Air Scouts Learn to Sketch Battlefields 



Instruction in making drawings which will show accu- 

 rately the enemy's positions, is given to every air scout 



Uuderwood and Underwood 



A class of airplane observers making sketches of an enemy's battlefield of sand and sticks. 

 Each man imagines himself to be flying a thousand feet above the battlefield in an airplane 



IMAGINE yourself flying in an airplane 

 a thousand feet over a battlefield, with 

 instructions to make a drawing of 

 what you see. You have but a minute or 

 two to make your drawing, yet you must 

 sketch in the enemy's gun positions, his 

 lines of trenches, his transport roads, 

 and all details of military significance. 

 Your sketch must be accurate, otherwise 

 your batteries would waste valuable am- 

 munition in shelling the enemy's positions 

 and perhaps the plans for an entire offensive 

 would be upset. 



That, in brief, is one of the important 

 duties of an airplane scout. To do this 

 work faithfully and accurately the airplane 

 observer must undergo a course of theoreti- 



cal and practical study. Before he takes 

 his first flight he must be able to make 

 sketches of improvised battlefields, one of 

 which is shown in the accompanying 

 illustration. 



The men in the picture are grouped 

 about a make-believe battlefield of sand 

 and sticks. Each man, in making his 

 sketch, imagines himself to be a thousand 

 feet or more in the air. His camp stool 

 is his airplane and his pad his sketch sheet. 

 If he fails to make an accurate sketch 

 of the field below him, he is considered 

 to be deficient in his ability to observe. 

 It is seldom that he has a second chance 

 to sketch the same field, for the sand and 

 sticks are changed continually. 



Those of us interested in science, engineering, invention form a kind of guild. 

 We should help one another. The editor of The POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY is 

 willing to answer questions. . , . 



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