The Way of the Air 7

The Way of the Air 7

Clear of the earth, at about 1000 feet, there are, here and there,

faint patches of light of dark gray and the subdued reddish glow of

the distant metropolis; the locomotive of a passing passenger train,

bright as a searchlight for a brief moment, then passing away into

the outer darkness. Higher and yet higher; and the sensation! The

mind of a Jules Verne or of an H. G. Wells could not imagine a feeling

more eerie, more strange than this. Noise and darkness, the incessant

deafening purr of the engine, the pitch blackness on all sides,

relieved by the one tiny light inside the fuselage, as welcome and

cheery to the airman as a distant lighthouse to a sailor in a storm.

 

Then the searchlights begin to blaze, creeping up across the sky in

ribbons of shining brightness. One plays for a moment on the machine,

the pilot is almost blinded before it passes on its strange search

across the heavens. But a stringent search reveals--nothing! For

an encounter with the raiding airship is not at all probable at an

altitude of below 6000 ft., and from that height up to 15,000 ft.; the

only likely encounter is with the observation car of a Zepp. This car

is usually suspended hundreds of feet beneath the mother-craft by means

of a stout aluminum cable or cables, is about 7 ft. by 5 ft., composed

entirely of aluminum, and contains sufficient space for one observer,

who is in telephonic communication with the commander.

 

At last the pilot of the aeroplane has an instinctive feeling that a

Zeppelin is somewhere near him. He cannot hear because of the noise

of his own engine, and he cannot see because of the intensity of the

darkness all around him.

 

The combat between the aeroplane and the Zeppelin might be compared

to that between the British destroyers and the German Dreadnoughts in

the recent Jutland battle. Dashing in with great rapidity and skill,

the tiny one-gunned aeroplane fires its broadside, then makes off as

fast as possible to get out of range of the comparatively heavy-armed

airship. From thence onwards it develops into a fight for the upper

position, for once above the Zeppelin the aeroplane pilot can use his

bombs, which are considerably more effective than a machine-gun, and

the broad back of the gasbag offers a target which can hardly be missed.

 

In maneuvering, the aeroplane has the great advantage of being

remarkably quick, both in turning, climbing, and coming down, whereas

the Zeppelin again is a slow and clumsy beast at the best of times. The

Zeppelin is very susceptible to flame and explosion of any kind; the

gas in the envelope, a mixture of hydrogen and air, forms an extremely

explosive mixture. The aeroplane, owing to the fabric of which it is

composed, and the petrol needed for propulsion, is to a certain degree

inflammable, but not nearly to the same extent as the airship. On the

other hand, the airship possesses a distinct advantage in that it is

able to shut off its engines, and to hover, which it is impossible for

an aeroplane to do.

 

Again, in the matter of speed in a forward direction, and, for that

matter, backwards also--for the Zeppelin engines are reversible--the

aeroplane holds the palm with an average speed of sixty miles per hour,

while that of the airship is only fifty.

 

The combat finished, the aeroplane pilot has yet to make a landing,

surely the most dangerous and tricky maneuver of the whole flight.

The difficulties and dangers thus encountered are too obvious to need

explanation further than to say that the landing has to be effected in

the dark, with only a blinding, dazzling, electric ground-light for

guidance.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

THE COMPLETE AIRMAN

 

 

The British Air Service is now a great army, 80 per cent. of whom,

before the war, had never even seen an aeroplane, much less been up

in one,--bank clerks, young merchants, undergrads, doctors, lawyers,

journalists, all endowed with two sterling qualities required by the

pilot of the air, courage and level-headedness. And how has this great

miracle been accomplished? August 1914, found us lamentably short of

both _personnel_ and material, but what little there was of the very

best. The already experienced pilots set to work with a will upon

the more than generous quantity of raw material that came to hand.

Within a few months their influence made itself felt. They taught the

“quirk”--the airman’s pet name for the novice--in their own simple and

undemonstrative manner, that the air is to be respected, but never

feared, the aeroplane treated as a being of life and animation, with

quaint humors peculiarly its own, and not as a lifeless mass of metal

and woodwork. Within six months the number of fully trained British

pilots had trebled itself; within one year the number had grown beyond

all proportion, and still it goes on.

 

The usual method of training a new hand is to get him used to the

air, which, though apparently harmless and void, is as tricky and

treacherous as the sea. The beginner is taken up for several flights

as a passenger. In the initial flight the pilot will perform the most

daring maneuvers and precipitate turns, watching his passenger closely

the whole time for any signs of nervousness or fear. It is a most

trying ordeal that first trip up aloft, and the bravest hearts have

been known to quail.

 

 

FIRST FLIGHT ORDEALS

 

Recently there was a case at a large school of a Major of marines,

concerning whose courage there could be not the slightest doubt, and

who possessed, among other decorations, the much coveted D.S.O. After

a first trip above, the Major remained in his seat of the landed

aeroplane for fully a quarter of an hour, ashen of countenance, and

too terrified to speak. It was not cowardice, but simply that he was

temperamentally unsuited. At length, when he had composed himself

sufficiently to clamber out, he vowed that never again would he go up

in an aeroplane.

 

Following the first flights there are numerous trips in dual-control

machines, that is to say, with the ordinary pilot’s control-stick

and steering-bar duplicated, and both couples working under the same

control. Thus, gradually, the “quirk” becomes used to the handling

of the craft and accustomed to the sudden drop in an air bank, or

to an outward slip in a gust of wind, until eventually, without his

knowledge, the instructor allows him to fly the machine himself.

 

Sufficient progress made, he is allowed to make flights alone, and

when he has learnt to bank left and right, and land the machine in a

safe and seemly manner, permission is given him to attempt the Royal

Aero Club’s certificate; for which an altitude flight, a distance

flight, and a landing on a given spot are the only tests that are

necessary. This, let it be said, is but the starting-point of the

flying education. Flying fast machines, wireless operating, machine-gun

firing, bomb-dropping, navigation and map-reading are still to be

mastered. Only one who has been in the air and seen that queer panorama

of jumbled green, gray and blue, stretching away for miles on either

hand behind him, can appreciate the difficulties of an air pilot

endeavoring to make a true course from a mist-bound earth; or when

one’s hands are frozen to the bone, and the ice-cold wind whistles by

one’s ears, the extreme difficulty of maneuvering the control-stick

and working the machine-gun at one and the same time.

 

 

RECONNAISSANCE AND NIGHT FLYING

 

This much for daylight flying, but what of the night when sky and earth

are alike indistinguishable? Truly night flying is a science unto

itself which needs more than the average amount of courage. However,

nightwork is given to only the most experienced pilots.

 

With active service flying again, we enter into a new phase of which

reconnaissance work occupies at least eighty per cent. of the time.

Simply put, reconnaissance means flying over the other fellow’s lines

to see what he is about, if he is massing troops at a certain point, or

digging in new gun emplacements, or if there is any unusual activity on

the highways and railways immediately behind his firing line. It is a

difficult matter to differentiate between infantry and cavalry on the

march; to distinguish a cleverly hidden gun emplacement, or to tell the

difference between an ammunition and a supply depot.

 

Bomb-dropping is a practice that requires the patience of a Job, good

judgment, and a calm day--that is, if it is required to attain any

degree of accuracy. Last, but not least, there is the matter of aerial

combat, which, however, covers too wide a field for discussion in this

short chapter.

 

Thus, in the complete air-pilot, we have a blend of gunner, wireless

expert, map-reader, amateur detective, and aviator.

 

 

 

 

PART II

 

ON ACTIVE SERVICE

 

 

(Part II contains a series of incidents and adventures taken from the

note-book of a British air pilot, stationed somewhere in the north of

France, and are given in their original diary form.)

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX

 

BEHIND THE FIRING LINE

 

 

_Somewhere in France,

Friday._

 

Tucked away in a corner of an unused Flanders roadway, a long straggled

line of irregular shaped huts and sheds surrounding a wide open meadow

land, several acres in extent, is the aerodrome I have in mind.

 

On either side are the long gaunt avenues of trees and in rear of them,

bare and low-lying arable lands.

 

No one can claim for it that it is a beauty spot. But it is comfortable,

and above all one is able to obtain a bath there.

 

On the right are the officers’ quarters: three long, low, wooden huts.

Within, a passage runs along the center of the hut; and on either side

of it are the various cabins, each about six feet square, and providing