How to become an Aviator
by One Who Knows
The Royal Lancers Journal
December 1913
On being asked to write a short account of how to become an Aviator I was immensely flattered. Judge of my horror and dismay, however, on learning that two officers of my regiment were at that moment going through a course of instruction, and that therefore I should have to stick strictly to the truth.
It is not really much more difficult to become an aviator than a chauffeur, but slightly more expensive, and it takes a little longer. To become a chauffeur all that is needed is a pair of leather gloves, leather goggles, and unlimited swank; but to be an airman you must have, in addition, a woollen cap or helmet, a leather coat, and a large vocabulary of incomprehensible words. Every sport or game has its own slang, but the euphemisms of the aeroplane are wonderful and sacred things. For instance, to speak of your aeroplane other than as my “kite” or “bus” is rank heresy, and stamps you at once as an absolute tyro at the game. The propeller is a “windstick,” and the control lever a “joystick”, the petrol and oil is “juice,” and an engine never stops or breaks down, it “peters out”.
Having learned these and a few similar expressions, you must acquire a motor-bike. Having got it and made it as noisy as possible, run over a few dogs and children, and so earn a reputation for recklessness and speed. You are very unlikely to be caught out, and can always plead to officious policemen that they seemed too dazed to get out of your way, and were doubtless drunk.
Now you are beginning to get a reputation, and so must live up to it. The next thing is to procure a girl to take about on your “buzz box,” anybody’s will do, and if you are imbued with the true spirit of aviation, your inherent instinct will show you the right sort. This is a very important stage and should he treated as such, as your whole career, and that of future generations of aviators may depend upon it. Well, having got your girl (I really haven’t time to tell you in detail how to get her, but you’ll find it in the new Flying Corps regulations), put her on the back of your bike and take her on a short trip to Brighton at about 50 miles per hour, just to accustom her to the feeling of “pace.” How she stays on I can’t tell you, and if she’s not the right sort, she won’t, but if she is, by dint of placing her arms firmly round your neck and by the exercise of her woman’s ingenuity, you’ll find her still there at the end of your journey.
You may now consider you have got over the most difficult part of your instruction, the rest is comparatively easy. Make friends with some mechanics. It sounds well to be able to casually remark to one that Jones’s bus seems to be flying a bit carbré to-day (this is French and very knowing), and if he’s very oily and dirty he may accord you the honor of shaking hands, and this, of course, stamps you straight away as one of the inner circle. It will impress your girl tremendously, more especially as the smell of castor oil lasts for hours. Now all you have to do to become a complete aviator is to learn to fly, and this is comparatively easy.
There are several schools in England, some have aeroplanes on which to learn, and some haven’t. You learn quicker at the former sort, so we will presume that is where you decide to go. Well, you walk in and pay your tuition fee of £75. If you are exceptionally clever you might avoid doing this, but I only know of one man who succeeded in doing so. He said he’d have one flight to see how he liked it, and would write a cheque when he came down; he wasn’t able to write anything when he came down, but they gave him a lovely funeral and everyone said heaven had sent a judgment on him for trying to do poor honest aviators out of their just dues.
However, we will suppose you have passed a bad cheque, or somehow or other arranged the financial part. You are told to appear at the aerodrome at daybreak next day, which you do, feeling very cold and miserable. You find no one there, and, having waited for over an hour, you go back to bed in a bad temper. Later on in the day you again to go the aerodrome and indignantly ask why no one was about. The junior mechanic answers you with withering contempt, “What in that wind? It was blowing a blooming gale.” You don’t like to say you didn’t notice any wind to speak of, and so reply in as offhand manner as possible, you suppose it was a bit puffy. You spend the rest of the morning wandering about rather miserable among the sheds wondering why everybody seems to he working so hard and getting in everyone’s way; however, they are used to it, and answer questions in a way that shows they have been asked each one at least one hundred times before and don’t expect you to be anything better than a born fool.
In the afternoon you take your girl out on the buzz box and feel better. The next morning you have a look at the weather and cannot make up your mind if there is too much wind or not, but eventually decide to go up to the hangers on chance. All the way there you try and not notice any little wind there is though all the time you know it won’t be “flying weather”. You are right; on arriving at the aerodrome everything is closed and no one about except a few misguided pupils like yourself.
The next morning you arrive somewhat later and are surprised to see the bustle and life that has suddenly arisen. There seems an almost feverish anxiety not to waste a minute and aeroplanes are going up and down the ground with pupils in various stages of proficiency. By arriving late you find you have lost your turn, but in a few minutes the instructor notices you and calls you forward. It is very cold this morning, you hadn’t noticed it so much before, but now you realise a distinctly chilly feeling in the pit of your stomach.
You climb up rather gingerly behind the pilot who points out that your feet are in the wrong place, and tells you to take your cap off in case it should blow into the propeller. You have a beautiful and expensive helmet, but have forgotten it, so you stuff your cap into your pocket and smile nervously. The pilot says something to a mechanic who swings the propeller, the engine makes a most alarming amount of noise, there is a slight vibration and the machine rushes forward at a terrific pace. The wind in your face is awful and blows right through you. lnstinctively, you close your eyes and on opening them again find you are 10 feet off the ground and rapidly getting higher. You are rather interested in this new state of things, till at about 1 00 feet you begin to remember all the accidents you have read about caused by pockets of air, wings breaking, failing engine, etc, and for a minute you wonder how in heaven’s name you were such a fool as to ever want to fly.
You soon notice, however, that your instructor doesn’t seem to he very nervous himself and is in fact as unconcerned as possible, so, plucking up courage, you pretend to like it, when the machine suddenly heels over to one side and proceeds to turn back towards the sheds. You notice you are at the end of the aerodrome, and some way away are some funny looking little huts which must be the hangers, and a bunch of specks which must be the other pupils.
You fly back over them and have recovered yourself enough to wave to them as you go by, of which no one seems to take the slightest notice, probably because are not looking at you at all. After another circuit the motor suddenly stops, and you are nearly thrown out over the pilot’s head as the machine volplanes downward. In holding on hard to your seat, the ground rushes up toward you, and just when you have made up your mind to die bravely like an Englishman, the aeroplane levels out and lands as smoothly as possible.
Now is the time to show your nerve and past training. You are colder than you thought it possible to be, your eyes are streaming, and you have a devout feeling that you ought to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving at reaching the ground in safety, but you must jump briskly out of your seat and make way for another pupil, and you must not tell them all what it feels like, as you want to. You do that to your girl later on in the day when she will put her arms around your neck and beg you to be careful for her sake.
After a few more lessons you are allowed to control the machine yourself in the air, the Instructor sitting behind ready to correct any mistakes. Though you don’t awfully like it, you have great faith in your instructor (who you know looks upon you as awfully clumsy), and you find to your surprise everything is quite easy. A short time later you are sent out by yourself and feel very lonely and nervous without the instructor; however, off you go about 3 feet from the ground, wobbling a bit, it is true, but keeping more of less straight according to instructions. After going a couple of hundred yards you feel you are getting too high and shut off your engine. Somehow or other you haven’t the vaguest idea how you find yourself on the ground again with rather a bump. On you go again, getting off and landing till you reach the end of the aerodrome, where you turn rather cautiously on the ground and start to fly back.
Everything goes well till you try to land from a much greater height than you have hitherto attempted alone. This is much harder than you anticipated, and you find it extraordinarily difficult to get the machine down. This is hardly to be wondered at, as, in the confusion of the moment you have forgotten to switch off the motor. However, getting desperate, as you are nearing the end of the ground, you force the elevator down (still forgetting about the motor) with the inevitable result that the machine lands on its nose, pitches you out, and slowly breaks up.
Sore and angry, you pick yourself up and rather shamefacedly assist in collecting the damage and getting it back to the sheds to be patched up.
You receive little sympathy and feel you have made a perfect fool of yourself (which is true). However, next time you are more careful and before long are happily sailing around the aerodrome and executing figures of eight and other fancy turns. A nice calm morning is now chosen, and you go for your certificate which you find much easier than you imagined, and pass easily. You are now a fully fledged aviator and should be treated with due respect.
The above is a true and just statement of how men learn to fly, and although there are a few who gain a certain perfunctory knowledge of an aeroplane without carrying out all the details, you will find that the closer you stick to my precepts, the better airman you will become.
