May 14 As I recall my last letter, we left our young hero in the rain or low ceiling or some such flight preventive weather. On Wednesday, the weather broke a little. It was cool and windy, but we flew...time I think of it for years to come. I got off some of the neatest conversation of my career, all composed of minor variations in key and tone of the one word "Yes." Once I even added a nice "indeed.

May 8 In the rush of activity at the end of yesterday, I didn’t know that Lettich was taking his second check the last period. I was extremely surprised, therefore, to meet him this afternoon and to find...in headwork. Really, he cannot fly! Later, I was mortified to hear that his check pilot had told someone that I certainly had the word on low work; my student Lettich was way above average – oh, God

May 7 Mac managed to pass his C check and even got a pretty decent write-up from his check pilot on it. Immediately afterwards I gave him his front seat check-out in preparation for formation, and he...are out of this world, and he’ll need more than one hop to straighten them out. He’s getting on toward his C check, and I probably won’t have time before then, so I suppose he’ll get a down

May 4 The weather has been foul again, with the wind yesterday at 45 knots and gusts to 55. We flew only the first hop and incompleted that. Today, the wind had let up to half, but the ceiling was only...spring warmth, but today I’m back in greens and wearing flight boots and winter jacket when I fly. There is a frost expected tonight, but the country has suddenly and miraculously turned green and lovely

May 2 Mahoney passed his D check in style. I went to squadron especially to find out today, and to fill out his fitness report. He did a fine job, I gathered from reading his check pilot’s report which...rolls (oh-ho, baby!); and uh-four: headwork and air discipline. I guess that’s about that. I wish again that all my students could somehow be cast into his mould, and life would be quite easy in the air

May 1 We’ve had some bad weather to hold up flying again, and in a way it was a lucky break for at least two of my cadets. This will probably take quite a while to explain, and I hope you can stand it...enough to get an idle J for a local hop. I took a little tarmac along and went up north among the cumulus at 6000 and had a lot of fun finding deep valleys in the clouds and trying to follow them

April 27 I have been studying the SNC handbook – covering another, and a little faster, airplane I want to check out in. Monday and Tuesday are my days off and, instead of horsing around about a x-country... as you know, is the Douglas “Dauntless” dive bomber, and the only reason for wanting to check out is that it’s the largest aircraft available to us here. I hardly expect to be doing any dive bombing

April 25 The news is rather scanty. The weather continues bad, although all hops went out this afternoon on a single six. My A stage joker, DePolo, got his check ride and drew his second down. Mine was... To date, my night flying has consisted on one check-out hop (exactly 6 minutes from chocks to chocks!) and, a month later, one dual hop in the snow – boy, was that pretty! But this time, I will make it

April 23 It rained Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but on that last afternoon, it started to clear up. Today also, it kind of cleared and I managed to fly one hop, but the ceiling was so low only B stage... and I said, “uh, uh, not this cookie.” I’m almost sure he can’t fly two ups for other check pilots, but if he does, I’ll certainly work to see if I was wrong and he actually can get through B stage

April 20 Stanley and I applied for a x-country to Ottumwa for yesterday and today. It won’t surprise you to learn that yesterday dawned clear and beautiful, our papers were all approved and we were all...ready to send – and what happens this time? No airplanes available – not even one so that we could go together! We had to be content to fly one local hop each in the planes reserved for that purpose