Mitchell took the bomber up to 12,000 feet and put her through a slow roll, then into a spin. Barbara felt as if she were back in the skies over her airfield at Mohave, doing an Immelmann turn, only the B-17, for all its gigantic size, was a smoother ride. Her instructor was right, she decided when they landed. It was just big, that's all.
After getting her first feel for a B-17 and her first ride in one, intense instruction followed in learning how to fly one.
Soon Barbara and her fellow WASPS were not only flying the bombers but flying them in formation and being instructed to "Get in closer!" so their wings almost touched. It was exciting, but even more to fly in formation at night.
After fifty hours of flying a B-17 with an instructor, it was time for Barbara to solo. Taking the controls in the first pilot's seat, Barbara was anxious as her co-pilot and solo instructor, Major Fred Wilson, sat beside her and told her simply, "Take her up."
For good luck, Barbara kissed an index finger and touched it to the Pegasus pinned over her heart on her leather flying jacket, beside her wings and with her silk scarf around her neck.
To her surprise, Barbara had never experienced both the power and peace as she did flying solo in the B-17. Maybe, she thought afterward, it was because she had felt she was not flying alone.
She did not feel the presence of an instructor as her co-pilot. She felt she had two passengers, and she loved taking them for a ride, then bringing them back down safely.
What followed soloing were more weeks of both ground and in-air instruction in cross-country flying and flying by instruments during bad weather. Training continued right through Christmas and the new year, with no leave again for Barbara to spend at least part of the holiday with her godson.
Hardly before she knew it, her 130 hours of flight training in a B-17 were over and Barbara and all her fellow WASPS had graduated. Normally, graduation meant just a certificate, but to honor the women pilots, on January 13, 1943, their instructors invited them to a champagne and dance party at a hotel in Columbus.
Barbara waited her turn to dance with Lieutenant Mitchell whom they all agreed was their hero for making good on his promise when they arrived that he would get each of them through the training.
While the twelve-piece orchestra played her favorite song, Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are," Barbara only vaguely knew she was in the arms of her former flight instructor. In her heart, she was dancing with Stephen Collier, trying to forget that he, too, was a married man. The gorgeous rat.