Things are going quite well. Day before yesterday I left the
twenty-eight meter Nieuport class and today finished the twenty-three
meter class and was advanced. Tomorrow I shall finish solo work on the
twenty-three’s and take up eighteen’s. The monitors seem to think my
work fairly good. The little eighteen-meter Nieuports are great. They
are small and racy, with a wing spread of twenty-five feet. They have
fine speed and land at eighty-five miles an hour. You land by cutting
off the power and pointing the nose for the ground. By pulling the tail
down she slows up and finally drops a yard to the ground. It is a very
precise sport.
You would like it fine above the clouds, Mother. It is most beautiful
and dazzling as the sun’s rays bounce along on the snowy billows, and
you can swoop down and skim the crest of the cloud waves till the frost
turns the wires to silver and your cheeks sting red in the mist.