wer types of planes, and deciding for which branch of the work
they were best suited, than for anything else. In the work that gave
the finishing touch to his command, their squadron commander selected
three of the six Brighton boys as candidates for high honors in the
days to come. Every one of the half dozen was good. All were eager.
All flew well. But Joe Little, Jimmy Hill and Harry Corwin seemed
made of exactly the sort of stuff from which flying stars were evolved.

"I think I will try to make hunters out of those three boys," said
their commander to the officer in charge of the base airdrome.

"Our plan here," said the officer thus addressed, "is to pass youngsters
out after they have satisfactorily gone through a final test of two
short voyages of twenty-five miles each, two long voyages of one
hundred and thirty-five miles each and an hour's flight at a minimum
altitude of sixty-five hundred feet. The post-graduate course is
mostly aerial acrobatics. Looping the loop comes first. All of
them can do that. The flier must then do flip-flops, wing slips,
vertical twists and spinning nose dives."

"Just what do you call a spinning nose dive?" asked the squadron
commander.

The chief explained: "Climbing to at least four thousand feet, the
pilot cuts off his motor and crosses his controls. This causes the
machine first to scoop upward and then fall sidewise, the nose of the
plane, down vertically, spinning around and around as it falls."

"That sounds interesting," said the commander.

"More," continued the chief. "It is necessary. Skill in the air
nowadays means all the difference between life and death---all the
difference between success and defeat. I have an idea that we have
come nearer to the limit of human possibility as regards speed in the
air than many people think. Two hundred miles an hour may never be
reached. But whether it is or not, we can get better and better
results by paying more and more attention to the development of our
aerial athletes.

"I look on flyers as athletes playing a game---the greatest game
the world has ever seen. The more expert we can make them individually,
the better the service will be. A nimble flyer, a real star man, is
almost sure to score off a less expert antagonist, even if the better
man is mounted on an inferior plane. That has been proven to me beyond
all possibility of doubt time and time again.

"I was once a football coach. My work here, s