I forgot to say that I have five days’ _permission_ as a reward for
raising the school record in aero marksmanship from twenty-two per cent
to twenty-seven and a half per cent. It is the first thing which is
actual cause for believing that I may be a successful fighting pilot.
Many men can fly and many can shoot very well, but the combination of
the two is the rare thing which much increases one’s opportunity for
service and chance for survival in the struggle for existence over the
lines.
The test is made on a sleeve the size of the body of the smallest
aeroplane. This sleeve is dragged behind another aeroplane traveling at
sixty or seventy miles per hour. The plane I drove had a speed of 100 to
120 miles per hour, and the machine gun is fired from it, and
mechanically arranged to shoot through the propeller. You approach the
sleeve from various directions, making snap judgments as to target and
shooter’s deflection, which I explained in another letter, and then fire
six or eight shots at a time at a range varying from 600 to 75 feet. The
centering of the bullets is important. You have a hundred shots.
Your son,