Dear Mother,

I finally found the time! We were rained out this afternoon, so comes some much needed spare time.

I had my twenty hour check yesterday and passed O.K. Things are running along real smoothly right now. I'm flying both 14's and B.T.-15's for instruments. I have been assigned to the instrument squadron for about two hours each day for the next two weeks and it is now that we learn to fly by instruments.

During the dual time the student (that's me) flies from the back cockpit. He has a large, black hood covering the top of the cockpit so that all he can see is the instruments. Sometimes I'd be willing to bet my life that the plane is upside down, but it really isn't. When you can't see anything, you lose all sense of direction and balance. But, it's really lots of fun.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to take my first real cross country trip. I'll go over to Joplin, Missouri, then up to a little town near Kansas City named Nevada and back to Independence. We will land at each place.

I bet that it will be some fun trying to locate the airports at each of the towns. I told you that I passed my check - it really turned out to be quite easy. I rode with a Lieutenant Jolly - he certainly is a fine pilot. He seemed to think that I had a good flying technique.

Last Sunday night after open post, I brought Diana back here to the post and you should have seen the eyes pop! We are allowed to have visitors here on Sunday and Wednesday evening, so everything was on the up and up. I took her to the show here at camp (we have a real nice post theater) and then over to the Service Club. A pretty girl in a uniform certainly attracts a lot of attention.

From the way the weather looks right now, I imagine we will have to fly this weekend. Right now we are behind our schedule and no good flying weather in sight. We have only about 4 and 1/2 weeks to go here and I have about 70 more hours to put in. At least, I want to get as much as possible and 100 hours is possible with good weather.

This hasn't been such a bad week so far. We have had only one bad crack up. Jim Cole, a good friend of mine, crashed while making a landing at an auxiliary field over at Cherryvale. The plane was totally demolished, but Jim just received a few minor cuts and a broken nose. He was really a very lucky boy.

Well, I have another new instructor. I don't understand why they keep changing me - however, I guess they know what they're doing. My new instructor is a young fellow named Meade. He must be O.K. - as his other students seem to like him. However, I haven't ridden with him as yet.

Time for chow.

Lots of love,
Jack

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