Lindbergh’s USAAS Flight Training

In early 1925, the U. S. Army Air Service came very close to dismissing Charles Lindbergh on charges of lying to superior officers. The army advanced flight-training program at Kelly Field, Tex., was going to dismiss him. He would not become an Army Pilot and would not receive a commission as a second lieutenant. He had worked hard to earn those honors.

Prior to joining the army as a flight cadet, Lindbergh was an engineering student at the University of Wisconsin. At college, he did not apply himself. He only studied those subjects that interested him. His poor academic performance resulted in his dismissal. However, he wanted success in the army-training program and he worked hard to make top scores. Lindbergh learned to study in the army aviation program and was academically more successful there than at any school he had ever attended.

While his fellow cadets were asleep at night, Lindbergh was studying in the only after hours lighted room in the barracks, the latrine. When he moved from the preliminary flight training at Brooks Field to the advanced training at Kelly, Lindbergh was second in the class. Nevertheless, his instructors were about to dismiss him. There was no question about his ability to manipulate the controls of an airplane successfully. Lindbergh was an accomplished pilot before joining the army. He had received preliminary flight training at a flying school in Nebraska and, more importantly, he had worked as a barnstorming pilot, taking passengers for $5.00 a ride at small country towns throughout the western United States as well as performing aerobatics at air shows. By the time he joined the army, he had logged more flight hours than any other cadet had in his unit. Only one flight instructor at Kelly Field had more flight hours logged than Lindbergh. His army flight instructors recognized his piloting skills but since they thought he had lied, they had to drop him from the program. Anyone who would lie was unacceptable. Integrity was, and still is, a characteristic that is just as important to a military aviator as the skill needed to fly an airplane.

Lindbergh’s problem arose from a navigation training flight. The cadets were to fly solo on a triangular course from Kelly Field eastward for 67 miles to Gonzales, Tex., then southeasterly for 33 miles to Cuero, Tex., then northwesterly for 82 miles back to Kelly Field. They were to land at Gonzales and Cuero where a flight instructor would document their time . . .