ESCOLE D’AVIATION MILITAIRE AVORD, CHER, FRANCE. Friday, July 13, 1917.
You see it’s Friday, the thirteenth, my lucky day, and I’m happy because the work is going well. First, I’ll tell you about a smash I had a week or so ago.
The roller or Rouleur class which I smashed in has the same machine as those that fly with a 45 P motor. Only it is throttled down, and we are supposed to keep it on the ground—just about ready to fly, but not quite getting up—a speed of about 30 m.p.h. When there is the slightest wind we cannot roll, because the wind turns the tail around and swings the machine in a circle—a wooden horse—cheval de bois. I rode about the end of the list Saturday—and the wind had come up as the day got on. Work stops at 8:30 a. m. always because there’s too much wind. My first sortie or trip went O.K. with a considerable breeze on the tail, but on the second there was too much wind and after I got going pretty fast —around she went. The wind caught under the inside wing and up it went. Smash went the outside wheel, and a crackle of busting wood. All the front framework of wood that holds the motor was smashed—a pretty bad break. The monitor was a bit mad and talked to me a bit in French.
The next morning I was called in to see the chief of the Blériot school, Lt. de Chavannes, a very nice officer. He told me that my monitor was not satisfied with me—that he had told me to do something (cut the motor when the machine started to turn) three separate times, and that each time I had intentionally disobeyed, that if anything like that happened again I would be radiated (discharged from the school). That was quite the first I had ever heard of it and I was so mad at the monitor that I could have kicked him in the head. I tried to explain to the Lieutenant but he never heard a word, so I just gurgled with wrath and didn’t do anything. But yesterday we got another monitor who is a different sort.
The class after rouleur is decollé—it is the same machine, but one gets off the ground about a metre or two, then slacks up on the motor and settles to the earth. It is strictly forbidden to decollé in the rouleur class. This morning I had a sortie in the rouleur and all of a sudden noticed that I was in the air a bit—managed to keep it straight and get out of the air without smashing. The monitor said nothing so I decolléed on all the sorties. When I got out the monitor explained that it was strictly forbidden to go off the ground in the rouleur class, that I shouldn’t have done it, and then asked me if I would like to go up to the other class. Whereupon consenting, I am now in the decollé class, leaving sixteen rather peeved Americans who arrived in the rouleur the same time I did, who can perform in the rouleur quite as well as I can and who will remain in the rouleur for some time yet. They’ve no grudge against me, however, as it was only a streak of luck on my part. Later in the morning I had some sorties in the decolleur and got up two or three metres. The wind was too strong, so my trips were a bit rough, but nothing was damaged—so hurrah for Friday, the thirteenth.