1941-09-06 — Page 9

Second Section

Hongkong Telegraph.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1941.

RANDOLPH FIELD

Where the United States Trains Her New Air Armada

435

Up the stops of the administration offices they come, a little conspicuous in civilian clothes in spite of the fact they have had, like most American college men, 60 flying a Washington official or a Cornell engineer. hours behind them in one of the nine primary flying schools. Your fellow rookie may lie

Parachuting problems: you get in the place this way, and come out theoretically-in the same fashion, But army pilota who have had to jump will. grin and tell you you'll bala out of a spinuing plano any way Hou can, making sure of one thing to clear the tail before opening up.

The drop is at the rate of 16 feat· par second, and you strike the ground with about the sama. forco as though jumning from an eight-foot-high window,

Magazine Feature

High over the checker-board hangars, -quarters, shops and roadways that trace Randolph Field's perfect geometrical design on the Texas prairie, the U.S. Army keeps some 200 trim, snub-nosed planes in the air all day long. Here is one of them, a B.T.9 basic training ship. At first, the student goes up with a pilot, but later has to fly by himself

Inside their glass-bound tower, the control men are constantly on watch. The corporal at the right is, talk- ing to a plane on the field on four clear, short-wave channels. The control tower, of which Randolph Field has two; is used principally to direct night flying.

This may be the

cadet's solo flight," if he'

has had sufficient training according

to the instructor'e way of thinking. The switch-

board behind is part of the plane's radio installation. : Bar- phones are built into the flier's helmet, and to talk to the ground all that is needed to to plug-in a corde,

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