Peter Pinson continues to get himself into situations beyond his control. He has successfully garnered a transfer off the USS Neptune by qualifying for a position in the Navy Flight Training School in Pensacola, Florida. Just as his misadventure in arriving at the Neptune on schedule, he encounters difficulty in arriving in Pensacola on time. The Navy thinks he has expired in an airplane crash, but Pinson as usual has found a way to not only survive, but to renew a friendship with an old friend in posh surrounds.
Peter has extreme reservations about learning to fly high performance airplanes and landing on aircraft carriers. Having no flight experience, he is awed by the qualifications of the other pilot candidates, most of which have previous piloting experience. In orientation, the instructors delight in advancing data about how many students wash out. Peter harbors the notion that he might be assigned to Hawaii if he should drop out of the program.