Monday evening

Dearest mom.

I SOLOE'D

Yes sir mom, Jan 31, 1943 is a red letter day in my life. I was certainly happy when my instructor said, "Take er up Creswell". I had 8 hrs. 40 min. in the air. All I did was take it up - make a circuit around the field, and land again. I was up again today for an hour, by myself. My landings are a bit bumpy but am improving. All we do for the next four hours is circuits and landings. After that our instructor gives us more sequences such as spins, loops, rolls, steep turns, forced landings etc, and then we do them solo. It's really great being up there alone and nobody talking to you over the ear phones. We are going to try and get permission to take some pictures around here, if we can't we will take them of each other in the air.

Quite a few of our fellows haven't solo'd yet. If they don't solo by 14 hrs. - they wash out. There will be a few of us wash out at the end of 30 hrs. and 60 hrs. At the end of each of those periods the O.C. of our flight takes us up and gives us different manouevers to do. If he doesn't think our flying is improving you know that we have to stay here till we each have 75 hrs. flying time. We can't fly more than four hours a day when the weather permits so it's quite possible I might be here longer than the allotted two months.

No Mother, if I ever get my wings it won't be at Davidson. Your certainly not up on the B.C.A.T.P. After I'm through here I have to go to Service Flying Training (S.F.T.S.). That's what is at S'ktoon and I would certainly love to go there. It is a four month course and one gets his wings after he is through there. Of course there is the possibility I might wash out before I'm through here as many of the boys do - largely r.p.m.'s etc, etc. all at the same time.

I had a little change today and my instructor gave me spins. I believe you know what they are. I had five of them - and these really a thrill. We went up to 7,000 feet and he did two and I did three. When you first start the spin the ground is coming up towards you like a bat out of hell. The aircraft is going down at 150 m.p.h. so when I pull out there is a hell of a pressure. Your eyes seem to pop out and the skin on your face feels as if it is pulling off. My feet were at the bottom of the plane and I tried to lift them up and put them on the rudder pedals - it was impossible. Quite a few of our guys got sick.

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