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Aviation History
1909
1909 - 0434.PDF
JULY 24, 1909. THE SPLI AFTER more than a week of anxious waiting, the Channel flight has been attempted and lost. But what a splendid failure Mr. Latham made of his try. Everyone regrets that the precise task which he set out to accomplish is not achieved, and everyone sympathises with such a genuine sportsman in his misfortune. But after all is said and done, has not Mr. Latham's successful failure taught even more than would have been available from an uneventful success? Had he flown from Sangatte to Dover as had been hoped, and as he may yet do with the fates more favourable to his project, there would still have been that plaintive cry wailing beneath the general thunder of applause "Yes, but whatever would have happened had he fallen in the sea ? " It might have been years before anyone would have been found to come forward in willingness to demonstrate an answer to this question, for even apart from personal risk there is ever the prospect of losing a costly machine, and where logic fails to influence via the head, it is generally potent enough through the pocket. The •chance which brought Mr. Latham down in mid-Channel, therefore, should, seeing that it did him no harm, be regarded from the standpoint of the old adage that " it's an ill wind that blows nobody good." The question of being able to make a safe descent as far as the surface of the water, in the event of a mishap, was never really in doubt, since all aviators are agreed that, given sufficient height, it it practically always within the bounds of possibility to glide in the end even if the equilibrium of the machine has been temporarily upset in the beginning ; that is, of course, always assuming that the pilot is a cool hand, and Mr. Latham is that and a good deal more. Taking the water at gliding speed— which by the way is at least that of the normal speed of flight—is an altogether different matter, and needed some such practical evidence as Mr. Latham gave on Monday, in order to supply any sort of clue as to what might be reasonably expected in a similary emergency. As to what might happen after the machine had settled on the water, there was also very considerable doubt, although we believe that Mr. Latham himself never expected anything else but that his flyer would float. There remained only one other point, and that was as to how far the pilot might hope to save himself should the machine sink, and this last we are exceedingly pleased Mr. Latham did not have to prove; he had done quite enough for one morning's work, and it was after all the least the fates could have done for him after he had braved their frown in such a sporting manner, to give him at the end the chance to smoke a cigarette in peace. It is, of course, quite impossible to overrate the importance of the personal factor in an emergency of the kind which befell Mr. Latham. He was on the point of taking a photograph of his convoy, the torpedo destroyer " Harpon," as it steamed furiously through the waters nearly a thousand feet below, when he first heard his engine mis-fire. If in the whole gamut of human sensations there is anything more likely to bring one's heart into one's mouth than the sudden mis-firing of one's engine while aboard a flyer a thousand feet above the sea, we should like to know of it; it should come very near to paralysing the nerve centres, we should imagine. " Instantly I gave up any idea of photography " is Mr. Latham's first remark in commenting upon the incident. Well, it needs a little getting used to, to appreciate the •exact frame of mind which will permit of an interest in snapshots simultaneously with the necessity of paying attention to flight, so that perhaps after all it is only in keeping with the situation that Mr. Latham should have found it natural to explain that he did not finish taking the picture before he attended to anything else. In fact, one may even be permitted to regret, under the circum- stances, that the photograph was not taken ; it would have been such an extraordinarily interesting momento of the occasion. " I examined all the electrical connections that were within my reach," continues Mr. Latham in the narrative he wrote for the Daily Mail. Could anything possibly give greater confidence in the future of the flyer than this simple statement? Here is a man who has such con- fidence in his machine that he is able, at critical moments like this, to set about trying to cure ignition troubles, forsooth, in mid-air. We can almost imagine that it would have needed no more than the slightest excuse for Mr. Latham to have set about and changed an ignition plug. But, as he explains, " I could hear that more than one of the eight cylinders were mis-firing." Affected by the recollection of the difficulty, Mr. Latham gives way at last to his first signs of feeling. " It was maddening, but I was helpless. Never before had the engine played me such a trick after so short a flight." Like all good sportsmen, Mr. Latham accepted the inevitable, but with the firm intention of making the best of that, too, and having "calculated that the torpedo boat destroyer was about a mile away " he glided down to the surface of the water, for, as he succinctly remarks, " There was nothing else to be done." Describing his descent, Mr. Latham says, " I came down not in a series of short glides, but in one clean straight downward slope. My speed at the moment of impact was about 40 or 45 miles an hour. The machine was under perfect control during ascent; instead of diving into the sea at an angle I skimmed down so that I was able to make contact with the sea with the aeroplane practically in a horizontal position. It settled on the water and floated like a cork. I swung my feet up on to a cross bar to prevent them from getting wet. Then I took out my cigarette case, lit a cigarette, and waited for the torpedo destroyer to come up." Although Mr. Latham does not actually make the remark, we imagine it was merely an omission that he did not conclude the above sentence with his former delightful platitude, " There was nothing else to be done." The gliding descent, the taking of the water in a horizontal attitude at a speed of 40 miles an hour, and the subsequent bouyancy of the Antoinette flyer, are all matters of the greatest possible importance, less, perhaps, on account of any immediate and direct application than because of their unique character. No man wants to lose his life in flying if he can help it, and even the best of swimmers, and we believe Mr. Latham is a master of this accomplishment, generally dislike getting wet within their clothes. .But there are bound to be many enthusiasts who aspire to the Channel crossing, and it is going to make all the difference in the world what machine becomes popular for this little journey, as to which affords the greatest security in the event of mishap. Even the best regulated of engines are apt to misfire, and if they follow this up by stopping off work altogether, as Mr. Latham's motor did, there is, as Mr. Latham expresses it, nothing else to be done save to descend upon the water with what ease 436
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