The training course evolved there was one which grew naturally out of such a situation. Airship piloting had changed from the "seat of the pants" flying of the first war, when veteran Jack Boettner would turn out pilots in six weeks. The ships had become more complex as improvements were made. Helium gas was being used. Navigation by radio and compass was quite different from the "concrete compass flying" of 1916, when pilots followed highways or railroad tracks to keep on course. Instrument flying had come in, and blind flying was part of every student's training, in a closed control car, operating by instrument only. The modern airship pilot had to know his radio beams and the rules of Civil Aeronautics Authority, be able to ride the beam into the airport. In these various details the Goodyear pilots, long-seasoned, had perfected themselves through years of operation, were competent to pass on their secrets to the youngsters coming in.
The student pilot spent his first half dozen hours trying only to keep the ship at constant altitude, not caring where he was going. Then he would fly a given course, follow a zigzag rail fence, or a winding road, not worrying about his altitude. Lesson three was to combine the two, fly at constant altitude over a set course. And after enough hours at this, he'd try to circle a pylon, keeping a specified distance away, while the wind pushed the ship in one direction, then another--now flying up wind, now down, now cross-wind, now quartering, making such changes in course to allow for wind and drift as to maintain a perfect circle--and trying finally to achieve the supreme art of the airshipper, which is to get the feel of the controls and the weather so that he can anticipate drift and sharp drops and rises, move his controls a split second ahead of time, stay on course and altitude.
Airship students got no exemption from Civil Aeronautics Authority by reason of the fact that blimps land more slowly than bombers, took the same physical examination, including eyesight. The training course worked out with the government followed closely that for heavier-than-air pilots, with such changes only as were made necessary by the fact that in one case a static lift was utilized chiefly, and in the other case dynamic lift. There was plenty of need for the students by the time they finished their training.