CHAPTER XXIII LARRY “SOLOS”

Taking hold, for the “ground crew,” required some argument with parents. Mr. Whiteside seemed to have some magical way of overcoming objections to possible night activity, however; and the next morning found the two reinstated assistants riding with Mr. Whiteside on a ’bus bound for the town nearest to the old Everdail estate.

Their morning work consisted of investigating the hangar, outside and inside.

The caretaker raised no objections. He seemed entirely satisfied that Mr. Whiteside was exactly what he claimed to be, and so Dick, who had held some misgivings, accepted the man as a detective and worked with a will to discover some clue to the means used by the “ghost” for getting in and out of the hangar.

In that the trio failed, and had to give up until night would let them return and establish a keen guard over the haunted structure.

Larry fared much better.

He found Tommy Larsen much improved in health, with his nerves again steady.
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“I don’t feel uneasy about short hops,” the pilot informed him. “I don’t think I’d want to take a long control job just yet, though. Now let’s see what Jeff put into you. Before I go up with you, tell me what you’d do if you were really starting off alone.”

“First of all,” Larry said, “I’d go over to the weather display board, to see what the flying conditions would be.”

“You did learn!” Tommy was pleased. “Yep! That’s important. Then——”

“I’d notice the windsock, while I’d go to my crate. If it wasn’t already running, I’d start the engine—being sure to repeat every syllable of the ‘mech’s’ words when he turned the prop.”

“You wouldn’t want any mistake on your part to have the juice on when he swung that prop to suck in the charge—good!”

“Of course, if the airplane was on a cement apron in front of the hangar, it would be all right to start the engine there. But in sandy ground, or on a dusty apron, I’d be sure the tail wasn’t pointed so the propeller blast would throw dust on ’planes or on people.”

Pilot Tommy Larsen nodded vigorously.

“Don’t intend to be a dusting pilot, do you?”

“No, sir. Then I’d warm up the engine—by granny-golly-gracious! I forgot something——”
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“What?”

“Well, unless I’d seen him do it, before even the engine was started, I’d want to be sure the ‘rigger’ of my crew would go over the crate and wipe it with a soft rag, so any frayed wires would be noticed—and I’d want to be sure he had inspected the ’plane either when it landed last or before I’d take off.”

“Jeff was a good teacher, I see. Go ahead.”

Larry went through the explanation of his method of taxiing, with the elevators up enough to keep the tail on the ground as he used the throttle to regulate speed, and the ailerons to govern the wings and keep them from being tipped up or down by wind or uneven ground, as well as his idea of using the rudder to hold the ship on its straight travel to the point of take-off and how he would turn.

“All right! If you know all that about getting set, you might as well let me see you do it!” Thus Larry began his tenth hour of instruction.
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That completed, and with a quiet compliment for the way he had made his final check of the engine and instruments while the chocks were still under the wheels, with a word of advice about not trying to lift the ship off the ground in a cross-wind until a safe margin of speed was assured, Larsen bade him return that afternoon. Larry, pleased, went to his lunch, turning over in his mind the many things he had done, to see if he had done any of them in the wrong way.

“I corrected the tendency of the wind to turn the crate as we taxied, and I lifted her off and leveled for a couple of seconds so that the prop could bring back flying speed before climbing.”

He had also chosen a moderate climbing angle, keeping a watch for any incoming craft as he went higher before banking and turning.

“I remembered to return the controls to neutral when I had the ship flying just the way I wanted it to,” he mused. “And I didn’t over-control. Maybe—maybe it won’t be long before Tommy will let me solo.” It wasn’t!

At three that afternoon Larsen informed him that he was to take up the dual-control craft they had hired from a flying friend of the pilot’s at Roosevelt Field the second, on Long Island.

“All right—thank you. I’ll keep cool—and do my best.”

He walked to the airplane, standing before its hangar, determined to use the after seat, as did most pilots flying alone in a dual machine, and turned to Tommy inquiringly.

“Where’s the sack of sand?”

“Did you think of that?”
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“Yes, sir. If I am in the front and you are in the other place, and the airplane balances and flies easily, there must be something to make up the difference when you aren’t along!”

“Bud—you’ll get along!”

And when the sack had provided stability in the front place, Larry, feeling a little anxious, but more about making mistakes under the pilot’s watchful eye in starting than about his performance in the air, got the engine started, warmed up, checked, put the craft into the wind, signaled for chocks to be pulled away, gave a spurt of the “gun” to start it, accelerated speed till the ship began to want to take the air itself, having remembered to use the elevators to lift the tail skid free from dragging—and with a return of elevators to normal right away to keep the craft level on its run—he drew back on the stick, widened the throttle feed a trifle, returned the elevators to normal as he attained the safe climbing angle, and was up and away on his first solo flight.

In his whole life he had never felt such a sense of elation!
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The whole fifteen minutes that he stayed up were like moments of freedom—alone, master of his craft, able to control it as he would—there is not, in the whole world, another sensation to equal that of the first solo flight of a youthful pilot who combines confidence in himself with knowledge of his ’plane and how it responds.

The heavens were his!

No bird ever was more free.

And when he made his landing, perfectly setting down on wheels and tail-skid as Jeff had taught him, “I wish all my pupils were like him,” said a flying instructor who had been watching. Larry, doffing his tight “crash” helmet, overheard.

It was the most cherished compliment he could wish.

And that marked the beginning of ten days of flying, sometimes with Tommy to give him the evolutions of recovering from side-slips, skids, tail spins, and other possibilities of flying, none of them hazards at sensible altitude, and with a calm mind guiding the controls. At other times “stunts” were taught, not to make him a daredevil, but because, in flying, an airplane sometimes gets into positions where the pilot must know every possible means of extricating it. Solo, and with Tommy, Larry became a good pilot.

And in all that time, his “ground crew”—got nowhere!