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566 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
THE LARGEST ARMY AVIATION SCHOOL
This instruction college for military airmen is located at North Island, near San Diego. California. The school possesses
ten machines, most of them of the Curtiss biplane type.
This is a thing that will encourage the
layman to undertake the thrilling experience
of becoming an aviator. 'It is a
direct incentive to increasing the number
of skilled fliers.
Training tractors are being put out as
needed for instruction purposes. These
machines are built with a double set of
controls and with the seats (two in number
) arranged in tandem fashion. The
beginner is placed at first in the rear
seat from which position he can observe
closely every movement made by his instructor.
Thus the novice can familiarize
himself quickly with full speed ahead,
reverse, diving, rising, banking, warping
of the ailerons, and all the rest of the
technique of control.
When the instructor finally permits the
pupil to handle the machine, he can keep
the machine in safe flight by his own
grip on the controls if the pupil should
make any mistakes.
It was only a short time ago that a different
method was adopted for teaching
green men the aviator's art. An aeroplane
equipped with a motor of horse
power so low that it could not rise from
the ground was entrusted to the student.
All that he could do, therefore, was to
go shooting around over the aviation
practice course, running no more risk as
a consequence than was incident to colliding
with trees or posts if the machine
should get beyond control.
Gradually the pupil was inducted by
means of a low-powered aeroplane that
could actually fly into the initial mysteries
of aerial navigation. Finally he
was permitted to run by himself a highpowered
machine of standard design,
learning at last to battle with the problems
of the upper air currents.
This method was found to be defective.
It was much like teaching a man
to swim, first on land, next in a shallow
creek, and lastly throwing him into the
deep ocean.
The method of individual instruction
by means of the tractor with dual controls
has proved far more satisfactory.
When a pupil has completed his flying
course he must spend a minimum of
twenty hours in the air before he is permitted
to take the test which establishes
his place as a skilled aviator. This i'~
the requirement at the school at Mineola.
Any aviator who has been trained
elsewhere may try for the test without
this preliminary qualification.
For exhibition purposes and for employment
by aeroplane manufacturing
concerns, trained aviators are said to
receive from seventy-five to two hundred
dollars a week. In these circumstances
it would seem as if there should already
be a number of daring, ambitious young
men able to meet the call of the government
when national need claims them
from this private work for public service.