Dear Folks,

Another day, another dollar! I only flew 55 minutes today, as compared to 1 hour, 20 minutes yesterday. However, 25 minutes of my time today was solo. So far I'm the only "pupil" of my instructor who has soloed. I guess that I'm just a little ahead of the rest or just plain lucky - or maybe it's because I loan my watch to my instructor each day, can't ever tell.

So far I have a total of 9 hours and 32 minutes. One hour and 2 minutes of this time being solo time. It won't be long until I take my 20 hour check at the rate I'm going.

After today, the wash rate has jumped to about 25%. Out of the 15 boys that were in my flight, 4 have either washed out or are up for elimination rides and one boy fell and broke his arm during physical training. So, they're really dropping off like flies right now.

As far as I know, I'm still in the clear. Today I was flying out of a tiny auxiliary field called Andrews Field. We use these fields for practice landings, etc. Anyway, this field is on a peninsula out in the Arkansas River, surrounded on three sides by water. And the field is hardly big enough to land in. So it required some careful flying to make a decent landing. This seemed to please my instructor to no end. Anyway, he hasn't said a cross word to me for about four days, so evidently I'm doing things the way he wants them.

This morning when I called, Dad mentioned something about my taking that instructor's position back at pre-flight. Well, here's the story on that deal - it was offered to me as a good job in case I wash out. But, I'm not planning on washing out. I love flying and seem to be doing O.K. so far, so I'm not even thinking about going back to San Antonio. When a boy starts telling why he washed out, you can bet your life that he's going to make it something very minor. That's just human nature. Each instructor has a job to do and that is to teach you to fly. If the student can't learn how to fly, he just doesn't belong here. You don't get washed out on one thing, but a series of things that you continually fail to do - or maybe improper attitude or general lack of progress. So what McCafferty says can be taken with a grain of salt. When a boy washes, it's entirely his own fault.

Bottom of the page and time for bed, so...

Lots of love,
Jack

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