and thoroughness in
everything he does. The average pupil cannot hope to be so luckily
endowed. But he can study his personality, and seek to repress traits
that may seem harmful.

There is need in flying for a sound judgment, one that will enable a
man to come to a decision quickly and yet accurately. Things happen
rapidly in the air. It is one of the grim aspects of flying that, just
at a moment when everything appears secure, a sudden disaster may
threaten. So it is of vast importance to a pilot, if he has to fly
regularly, that he should have an instinctive and dependable judgment;
a capacity for deciding quickly and without panic; a capacity, when
several ways present themselves of extricating himself from some
quandary, of being able to choose the right one, and of not having to
think long before doing so. This implies a combination really of
judgment and resource. The man of confidence, the man of resource, is
well endowed for flying. But he must not be over-confident. The
over-confident man is a menace to himself and to others. It is not a
proper spirit at all in which to approach aviation. We do not know
enough about the navigation of the air to be in the least
over-confident. The spirit, rather, should be one of humility--a
determination to proceed warily, and to make very certain of what
limited knowledge we do possess.

Two of the worst traits in an aviator are impatience and irritability.
A man who has these temperamental drawbacks in a form which is
strongly marked, and who cannot control them, should not think of
becoming an aviator. The man who is impatient and irritable finds
himself out of harmony with the whole theory of aerial navigation.
There is a long list of "don'ts" in flying; in the handling of one's
machine, in the weather one flies in, in all the feats that one should
attempt and leave alone. A number of details must be memorised, and
must never be forgotten or overlooked, trivial though some of them may
seem. The frame of mind of the man who flies must be alert, yet quiet
and reposeful; he must be clear-headed, not hot-headed. The man who is
in a hurry, who ignores details when he sets out on a flight, is the
man who runs risks and is bound sooner or later to pay the penalty.
The perils of recklessness in flying are very great. The man who
"takes chances," who thinks he can do something when, as a matter of
fact, he has neither sufficient knowledge or experience, runs a very
grave and con