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THE FUN OF IT
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bile drivers, there would doubtless be fewer acci­dents.

To fly doesn’t require a specialized kind of physi­cal make-up. Just normal coordination and good health, necessary to any physical activity, are sufficient. However, to excel in flying, the indi­vidual must have exceptional ability, just as a player, to excel in tennis, golf or baseball, must be above the average in his reactions, mentally and physically. Helen Wills Moody, Bobby Jones and Babe Ruth show just as unusual qualifications in their lines, as do Frank Hawks and Colonel Lind­bergh in aviation. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t take any more prowess to be a super­-flyer than it does to be a super something else.

For the normal person there is no particular strain in flying, whether as pilot or passenger, under good conditions. Certainly for the pas­senger, who has no responsibility, flying can be, by all odds, the pleasantest form of transportation wherever it is practical.

Most people have quite incorrect ideas about the sensation of flying. Their mental picture of how it feels to go up in a plane is based on the way the plane looks when it takes off and flies, or upon their amusement park experience in a roller coaster. Some of the uninitiated compare flying to the memory of the last time they peered over the edge of a high building. But they are mistaken. The sensation of such moments is almost entirely