HOW TO FLY.

The Pilot and his Problems. By Lieutenant Barrett Studley '16, U. S. N. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1929. pp. 291.

Adapted from the author's previous handbooks "Flight School Manual," 1926. Prepared for the use of students at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, and "Practical Flight Training," 1928, designed for general use in flight schools, the present volume purports "to describe in a non-technical way the problems met in learning to fly." It does this adequately and throws in for good measure brief accounts of what any ordinary person ought to know about the history of aviation, the construction of airplanes and motors, flying fields, and the present uses and future possibilities of human flight. The print is large and well spaced; the text is illustrated with abundant diagrams and photographs; and yet the book is not too bulky to carry about in one's coat pocket.

This main body of the text might serve as a model of straightforward exposition. It presents an authoritative and scrupulously detailed account of the technique of instruction and practise in the art of flying according to the most approved methods with a freshness and clarity that will make it intelligible to any boy scout. To one who recalls with a languid sigh the multifarious training bulletins with their accompanying bundles of supplements, emendations, and assorted statistical and exegetical verbiage which used to clutter up the professional libraries of army fliers ten years back, this simple and comprehensive little treatise reads like a dime novel. The author's easy conversational manner, his penchant for vivid description, and his engaging way of illustrating his points with apt reminiscences are well calculated to inspire many a book-weary fireside adventure with yearnings to mount a real Pegasus and be off. Step by step you are conducted through the whole fascinating business and are permitted to taste most of the authentic flavors of this most adventurous of our mechanical pastimes.

Yet the author never overlooks an opportunity to warn the novice against the dangers that beset inadequate training, over-confidence, and a reckless disregard for the little things that have brought, and will yet bring, many a careless fledgling to his untimely end. Though it is not stated in so many words, the dullest reader can sense between the lines that fundamental paradox of flying that the most sensational successes in this art are usually accomplished only by the most highly disciplined practitioners. Perhaps the most deliberately cautious members of our society are to be found among our most "daring" aviators; there is another nut for the psychologist to crack.

Lieutenant Studley's book is probably the best popular treatise on how to fly that has yet appeared. It would be difficult to conceive of a more suitable volume to put in the hands of the prospective pilot, the lay enthusiast, or the general reader who wonders what it is like to be a flyer. It is this reviewer's idea of a practically perfect book for boys.