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CHAPTER III
MY OWN PLANE
IN the war some students were soloed with as little as four hours’ training. That meant they were considered competent to go up in their planes alone after this amount of instruction. Obviously these were exceptional students. In civilian flying, ten or twelve hours, I imagine, would be about the minimum training. But these hours usually mean simply routine instruction in straight flying, comparable to the novice driving his automobile along the level uncrowded country highway. For the automobilist beginner the problem comes when he first meets traffic, and a big truck, say, suddenly cuts in ahead of him. Can he handle the emergency, or will he crash? And what will the beginner do
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