Selection of compatible flying partners.

Though mutual confidence is essential in flying, pairs of cadet pilot-observers, flying partners in an Army Air Forces flying school, were picked alphabetically, without regard to human relations. Sociometric tests, in which each man stated his most and least preferred choices of partner, were set up; and the degrees of interrelationship among members of "elements" of five to seven men were mathematically expressed. On the basis of the tests, it was possible to place nearly all cadets with compatible partners. A man's status in the whole group was also computed by comparing his fellow's acceptances and rejections of him.