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July 13, 1960

Mr. Elmo N. Pickerill
4 Weybridge Road
Mineola, Long Island, N.Y.

Dear Elmo: 

I have your letter of July 2 and I want to thank you for sending me a copy of the interesting piece that will appear in the next issue of the "Chirp". I shall try to answer the questions raised in it as best I can. I entered the Louis Bleriot School of Aviation at Etampes, France in July 1910 about a month after the School was established.

The planes at the Bleriot School of the time had no double controls. They were all single seaters. Neither before entering the School nor during the time of my training in it did I ever get up into the air as a passenger with another pilot. I was given from the outset a plane capable to fly and was at all times in sole control of it.

During the first month of my training I learned how to make the plane run on the ground in a straight line at fair speed, which was a difficult undertaking in itself. Next for another three to four weeks I learned to make short flights a few feet above the ground in a straight line, making the plane rise smoothly and come down smoothly.

During the last week of September I made the first complete circles over the field at altitudes of 800 to 1,000 feet. These can be described as my first solo flights in the true sense of this term. This is the closes way that I can set the date of my first solo flight.

Finally, during the middle of October I passed my examination at the School's aviation field, before the official examiners of the Aero Club of France which had been designated by the government of France as the rightful agent for [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] issuing [[strikethrough]] of [[/strikethrough]] aviator ^[['s]] licenses. It was at that time the only agency in the world authorized by a government to issue aviators' licenses. The French newspaper "Auto" which was the only paper having a section on aviation, reported that I passed the examination "brilliantly." The license, which bore the number 292, was issued to me by the Aero-Club of France on November 8, 1910.