others trained at the Curtiss Flying School in Newport News, Virginia. A second Yale unit commenced instruction in Buffalo and a third at Mastic, New York. State naval militia units began work at Bay Shore, New York, and Squantum, Massachusetts. Several Princeton fliers gathered in Rhode Island before transferring to Royal Flying Corps schools in Canada. These soon-to-be pilots, joined by a group of enlisted personnel just beginning a course of instruction in France, provided the backbone of early naval aviation efforts. The navy’s frantic actions to speed aviators to the battlefield resembled the even larger campaign by the U.S. Army to supplement its still undeveloped training system. Four aerosquadrons’ worth of pilots trained in Canada in the summer and fall of 1917. In September, the first of 450 fledglings departed for England for flight training. At the same time, hundreds more began receiving instruction in France and even Italy.30
But for most, the shooting war was still a long way off. Instead, the Yalies found Palm Beach a pleasant spot, and when not working, they enjoyed swimming, partying, hunting, athletics, various pranks, and relaxing. The group also began planning to relocate operations to northern waters and in June shifted their base from Florida to the Castledge Estate at Huntington Bay, on Long Island, New York, not far from the Davison home at Peacock Point. Facilities there included hangars, runways, and machine shops accommodating a growing assortment of aircraft, including N-9, R-6, and Burgess-Dunne-type float seaplanes. Training continued; flight tests began in late July and extended into August. Soon, newly commissioned officers received orders dispersing them to Washington, Buffalo, Virginia, Florida, and elsewhere. Many headed overseas, with the first pair departing in mid-August. Ingalls followed a month later.31
Hotel Salt Air, West Palm Beach, Fla., April 29, 1917
My Dear Mother and Dad,
Today we rested and slept, thank goodness. It is Sunday and luckily tomorrow our instructors are going to fly to Miami so we shall have nothing to do. They tried it last Sunday but it didn’t come off for some reason. It is to tell the truth a foolish project anyhow, as it does no-one any good except the fellows that are instructing. Last night there was some excitement at the hangars. About two o’clock one of the soldiers on guard left his post to get a drink and on returning perceived a man stealing towards one of the machines. He immediately yelled halt and called the guard. The man ran out on the pier pursued by the guard who fired continually. All of them however fell over a rope anchoring a machine and before they got up the fellow had gotten far out into the lake in a speedboat. They fired some more till he was out of sight. This morning we all gazed with awe at the holes in trees, pier, ground, etc., from those simple soldiers’ guns.
We had a fine week flying as the juniors had almost all gone North for their initiation, so we got a lot of flying. I am now in a squad with Caleb Bragg as our instructor. He is an old automobile racer and one of the best and most careful men in a flying machine I’ve seen. Since entering this squad I have learnt considerable. Our destination has at last been decided on. We are going to a place called Huntington on Long Island about fifteen miles from Glen Cove. It is an ideal place, well sheltered and equipped, and we ought to have a wonderful time there. Almost died yesterday of surprise for I got a letter from Al. He seems to be in pretty good spirits. I also hear that a lot of fellows including Brewster Jennings have been called for training in small boats to chase submarines. Brewster, the lucky dog, is stationed at Newport. He certainly does not miss much.32 Mother, you needn’t bother about keeping those photographs. It doesn’t make any difference. If I get some good ones I’ll keep them. Am thinking about getting some kind of Kodak like a Brownie to take pictures in the air. Much love, Dave
May 13, 1917
Dear Dad,
Today I just had a swim and some tennis, as we have a pretty darn good time on Sundays. Also received some good news. It has been definitely decided to go north on the 1st June to Huntington. We had a fine week last week. The weather was pretty good and what was even better I at last am flying alone for the last week. It is much more fun, as you can do anything you want, excepting that our Lieutenant [McDonnell] has absolutely forbidden anything but straight flying—no so-called trick flying. Until last Monday I had done nothing but practice starting, landings, and turns, especially landings, which for a beginner are about the hardest things. All but about ten or twelve fellows are now alone so we are really at last progressing. As soon as I got out alone I went up high—about 3,500 feet, as I never went up before, always been practicing landings. It is certainly great up there and you own the world when you get up alone and can do what you want. Up, except on a very rough day, there is almost nothing to do, as it is perfectly calm and I just set and looked down. It’s funny but you never feel sick looking straight down and you can see for miles. I saw several tremendous fish in the ocean, as you can see down very far. There were a few small, light clouds, and I went through them; you can’t see a thing and have to balance by feeling, which is pretty hard. Also a rain cloud or black clouds are full of puffs [of wind] and few people go through them.
I never enjoyed anything as much as going up there and guess I’ll have to do it again soon. The only trouble being it takes a lot of time and you get no experience, as it is so calm, while from about 1,200 feet down there is almost always a lot to keep you busy, as even on a pretty calm day there are loads of puffs and pockets, so you are always on edge. Till Wednesday I took along a sand bag, but didn’t from then on. It was to keep the balance the same, in place of the instructor. Our boat happens to be nose heavy, however, and it is very hard to fly alone, so we are always going to use a sand bag.
Wednesday I almost got into bad trouble. Having left the sand bag behind, the machine was very tail heavy with a tendency to climb and it was work to keep pushing down the “flippers” to go level. Then when I started to come down from about 1,000 feet for my first landing I started off at too steep an angle and went so fast that my goggles began leaking and my eyes watered till I couldn’t see at all, so I leveled off to what seemed about right and pulled off the glasses, so I could see all right, but being afraid of coming down too steeply again I went to the other extreme and pancaked down for the last 200 feet, much too flatly, losing all speed and thus use of my controls. Fortunately, I appreciated it after dropping 100 feet and made a good landing, but if I hadn’t and a bad puff had hit me I would have made a bad landing. Just after, when coming down again to land a bad puff hit me and I got into a sort of sideslip—not a bad one, and I got out of that all right. A sideslip is when you get rocked over sidewise at such an angle that the machine starts to slide down edge first. You seem to come to a stop in forward motion and it is a horrible feeling.33 Fortunately it was not a bad one, however, and I righted the machine before it got much speed. Also it was high up. Height is the most important thing, as if you should ever get into a sideslip at about 100 or 200 feet before you could get out you would hit the water sidewise, which would bust things up. That was a bad day for me. I don’t know why, one seems to fly rather erratically and I made a lot of routine landings, in addition to the first one, which was really dangerous. The lack of the sand bag helped in putting the bow up and tail down on landing, also helped in my pancaking, as I had to push the controls as far forward as possible to get out of the pancaking, and then barely did. That afternoon the Lieutenant took up our machine and made a rotten landing and said that we always had to carry the sand bag, as it was hard to run it otherwise. That sand bag certainly made a difference and I flew pretty well then, and Friday, till our plane’s engine busted and now we have to put in a new one, and there being no engines ready, we had no flying Saturday and won’t get any till Tuesday.
It is funny how much feeling there is about flying. Everybody is jealous—talks about how others go and always count the bumps if anyone makes a bad landing. A bump is when you do not slip into the water just right and sort of bump into the air. A couple of inches difference in where you level off or a touch of the controls at not the right time will sometimes bump you up 30 feet or higher. Usually though you just go up a foot or two and that is a bad landing, but most everybody bumps sometime. I was certainly put in a better humor after flying so badly Wednesday when I saw everybody almost when they came in bump, and the Lieutenant gave them the deuce. Luckily I made a good landing coming in so
