Every day they learned some new points. One afternoon a pilot from
the front line told of a captured German Albatros, which he spun yarns
about for an hour. A single-seater, armed with three machine-guns
which, being controlled by the motor, or engine, shot automatically
and at the same time through the propeller in front of the pilot, with
the highest speed of any aeroplane then evolved on the fighting front,
with a reputation of being able to climb to an altitude of fifteen
thousand feet in less than fifteen minutes---some said in so short a
time as ten minutes---the crack German machine had attracted much
attention.
"With that sort of thing against us," said Dicky Mann, "we have
certainly got to learn to fly."
The same thought may have come to their squadron commander that night,
for the next day saw the start of real post-graduate work in flying
for his command. The rule at the base airdrome had been to give
new units of well-trained flyers good all-round tests on various
types of machines.
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