his
guard, or which will worry him, he can take the air without fear.

V

QUALIFICATIONS OF AN AIRPLANE MECHANIC

What chance has a good automobile man who knows his engine thoroughly
to become an airplane mechanic? There can be only one answer to this
question which men ask themselves daily--there is every chance in the
world. Commercial flying, in the day when the air is to become a
medium of transportation, just as ground and water are at present,
must draw to itself hundreds of thousands of mechanics. The only thing
to which the future of flying may be compared is the automobile
industry at present. And the only place from which the mechanics are
to be recruited are from the men who are working in garages putting
automobiles in order.

An interesting comparison between the future for the automobile
mechanic or airplane mechanic compared with the future for the pilot
is afforded in the figures of a well-known flying-officer of great
vision. He expects that the skilled mechanic, the man who has spent
years at his trade, will command more for his services than a pilot.
Any one can learn to fly an airplane in one or two months of proper
training. A mechanic may work for years to learn his profession.

It was estimated that it took ten mechanics of various kinds on the
ground to keep one airplane pilot flying in the air, and the
experience of the United States has shown that there must be a large
force of trained men to keep up flying. The present leaders of the
automobile world and the aeronautical world are men who got their
first interest in mechanics in some little shop. Glenn H. Curtiss and
Harry G. Hawker, the Australian pilot, both owned little
bicycle-repair shops before they saw their opportunity in flying.

Most essential of all, for the man who would become an airplane
mechanic, is a thorough knowledge of gasolene-engines. This should
include not only a knowledge of such fundamentals as the theory of the
internal-combustion engine, carburetion, compression, ignition, and
explosion, but also a keen insight into the whims of the human, and
terribly inhuman, thing--the gasolene-motor. Nothing can be sweeter
when it is sweet, and nothing more devilish when it is cranky, than an
airplane engine.

There are certain technical details which distinguish an airplane
motor from an automobile motor, but a man who knows automobile engines
can master the airplane motor in short order. Generally speaking, th