Book Excerpt 08/16/08

In flight training, the trainee pilot sat in the front seat and the instructor was in the cockpit behind him. If a rookie aviator did something wrong, he would be hit in the back of the head with a wooden stick. One way we dealt with this abuse was by wrapping a towel under our flight helmets. Our instructors caught on quickly and, once we landed, they made us take off our flight helmets, then struck us on our heads with the sticks.

Ensign Takeshi Maeda, Copyright 2008, Ron Werneth