The Diary of a Flier

Some of the Things a Boy Has to Know in Order to Master the Art of Flying

BRIGHTON PERRY

MONDAY.—To-day we had a class in Basket Weaving. It seems that basketweaving is an essential preliminary to flying, especially if you happen to have nothing at hand to fly with. I have been in the air service a year now, and the nearest I have been to an airplane was when I saw the one made out of spun sugar in Henri's window. I got pretty close to that, though, and so am considered a veteran flier by the rest of the boys here.

The course in flying has consisted so far in Elementary and Advanced Blacksmithing, Elementary Etching (including Dry Point work), the Theory and Practice of Eurhythmic Dancing, and Advanced Counterpoint. This course in Basket Weaving has been substituted for the one in actual flying which was to have started last month, but which has been delayed by the fact that the Senate Investigating Committee called all the workmen away from the aircraft factories to testify on the shortage of aircraft, so that no work could be done on the planes until the investigation was over.

TUESDAY.—A man has just reached the field who claims to have seen a plane actually flying in the air only last week while he was in Washington. At first he was treated with suspicion, and was asked if he was sure that it was a flying machine. The man's evident sincerity and the fact that he had a picture of the thing in the air, won us over to his side, and we arranged for him to give us a series of lectures on "Practical Flying," using material gathered from his observation of this plane as it circled over the Capitol.

WEDNESDAY.—The students here have become so excited over the now undisputed fact that there is a plane ready for use and actually flying, that they held a mass-meeting this morning after the class in Stained Glass Window Design and elected me to go to Washington and ask if we mightn't have the loan of it for a day or so, in order that the boys may get fixed in their minds what a plane looks like in the bean. Pictures in aviation magazines are all right, but when you are in the flying service, there is a certain sentimental value in being able to say that you have seen and touched a real airplane. It would be a nice thing to tell your grandchildren, that you were an aviator in the Great War and one day a man came to the flying field and brought a regular honestto-gosh machine that whirred and flew and everything, and you climbed into the cock-pit and actually sat in the pilot's seat for a few minutes.

So I am starting to-night to Washington to see what can be done.

FRIDAY.—I am in Washington. I went to-day to see the authorities and asked them where our plane is. They were very nice and laughed and said that that was just what they were wondering, too. But, at present, an investigation is being carried on by Miss Helen Moller, the barefoot dancer, who has been given a personal letter by the President and told to go the limit in finding out what is the matter with our aircraft production, from the point of view of a bare-foot dancer. There was some question as to whether the investigation should be given over to Miss Moller or to Mr. Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist, but Miss Moller already had some money invested in a strutmaking device and so it was given to her. Maybe Mr. Goldberg will be allowed to investigate the machine-gun production, if he wants to.

However that may be, the aircraft officials didn't quite know where they stood, and they didn't know where the planes were because Miss Moller hadn't submitted her report as yet. But they said that perhaps one of the other investigating committees had finished their survey and might be able to help me out. So I was referred to what is known as the Bureau - of - Engraving - and - Printing Aircraft Investigation Committee, which is the senior committee on the job.

This body had just submitted its report and I talked with the Chairman, who was an old linotype operator on the Sun before going into politics. He said that his committee had not devoted itself so much to the actual production end of the matter, but, as most of them were printers by trade, they had concerned themselves with the question of the types of planes to be used, viewed from the technical standpoint. They had come to the conclusion, he said, that the types adopted by the Government were all wrong. But they knew nothing about a plane for use at our flying field. That, I was told, would have to be handled by the Aircraft Investigation Committee of the National Geographic Society.

SATURDAY.—I had an appointment this morning with the chairman of the National Geographic Society's Aircraft Committee and asked him what he thought the chances were for a loan of this plane that I heard had been flying about Washington. He said that his committee, being composed chiefly of explorers, had taken up only the criminal side of the investigation and really knew nothing about the technical end of the matter.

However, this isn't making airplanes, as Senator Chamberlain once said. So the National Geographic man said that the Senate Committee on Indian Reservations and Inland Waterways was having a hearing on Monday on the subject of the aircraft delay and that I might drop in at that.

MONDAY.—This hearing was better than anything I have seen since the days of the Rogers Brothers. I got in just as the members of the Senate Committee were questioning a major in the Signal Corps who had, before the war, been a landscape architect. The Senators were all self-made men. I heard some interesting things there. For instance:

Q.—"Major, this Committee intends to find out just where the delay in the airplane program lies. We intend to whitewash no one. But first I would like to know, as a matter of personal information, just what is it that makes the darn things fly, anyway?"

A.—"I think that I can answer that in a very few words, although that does not strictly come in my department. You see, it is this way: you have to have a lot of air in the first place-"

Q.—"Young man, I want to make myself clear that no one who is guilty in this matter is going to be spared. If we haven't any airplanes, some one is to blame, and if we have, some one is equally to blame, and I can assure you that we intend to probe this matter to the bottom. Now, personally, I have never had much faith in this here airplane business. It don't seem practical to me, and I am just old fashioned enough to feel that what was good enough for Abraham Lincoln and General Grant to win the Civil War with, is good enough for me. Now, what I want to know is, why, when the propeller is hitched on the front of the thing, doesn't it drive it backwards? It don't sound reasonable to me!"

I didn't wait to hear what the answer to this was, for my leave was about up and I had to get back to the field with that plane. So I decided that nobody in Washington knew where I could get it and thought that I might as well stop in at a regular aircraft factory on my way back and see if I couldn't pick up one at wholesale price. Consequently, I am leaving to-night for the Middle West.

WEDNESDAY.—To-day I visited one of the aircraft factories. It used to be a lawn mower factory, but they have remodelled it and made it all over, so that you would never know the difference. The Government inspector who was on duty there was formerly in the sectional bookcase business, and offered to show me around the plant.

What was my surprise, as we walked through the sheds, to see hundreds of airplanes, lying around in various attitudes of disuse.

"Why can't we have one of these?" I asked.

"Oh, you wouldn't want one of that bunch," he replied. "After we had got those made, it was found out that the little calendar pads, which are put in every machine to tell the aviator what day of the week it is, had all the holidays printed in black instead of red, so we had to scrap the whole lot of planes and begin a new set. We are almost getting into quantity production of these now, but I have an awful suspicion that the rubber matting for the bottom is going to prove to be of wrong design, which will mean that we shall have to scrap the entire product and begin again. It is tedious business, this airplane making."

As I passed out of the plant, I saw most of the working force engaged in a bowling match in the clubhouse and my guide told me that they were waiting for the next change in specifications and felt that they might as well take up their time in some healthful occupation in the meantime.

THURSDAY.—Back at the field and told the boys that I had seen some planes. They were incredulous. To-day we had our first class in roof-shingling. I didn't quite see the sense of it, so I went to the teacher and asked him why a knowledge of roof-shingling was deemed essential to a flier. "My dear boy," he said, "a flier has to know everything—no, not really everything; there is one thing that he doesn't have to know anything about,—that's flying."