Dear Folks,
Cleda, received your letter today with Dad’s and really enjoyed them all. My stomach is alot better but I haven’t been eating anything which is probably a good thing. Flying has been going better the last couple of days so I guess Long John and I are hitting it off alittle better. Three boys in our flight have washed already and one of the boys with Long John is about to wash. He got a pink slip today which means things aren’t going very well and that he has about one more chance.
To answer some of your questions: I think we will get passes this weekend so I’ll get to see the Perkins’s then. About the material I said I was going to send. I have decided to keep it for a while because I might need it for ground school here. All together while we were at Santa Ana I guess about 30% of our starting class washed but the greater bunch of these were on the physical. However, there were several others that were held over for low grades.
About putting something in the Advocate; there was a form letter that we sent to our home town paper a few days ago that they should have by now. You might ask and if they haven’t received it you can put my address in and say that I am in primary training at Thunderbird Field Phoenix. However, they should have received that form letter and it would make a good article in itself. I have about 5 hrs. in now so I should be soloing between now and when I get 12 hours. Today we shot some landings and he said he wanted to solo me before long. I imagine it will be next week sometime, personally I think I am ready now but Long John says I have to get my spins and stalls smoothed up alittle. I can get it in and out of a spin easy enough but its is alittle sloppy. You asked about the no. of cadets here. I guess it would be considered a mil. secret but it wouldn’t be a very hard one to find out. I guess there are around 500. They have 100 planes in the air most of the time but the way the boys have been tearing them up we will do good to have 10 in the air. Each instructor has 5 students so we don’t get our dual time in very fast, however, after we start putting in our solo time we will get in about 3 hrs. of time every day.
Cleda, thanks alot for getting Zoe a present. That 5th Ave. stuff sounds pretty good. From the sounds of things you really had a busy time in Chicago. I hope when you go up in a few weeks that you get to see a good game and get alittle rest. I wish I were going with you but you will have to tell me all about it. I hope Grandma enjoys her visit, give her my love when she comes.
Well goodnight – tomorrow morning we are going to shoot cross wind landing for about an hours. Asta La Viesta –
With love,
Tom
