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Show But he didn't even iook my way, except to say, "It's kinda hot out there." Then he just glared and threw his chute in his locker. wen, i nearly Worrl to death that night t v " more than likely teU me,!W l (Continuedp IfV CO-PILOT flT .-adSS Col. Rob erf L.Scot t vmu. release Vl. This story is sponsored by the Eddington Canning Company for the enjoyment of our men and women in the armed forces and their friends here at home. stop right by him I wouldn't have my instructor being ashamed of his student Even before I got to the moment to level off, I could see that I would land right on top of him. But the Lieutenant was running, throwing his parachute away just to get clear of -a student stu-dent who had really taken him literally. Anyway, I missed him and plunked the ship into the ground after levelling off too high. Well, I held it straight and there was no ground-loop. As it stopped I breathed again, and I could feel the smile that cracked my face. A pilot! I had landed the ship and it was actually in one piece I Looking back over my shoulder I saw Lieut. Landon. He was just standing there about half a mile away. Then I made another mistake. mis-take. He raised his hands and I a fellow he was, and showed me that an instructor had to become accustomed to students' making mistakes knowledge which stood me in good stead years later when I became an instructor. Lieutenant Landon go out of the front seat, taking his parachute para-chute with him, and I knew the moment of moments had come. As he leaned over my cockpit and reached inside the ship for the Form One, the timebook always carried in Army ships, I saw only his hand and thought he was offering to shake hands with me. So I grabbed the hand and shook it. He just grinned and growled: "With landings like those I can do you very little good, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you kill me. Do you think you can take this thing around the field all by yourself and get it back down?" probably with my eyes closed, I pushed that PT-3 into a vertical dive at point-blank altitude. Just as the cotton fields down below seemed about to come right into my lap I felt Ted Landon grab the controls and saw him hastily point to his head with the sign that he was "taking over." We came out just over the mesquite trees, and he roughly slipped the ship into a bumpy landing in a cotton field. Then, while I was trying to add things up and realizing real-izing already that I had tiett it up again, I saw Ted very methodically methodi-cally raise his goggles and with great deliberation climb out of the front cockpit. He glared at me but said sweetly enough: "Scott, what in the g d hell are you trying to do what was that maneuver? I said glide G-L-I-D-E. Don't you at least know what a normal glide is in all this time?" in - i v ,. . ; Gen. C. L. Chennault, who was Colonel Scott's superior in Burma and China. thought ne waved me in i man l know until the next day that he had been shaking his fist at me for trying to land right on him. So I taxied in, never giving a thought to how my instructor was going to get in with his chute you see, Randolph is a big field and I had left him more than a mile from our hangar. I had parked the plane and was in and beginning to dress when I began to realize what I had done. Looking Look-ing out the window I could see him trudging across the hot soil of Texas, in the sun, with ships landing all around him. My Lord, I had tied it up again! I tried to get my feet back into my flying fly-ing suit, tripped and fell, got up and ran out of the hangar door. I guess I was going to take the ship and taxy out and pick him up. But I had lost again the ship was being be-ing taken from the line by the next student. I just stood there with sinking heart as he came up. CHAPTER m: Scott makes his first solo flight Drives 1,300 miles to Georgia over every week-end to see his girl. Scott is now graduated graduat-ed from Kelly Field and has wings pinned on his chest. Ordered to report re-port to Hawaii but wanting to get married he lays his plight before the General and is ordered to report re-port at Mitchell Field, N. Y., instead. in-stead. CHAPTER HI ' Though I had flown before in ( the prehistoric crates of the past, this fact had nothing to do with whether or not I would get through the course. On the side against me was the fact that during dur-ing my unsupervised flying I had doubtless developed many faults that were not for the Army pilot to be proud of. In a case like mine, some pilots think they know it all; therefore there is nothing to learn. Others make such an effort to please their instructors that this very eagerness works against them as their own worst enemy the result of tenseness. My case was more of this last order. I knew I could fly the ship but I tried to carry out my in- "Yes sir," I yelled. "Then take it around and make a landing as close to me as you can." I had never felt so good. Taxy-ing Taxy-ing out I could see the world only in a rosy light. My head was really whirling. Pointing the ship into the wind, I over-controlled into a normal student takeoff and was in the air. Honestly, the living liv-ing of this life was wonderful here I was an actual Army Pilot with my own ship, and up here free from the shackles of the earth. I envied no one. Circling in traffic I'd ''get my head in the clouds" and gain or lose altitude but that didn't matter. I was soloing. Then, at the fourth leg of my traffic pattern, I began my glide towards Lieut. Landon. By the gods he had said, "Land as close to me as you can," and I was surely going to make that ship weaKiy jl said, "Sir, i thought you said a dive." I could see Ted fight for control, then he told me1 the next time I had him at altitude alti-tude so low, not to attempt to think but just try to keep the ship straight and level. On another day, after about two weeks of instruction, we had been making only take-offs and landings, land-ings, and I knew the time was approaching when I would solo. As usual, that realization made me more and more tense as he end of the period neared. On the take-offs I'd tense up and forget all about holding the nose straight and on the landings I'd jerk back on the stick instead of easing it slowly back into the approach to landing stall. All I could do was day-dream about: Here we are, Scott, just about to take over and prove to the world than we can do all of this by ourselves. Around the field in traffic I couldn't hold the correct altitude, and my instructor was cussing like a blue streak. He'd yell about my having graduated from West Point and say that he knew I was supposed to have some brains but he hadn't been able to find them. After each bumpy landing he'd look around at me and hold his nose that was symbolic enough for me. I finally bounced into another landing that nearly jarred his teeth out. Then, as usual, us-ual, he showed what a prince of structor's orders even before he gave them. I listened almost spellbound spell-bound through our oral communications communi-cations system in that primary trainer that speaking-tube which we called a "gosport" and which at best was hard to understand over the rattle of that Wright Whirlwind engine. I used to try to read his mind, execute his every ev-ery 'little whim. I even tried to outguess Lieut. Landon and have the stick and rudder moving in the right direction before he could get the orders out of his mouth. Now thereby hangs a tale. I was not only trying to look in his rear-view mirror and actually read his lips when I couldn't hear through the gosport, but was diligently dili-gently looking about the sky for other hare-brained student pilots. He must have realized my eagerness, eager-ness, for he gave me every break, and for the many boners I pulled I needed lots of breaks. One day, at a are 400-feet altitude, alti-tude, I thought I heard the instructor in-structor say, "Okay, Scott, put it in a dive." I peered around first and then at the nearby ground, for it looked very low to be going into a dive. Then like a flash I thought I understood: Why, he's trying to see if I'm ground-shy I'll show him I'm not. With my teeth clenched and becn heel enough to go many, times before, in socrot. Well, when graduation came at Kelly and I had those wings pinned on my cheat, I had the wonderful feeling that I had gone a littlo way towards the goal I wanted. I was at last an Army pilot. .Never did the world seem so good. And then out of a clear sky came orders for me to go to Hawaii. That was pretty bad because be-cause I wanted to get married before be-fore I went out of the country, and as yet the girl hadn't gotten her college degree. Probably if I had gone to Hawaii I would have figured out some way to have flown a P-12 back over every week but I didn't have to do it after all. The Chief of the Air Corps came down a few days later and I waited until he had had lunch in the Officers' Mess. Then I walked over and said, "General, can I ask you a question?" "Sure, sit down," he said, and I told him the whole story and I made it like this: 'General, I knew that I'm supposed sup-posed to go where I'm sent because be-cause I'm in the Army but I,ve got a girl over in Georgia, and I think I can do a lot better job wherever you send me if you can give me time to talk her into marrying mar-rying me." He didn't appear to be very impressed at first, but he took my name and aerial number, and two or three days later, when he got back to Washington, I was ordered to Mitchel Field, New Xork. As I drove my car towards my first tactical assignment I kept reaching up to leei my silver wings on my chest I wanted to prove that it wasn't a dream. This since li)20. Now I was actually was what I had been working for ridmg towards the glory of tactical tacti-cal Army aviation. I recall that I had just about completed the trip to Long Island, when something happened that will keep me remembering the fall of 1933. Just before I reached the Holland Hol-land Tunnel, I was suddenly forced to the curb by three cars all bristling brist-ling with sawed-off shotguns and hommy-guns. I jumped out pretty mad, but saw that many guns were covering me and that it was the police. They looked at my papers, but said anyone could have mimeographed orders. They searched the car and me, took down the Texas license number, and even copied the engine number. num-ber. All the time I tried to talk with the flashlights in my eyes. (Continued next week) MY CO-PILOT !v COL. B0BF.KT L. SCOTT l0wti.medfw' rage Four) , a,v's ride Unit I was the I st student he'd over seen, ;i intl-vo a prayer of S a pilot But next y ho tvord. All day I surt-f, surt-f, over and tell him how i'vk but I guess I didn't "fSEk to ride with him. ffrUt out over the rolling hills , jU. Uiroush our chiUl, L S S1uns and a few landings, then, ;:te put the ship down on Ran-r,l Ran-r,l h Field, he taxied to the ex-f ex-f pet I had left him the day wore Looking back at me he ad sweetly: Scott, you were kinda inaccurate inaccur-ate in i'aur toidmss yesterday. you et out and watch me. I'll show you what I wanted." Getting out with a puzzled ex-..-., 1 stood aside. First he H'nr uud drtvo imully for Toxus. niul tlio Monday luoniing flying porukl. i always hud to dolay my start until at' lor Saturday morning morn-ing ln.sritvUou. Thai mount that Uo tunc 1 saw tlio girl, U10 -17 1 had to uveia;;o just uboiu liily-iour liily-iour link's uu Hour, even counting hours 1 hud from uiU'r inspection on Saturday to flying umo ttt s o'clock Monday mornings! Wcek-ond utter week-end I drove madly across the South from the middle of Texas to the middle of Ueorgtu. On one of these cross-country dashes, I weakened und was fool enough to usk the Commandant of Student Officers if I could go to Atlanta. 1 can still see and hoar Capt. Aubrey Strickland saying, "Atlanta what?" And 1110 meekly replying, , "Atlanta, Ueorgia, Sir." H0 just said, 'Hell, no," and 1 turned and 1 walked from his office with the good intention of obeying the order. or-der. But within the hour I had weakened. I filled my rumble-seat tank, which hold GO gallons of fuel, and was off to see her for the short time available. (Yes, she was, and still is some girl.) On the return I burned out twp bearings bear-ings near Patterson, Louisiana. Jimmy Wedell, one of the well-known well-known speed flyers, helped me to get it fixed after I explained the predicament I was in. But even with five of us working on the number one and number six bearings bear-ings of the Chevy, I was twelve hours getting back to Randolph Field. As I walked into the bachelor ou'leors' quarters that I shared, with Kob Terrlll, I expected any minute to hoar the sad news. But t was too utruid to uali for details, "o I just wuiLcd lor iiou to aay, iou uro to report lo Uio General tomorrow Xor uuurt marUul lor A.W.O.U m violation of specific instructions", i-'mauy be put down Jns letter writing, looked at me almost m disgust, and broke out: "Scott, you are the damned luckiest man that ever lived! You "Kin'f get reported today. No! This is the urst time in Uie history of iCandolpli Jj'ield Uiat it's been too cold to iiy. And it wasn't only too com to ily, it was too cold to have ground school, because the heating heat-ing system had failed. We haven't flown today, wo haven't had ground school. So they don't even ev-en know that you've been over there to see that girl." tn all of these trips to see my girl over in Georgia, I drove 84,000 miles. I wore out two cars and you'll probably agree that her father had the "full right to say to her: "Why don't you go on and marry him? It'll be far cheaper than his driving over here every week-end." But I found that I still had some talking to do. When I had finished Primary and Basic training at Randolph, I almost let down my hair and wept, though on the day that Commandant Command-ant of Student Officers called over ov-er and said that now I could have permission to go to Georgia, to see my girl. I . thanked him and went, lut I of course didn't have the heart to tell him that I had ,Y Lted the tail at me and ran tie ship up full gun, blowmg I ex-as ex-as dust all over me. Then he took off and came around to land. Tiree times he did this, each time J making me run like hell to get out of the way. Just as I was completely com-pletely out of breath he landed, looked back at me, and began to tasy in to the hangars leaving 5 me to the long, hot walk across i Randolph Field with the para-l para-l chute, I shall never forget the smile he wore as I trudged in past him i where he sat smoking a cigar. His i ! look spoke volumes, though he : I, ! said nothing. I felt good, too, and i 1 1 happy. He could have used no bet-: bet-: ! ter method to make me relax, to '': i make me feel as though I had ac-; ac-; I tually joined the brotherhood of I I I Air Corps pilots. Next day I soloed : ! again, but definitely remembered to taxy over and take him back to the line mtb. me. i i During my flying training, I had ; girl trouble, too. You would no ' doubt call it "trouble," but I knew i it was the real thing. I had a , Chevrolet then and every weekend week-end I just had to see my girl, even i if she did live over 1300 miles away in Georgia. To get to see I her, I would drive that 1300-odd i miles to her college or her home : in Fort Valley, spend anywhere . j I from ten minutes to two hours : j with her, then jump back in the i |