PREFACE Before the commencement of the war it was a generally accepted theory that a first-class pilot of an aeroplane could not be produced under a minimum of a year. Under present conditions the average young man can learn to handle an aeroplane and put it through all the known tricks of looping, rolling, nose-dive spins, side-slips, etc., after a period of instruction of approximately no more than from twenty to thirty hours of actual flying. That is a most extraordinary advance and it is in but slight part due to the improvements in engines and aeroplanes. Rather, it is almost entirely due to the knowledge we now have as to how to execute aerial manoeuvers or aerobatics the improved methods of acquiring such knowledge, and the confidence which we now know a pupil may have in attempting feats which, in the past, were looked upon as dangerous and as mere circus tricks. This book is an attempt to explain in simple form, anl for the benefit of novices, the general rules calculated...