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[Page 34]

6.

was perfectly all right. So I set to work to show the pupils that it was all right. It was a machine on which we trained the most advanced pupils after they had flown the slower & easier ones. I did break the prejudice against the machine and up to the other day had turned out a dozen pilots on it without any of them having a bad smash. Every one of them came down after his first flight alone in the machine and admitted willingly that there was no reason to be afraid of it. It was a very uphill fight to break the feeling of nervousness about the machine, but I had so far succeeded that several pupils had asked to be taught to fly it. Then the other day one poor boy went up in it and obviously lost his head and made a blunder that would have had the same result in any other machine. He got the machine out of control and it crashed to earth from about 800 feet. I have never seen such an awful smash. Goodness knows how he escaped alive. Of course he is seriously injured but the latest news of him is that he is a little better. I am awfully sorry for the poor chap but he brought the accident about through sheer bad flying and it was no fault of the machines. I felt very keenly about it as I am the only instructor who teaches on them and this is the first bad accident any of my pupils has had. Of course it means that I will have another fight against the

 

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