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
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