task presupposing some knowledge of how they had been
made. He must learn to fly by a map, to recognize objects by the
technical signs upon it, to estimate his drift before the wind
because of which the machine moves sidewise _en crabe_--or like a
crab as the French phrase it.
His first flight the novice makes in a machine especially fitted for
instruction. The levers are fitted with double handles so that both
learner and tutor may hold them at once. If the greenhorn pushes
when he should pull the veteran's grip is hard on the handle to
correct the error before it can cost two lives--for in the air there
is little time to experiment. Either set of controls will steer the
machine. The pupil grasps his levers, and puts his feet on the
pedals. At first the instructor will do the steering, the pupil
following with hands and feet as the motions made by the instructor
are communicated to him by the moving levers. For a time the two
work together. Then as the instructor senses that the student
himself is doing the right thing he gradually lessens his own
activity, until after a few days' practice the student finds that he
is flying with a passenger and directing the machine himself. In
France, at any rate, they teach in brief lessons. Each flight for
instruction is limited to about five minutes. At first the student
operates in a "penguin"--a machine which will run swiftly along the
ground but cannot rise. It is no easy trick at first, to control the
"penguin" and keep its course direct. Then he will try the "jumps"
in a machine that leaps into the air and descends automatically
after a twenty to forty yards' flight. As Darius Green expressed it
so long ago, the trouble about flying comes when you want to alight.
That holds as true to-day with the most perfect airplanes, as in
boyhood days when one jumped from the barn in perfect confidence
that the family umbrella would serve as a parachute. To alight
with an airplane the pilot--supposing his descent to be voluntary
and not compelled by accident or otherwise--surveys the country
about him for a level field, big and clear enough for the machine to
run off its momentum in a run of perhaps two hundred yards on its
wheels. Then he gets up a good rate of speed, points the nose of the
'plane down at a sharp angle to the ground, cuts off the engine, and
glides. The angle of the fall must be great enough for the force of
gravity to keep up the speed. There is a minimum speed at which an
airplane will remain subject to control. Loss of speed--"_perte de
vitesse_," as the French call it--is the aviator's most common peril
in landing. If it occurs after his engine is cut off and he has not
the time to start it again, the machine tilts and slides down
sideways. If it occurs higher up a _vrille_ is the probable result.
In this the plane plunges toward the ground spinning round and round
with the corner of one wing as a pivot. In either case a serious
accident is almost inevitable.
In fact the land is almost as dangerous to the navigator of the air
as it is to him of the sea. To make good landings is an art only
perfected by constant practice. To shut off the engine at precisely
the right moment, to choose an angle of descent that will secure the
greatest speed and at the same moment bring you to your landing
place, to change at the most favourable time from this angle to one
that will bring you to the ground at the most gentle of obtuse
angles, and to let your machine, weighing perhaps a ton, drop as
lightly as a bird and run along the earth for several hundred feet
before coming to a full stop, are all features of making a landing
which the aviator has to master.
In full air there are but few perils to encounter. All airmen unite
in declaring that even to the novice in an airplane there is none of
that sense of dizziness or vertigo which so many people experience
in looking down from high places. The flyer has no sense of motion.
A speed of forty miles an hour and of one hundred miles are the
same to him. As he looks down the earth seems to be slipping away
from him, and moving by, tailwards, like an old-fashioned panorama
being unwound.
Everything about the control of an airplane has to be learned
mechanically. Once learned the aviator applies his knowledge
intuitively. He "senses" the position and progress of the craft by
the feel of the controls, as the man at the yacht's tiller tells
mysteriously how she is responding to the breeze by "the feel." Even
before the 'plane responds to some sudden gust of wind, or drops
into a hole in the air, the trained aviator will foresee precisely
what is about to happen. He reads it in some little thrill of his
lever, a quiver in the frame, as the trained boxer reads in his
antagonist's eyes the sort of blow that is coming. This instinctive
control of his machine is absolutely essential for the fighting
pilot who must keep his eyes on the movements of his enemy, watch
out for possible aircraft guns below, and all the time be striving
to get an advantageous position whence he can turn his machine gun
loose. A row of gauges, dials, a compass, and a map on the frame of
the car in which he sits will engage his attention in any moments of
leisure. It is needless to remark that the successful pilot must
have a quick eye and steady nerves.
Nerve and rapidity of thought save the aviator in many a ticklish
position. It is perhaps a tribute to the growing perfection of the
airplanes that in certain moments of peril the machine is best left
wholly to itself. Its stability is such that if freed from control
it will often right itself and glide safely to earth. This not
infrequently occurs in the moment of the dreaded _perte de vitesse_,
to which reference has been made. In his book, _With the French
Flying Corps_, Mr. Carroll Dana Winslow, a daring American aviator,
tells of two such experiences, the one under his observation, the
other happening to himself:
The modern airplane is naturally so stable [he says] that if not
interfered with it will always attempt to right itself before the
dreaded _vrille_ occurs, and fall _en feuille morte_. Like a leaf
dropping in an autumn breeze is what this means, and no other
words explain the meaning better.
A curious instance of this happened one day as I was watching the
flights and waiting for my turn. I was particularly interested in
a machine that had just risen from the "Grande Piste." It was
acting very peculiarly. Suddenly its motor was heard to stop.
Instead of diving it commenced to wabble, indicating a _perte de
vitesse_. It slipped off on the wing and then dove. I watched it
intently, expecting it to turn into the dreaded spiral. Instead
it began to climb. Then it went off on the wing, righted itself,
again slipped off on the wing, volplaned, and went off once more.
This extraordinary performance was repeated several times, while
each time the machine approached nearer and nearer to the ground.
I thought that the pilot would surely be killed. Luck was with
him, however, for his slip ceased just as he made contact with
the ground and he settled in a neighbouring field. It was a very
bumpy landing but the airplane was undamaged.
The officers rushed to the spot to find out what was the matter.
They found the pilot unconscious, but otherwise unhurt. Later in
the hospital he explained that the altitude had affected his
heart and that he had fainted. As he felt himself going he
remembered his instructions and relinquished the controls, at the
same time stopping his motor. His presence of mind and his luck
had saved his life--his luck I say, for had the machine not
righted itself at the moment of touching the ground it would have
been inevitably wrecked.
The spectacle, though terrifying, proved valuable as an education to
young Winslow who a few days later was ordered to a test of
ascension of two thousand feet. This is his story:
I had a narrow escape. I had received orders to make a flight
during a snow-storm. I rose to the prescribed height and then
prepared to make my descent. A whirling squall caught me in the
act of making a spiral. I felt the tail of my machine go down and
the nose point up. I had a classical _perte de vitesse_. I looked
out and saw that I was less than eight hundred feet above the
ground and approaching it at an alarming rate of speed. I had
already shut off the motor for the spiral, and turning it on, I
knew, would not help me in the least. Suddenly I remembered the
pilot who fainted. I let go of everything, and with a sickening
feeling I looked down at the up-rushing ground. At that instant I
felt the machine give a lurch and right itself. I grabbed the
controls, turned on the motor, and resumed my line of flight only
two hundred feet in the air. All this happened in a few seconds,
but my helplessness seemed to have lasted for hours. I had had a
very close call--not as close as the man who fainted, but
sufficiently so for me.
[Illustration: _Distinguishing Marks of American Planes._]
We have said that the process of training a flyer is remarkably
expeditious. So far as the fundamentals of his profession are
concerned it is. But his education in fact never ends. In the mere
matter of reconnaissance, for example, experience is everything. One
might imagine that ten thousand men marching on a road would look
alike in numbers whatever the nationality. Not so. To the untrained
eye five thousand or six thousand French troops will look as
numerous as ten thousand British or Germans. Why? Because the French
march in much more extended order. Into their democratic military
methods the precision and mechanical exactitude of German drill do
not enter. With the same number of troops they will extend further
along the road by at least a third than would a detachment of either
of the other armies.
[Illustration: _What an Aviator must Watch._
1 _Watch_
2 _Altimeter-registering height_
3 _Compass_
4 _Pressure gauges for two gasoline tanks_
5 _Dial registering engine revolutions_
6 _Inclinometer, registering level fore and aft_
7 _Oil pulsator_
8 _Control stick, with thumb switch_
9 _Switches, two magnetos_
10 _Air speed indicator_
11 _Gasolene supply pipe_]
And again. Great skill has been developed in the course of the war
in the art of concealing positions and particularly in disguising
cannon. The art has given a new word to the world--_camouflage_.
Correspondents have repeatedly told of their amazement in suddenly
coming across a battery of 75's, or a great siege gun so cunningly
hidden in the edge of a thicket they would be almost upon it before
detecting it. From an airplane 2500 feet or more in the air it
requires sharp eyes to penetrate artillery disguises. A French poilu
in a little book of reminiscences tells with glee how a German
observation aviator deceived his batteries. A considerable body of
French troops being halted in an open field, out of sight of the
enemy batteries, found the glare of the sun oppressive, and having
some time to wait threw down their equipment and betook themselves
to the cool shadows of a neighbouring wood. Along came an enemy
aviator. From his lofty height the haversacks, blanket-rolls, and
other pieces of dark equipment lying upon the grass looked like a
body of troops resting. After sailing over and around the field
twice as though to make assurance doubly sure he sailed swiftly
away. In a very few minutes shells from a concealed battery began
dropping into that field at the rate of several a minute. Every foot
of it was torn up, and the French soldiers from their retreat in the
woods saw their equipment being blown to pieces in every direction.
The spectacle was harrowing, but the reflection that the aviator
undoubtedly thought that he had turned his guns on a field full of
men was cheering to them in their safety.
An art which the fighting aviator must master early in his career is
that of high diving. Many of us have seen a hawk, soaring high in
air, suddenly fold his pinions and drop like a plummet full on the
back of some luckless pigeon flapping along ungainly scores of feet
below, or a fishhawk drop like a meteor from the sky with a
resounding splash upon the bosom of some placid stream and rise
again carrying a flapping fish to his eyrie in the distant pines.
The hunting methods of the hawk are the fighting methods of the
airman. But his dives exceed in height and daring anything known to
the feathered warriors of the air.
Boelke, most famous of all the German airmen--or for that matter of
all aërial fighters of his day--who in 1917 held the record for the
number of enemy flyers brought down, was famed for his savage dives.
He would fly at a great height, fifteen thousand or more feet, thus
assuring himself that there was no enemy above him. When he sighted
his prey he would make an absolutely vertical nose dive, dropping at
the rate of 150 miles an hour or more and spattering shots from his
machine gun as he fell. Six hundred shots a minute and the sight of
this charging demon were enough to test the nerve of any threatened
aviator. In some fashion Boelke was enabled to give a slight spiral
form to his dive so that his victim was enveloped in a ring of
bullets that blocked his retreat whichever way he might turn for
safety.
Personality in fighting counted much for success. Boelke's method,
its audacity and fierceness, placed him first in the list of airmen
with killing records. Captain Immelman, also a German, who rolled up
a score of thirty enemies put out of action before he himself was
slain, followed entirely different tactics. His battle manoeuvre
savoured much of the circus, including as it did complete
loop-the-loop. For instead of approaching his adversary from the
side, or as would be said in the sea navy, on the beam, he followed
squarely behind him. His study was to get the nose of his machine
almost on the tail of the aircraft he was pursuing. This gave him,
to begin with, what used to be called in the navy a raking position,
for his shots would rake the whole body of the enemy airplane from
tail to nose with a fair chance of hitting either the fuel tank,
the engine, or the pilot. Failing to secure the position he most
coveted, this daring German would surrender it with apparent
unconcern to the enemy who usually fell into the trap. For just as
the foeman's machine came up to the tail of Immelman's craft the
latter would suddenly turn his nose straight to earth, drop like a
stone, execute a backward loop, and come up behind his surprised
adversary who thus found the tables suddenly turned.
These two German aviators long held the record for execution done in
single combat. Boelke was killed before the air duel vanished to be
replaced by the battle of scores of planes high in air. Immelman
survived longer, but with the incoming of the pitched battle his
personal prowess counted for less and his fame waned.
In July, 1917, arrangements were complete in the United States for
the immediate training in the fundamentals of aviation of ten
thousand young Americans. The expectation was that long before the
end of the year facilities would be provided for the training of
many more. Both France and Great Britain sent over squads of their
best aviators, some of them so incapacitated from wounds as to be
disqualified for further fighting, but still vigorous enough for the
work of an instructor. The aërial service took hold upon the
imagination and the patriotism of young America as did no other. The
flock of volunteers was far beyond the capacity of the government to
care for, and many drifted over into private aviation schools which
were established in great numbers. The need for the young students
was admittedly great. More and more the impression had grown in both
Great Britain and France that the airplane was to be the final
arbiter in the war. It was hailed at once as the most dangerous
enemy of the submarine and the most efficient ally of troops in the
field. No number seemed too great for the needs of the entente
allies, and their eagerness to increase their flying force was
strengthened by the knowledge of the fact that Germany was building
feverishly in order that its fleet in the air might not be
eclipsed.
Perhaps the best description of an idealized aviator was given by
Lieutenant Lufbery, of the Lafayette Escadrille, who came to the
United States to assist in training the new corps of American flying
men. Lufbery himself was a most successful air fighter--an "ace"
several times over. Though French by lineage, he was an American
citizen and had been a soldier in the United States Army. In October
of 1917 his record was thirteen Boches brought down within the
allied lines. In the allied air service one gets no credit for the
defeated enemy plane if it falls within the enemy lines.
While young Americans were being drilled into shape for service in
the flying corps, Lufbery gave this outline of the type of men the
service would demand:
It will take the cream of the American youth between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-six to man America's thousands of airplanes,
and the double cream of youth to qualify as chasers in the
Republic's new aërial army.
Intensive and scientific training must be given this cream of
youth upon which America's welfare in the war must rest.
Experience has shown that for best results the fighting aviator
should be not over twenty-six years old or under eighteen. The
youth under eighteen has shown himself to be bold, but he lacks
judgment. Men over twenty-six are too cautious.
The best air fighters, especially a man handling a chaser, must
be of perfect physique. He must have the coolest nerve and be of
a temperament that longs for a fight. He must have a sense of
absolute duty and fearlessness, the keenest sense of action, and
perfect sight to gain the absolute "feel" of his machine.
He must be entirely familiar with aërial acrobatics. The latter
frequently means life or death.
Fighting twenty-two thousand feet in the air produces a heavy
strain on the heart. It is vital therefore that this organ show
not the slightest evidence of weakness. Such weakness would
decrease the aviator's fighting efficiency.
The American boys who come over to France for this work will be
subject to rapid and frequent variations in altitude. It is a
common occurrence to dive vertically from six thousand to ten
thousand feet with the motor pulling hard.
Sharpness of vision is imperative. Otherwise the enemy may escape
or the aviator himself will be surprised or mistake a friendly
machine for a hostile craft. The differences are often merely
insignificant colours and details.
America's aviators must be men who will be absolute masters of
themselves under fire, thinking out their attacks as their fight
progresses.
Experience has shown that the chaser men should weigh under 180
pounds. Americans from the ranks of sport, youth who have played
baseball, polo, football, or have shot and participated in other
sports will make the best fighting aviators.