a convenience
again if, either on the aerodrome itself or immediately adjacent,
there is a canteen or restaurant where meals and other refreshments
can be obtained. Dressing-rooms and reading rooms, when provided by
the proprietors of a school, add to the comfort of the novice while he
is in attendance on the aerodrome. In winter, particularly, such
facilities are required.

At a modern school, if it is well conducted, all heroics or
exceptional feats are discouraged. Pupils who want to do wild things
must be sternly repressed, even if only for the common good. The aim
is to train a certain number of pupils, not hastening over the tuition
but giving each man his full and complete course, and to do this with
a minimum of risk. In the early days of flying there were remarkable
exploits at the schools, and some very dangerous ones also. But
nowadays the reckless, happy-go-lucky spirit has gone. Tuition is
based on experience. Each pupil must submit to the routine, and listen
attentively to the instructions given him. There are no short
cuts--not at any rate with safety--in the art of learning to fly.

The question is asked, often, how long it should take a man to learn
to fly. It is almost impossible, though, to specify any fixed time. A
very great deal must depend on the weather. A pupil who joins a school
in the summer is more likely, naturally, to complete his tuition
quickly than one who begins in the winter. In periods when there are
high and gusty winds it may be necessary to suspend school work for
several days. But at such times the pupil need not be completely idle.
Lectures on aviation are organised sometimes by the schools; while a
pupil should have opportunities also--as has been mentioned before--of
going into the engine-shop and studying the repair and overhaul of
motors and machines.

It is on record that a pupil has learned to fly in a day, even in a
few hours; but here the circumstances, and the men, were exceptional.
Such an unusual facility represents one extreme; while as another, it
may happen that a man, owing to a combination of adverse circumstances,
is six months before he gains his certificate of proficiency. It may
be taken, as a rule, that a pupil should set aside say a couple of
months in order to undergo thoroughly, and without any haste, his full
period of tuition. School records prove, as a rule, that the pilots
who learn to fly abnormally quickly are apt to experience an abnormal
number