| dc.description.transcription | 3-26-44Dear Folks,“Six days shalt thy labor, but remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” Well it worked out that way this week but the weather man had to see to it. We went to the flight line this morning but a low pressurearea was moving in so they called flying off. I was in the airplane with my instructor and had taxied out to the take off strip for my last acrobatic ride when the weather man spoke up.I think I promised or mentioned in my last letter that I would tell you when I started the glamor stuff. Well I started and practically finished all of it this week. That is I finished all of it except my instrument flying which includes blind flying, night flying and instrument cross country. I haven’t even started any of these yet. I want to mention here while I’m thinking about it, glamor flying is justlike all the rest of it, just plain old work.What I have done is cross country acrobatics and formation. My cross country is the thing to write home about. The second onefrom Greenville to Gainesville, Miss to Yazoo City, Miss and return was all right but my first one from Greenville to El Dorado, Ark. to Tallulah, La. and return wasn’t so good. I thought I was lost but I wasn’t. That’s the bad part, if I really had of been off course it wouldn’t have been so bad but I got worried over nothing. The trouble was I couldn’t find my first check point so I thought to myself, shoot if I’m off course at my first check point the wind must have changed so there is no telling how far I’ll be off when I get to El Dorado. So I started out to find the village of Jerome just so I could find out how far I had drifted so I could make corrections in my compass heading to compensate for the wind drift. It turned out that I was directly over Jerome at that precise moment and just couldn’t identify it from the map. I flew from one town to the other trying to determine my location but no soap. So as a last resort I buzzed a couple of towns. I found out what they were, located myself, discovered I hadn’t drifted, and then continued on my merry way. I should have gotten lost more than once because buzzing the towns to locate yourself is really fun. The townspeople really gape when you fly over at 300 feet with your engine really roaring. You don’t have much time to look at the people though because the name of town on the R.R. station passes by pretty fast. Enough bull slinging. Anyhow I got back even if I was an hour and a half late. The Captain said if you get lost and get back I’ll give you credit, if you get lost and don’t get back I’ll give you hell. Some of the boys didn’t get back, and besides getting hell they also got a check ride, and two of them got eliminated. I guess it’s a pretty good thing I found myself huh?My acrobatics and formation flying were uneventful so I won’t ramble about them. Anyway I am about through with flying except for instruments so when I finish there is about 2 weeks I’ll have a week off so Papa you hold off coming to see me until then. I’ll advise you as to detailslater on. Before I quit one interesting news item. T.C. Little is laying a pipe line through here. I may get to see him if I do I’ll tell you.Its bed time,Love, Joe | |
