Читать книгу High Adventure. A Narrative of Air Fighting in France – WW1 Novel онлайн

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The beginners' class did not start work with the others, owing to the fact that the Penguins, driven by unaccustomed hands, covered a vast amount of ground in their rolling sorties back and forth across the field. Therefore Drew and I had leisure to watch the others, and to see in operation the entire scheme by means of which France trains her combat pilots for the front. Exclusive of the Penguin, there were seven classes, graded according to their degree of advancement. These, in their order, were the rolling class (a second-stage Penguin class, in which one still kept on the ground, but in machines of higher speed); the first flying class—short hops across the field at an altitude of two or three metres; the second flying class, where one learned to mount to from thirty to fifty metres, and to make landings without the use of the motor; tour de piste (A)—flights about the aerodrome in a forty-five horse-power Blériot; tour de piste (B)—similar flights in a fifty horse-power machine; the spiral class, and the brevet class.