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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0011.PDF
JANUARY 3, 1914. (/jJGHT) I HAD a letter from Harry Busteed recently, enclosed with the photograph of himself which figured in our "Man of Moment" series, which perhaps puts the case for the inclusion of this page in FLIGHT in a nut-shell. He has been away for some time down at Pembroke Dock testing hydro-aeroplanes, and complains that because he is far away, everybody seems to have forgotten him. That's just the rub ! If pilots go away and won't write to us to let us know what is happening in their part of the world, how on earth are we to know ? I, like most people, derive great pleasure in receiving letters, and I should like all to write to me and let me have all the news, and I promise to write back, and so we may in the new year keep in touch with one another to our mutual pleasure and, I hope, benefit. By the way, I see that he has just been gazetted a Sub-Lieutenant in the reserve of the " King's Navee," so the Government have added another good pilot to their list. XXX Except to his personal friends, it is perhaps not generally known that Mr. B. C. Hucks is a past-master in the art of repartee. To be a silent witness to a battle of wits between him and another is indeed a treat. Perhaps a couple of instances will not be amiss here. Some little time ago when flying at Birmingham, where, on alighting, the people flocked round the machine and could not be kept back, he was much pestered by one of the " nutty " type, who had evidently read it all up and wanted to air his knowledge before his lady companion, when the following took place :— " Ah ! This is a Bleriot, is it not ? " " Yes; this is a Bleriot." " Ah ! It's a Gnome engine, is it not ? " " Yes; it's a Gnome engine." " Ah ! The whole thing revolves, does it not ? " "Well, not exactly. In this case it's only the engine." " Oh !—er—yes, of course, I meant that. The petrol is led into the engine by a hollow tube, is it not ? " " Yes, in this case it is; but some use a solid one, I believe!" XXX At the same meeting Mr. Hucks remarked to some friends that it was very windy, and that he had got rather badly bumped once or twice. He was overheard by a little man who stood about four feet nothing in his shoes. "Wind? I thought aviators flew in any wind now ; why, there's no wind to-day! " Hucks, who is fairly tall, looked down at his little heckler, with a world of pity in his eyes. "Well, there might not be ' any wind down where you are, sonny, but there is up here ! " XXX The recent action brought by the Pashley Brothers, to recover damages arising from a collision of aeroplanes, was memorable, not only because it was the first case of the kind brought in the High Courts in England, but also because, strange to say, both the plaintiff and the defendant limped into court with crutches and sticks, EDDIES. though through no effects of the accident. One had been injured by a motor cycle and the other received his hurt at football. It is notorious that all airmen consider themselves much more safe in the air than when following sport of any kind on the ground. Mr. Grahame-White once remarked that he never felt safe in a taxi, and much preferred to be aloft; and I was once at Brooklands during the progress of a motor cycle race, when Gordon Bell, who was once a motor cycle racer, was asked how he would like to go back to it again : " Not me," he said, " it's too dangerous." K X X Once again is the danger arising from the fascination of speed brought home to us by the sad death of poor Bobbie Slack. There is very little room to doubt that men accustomed to flying get saturated with the lust for speed, and hardly realise they are indulging in it when on the road. I have ridden with several airmen in their cars, and one and all have driven much too fast for safety on the public roads. I am not at all afraid of speed in its proper place, and have ridden round the track at Brook lands quite as fast as is necessary to cure a sluggish liver, but on the road, one is safe only till something happens. A friend of mine has recently been doing a good deal of motoring in a very hilly district as a passenger in a car driven at speed. On the last day the back axle broke just as they got home. Had it broken half an-hour previously when they were descending almost a precipice, a most serious accident could not have been avoided. XXX It is a pity that such a splendid aerodrome as that at Shoreham should have so little attraction for the people of Brighton. Brighton is a most peculiar place, and its people look down on Shoreham and Portslade as poor relations, and will have none of them. I certainly thought that such an event as the looping the loop by Mr. B. C. Hucks would have drawn a big crowd, but the result could not have been very en couraging, and no doubt it will be some time before they see Hucks there again. Yet when Salmet had to make a descent at Ripton Farm, off the Maid stone road, on his flight to France with the Hon. Mrs. Assheton Harboard as a pas senger, a crowd of over a thousand people were quickly on the spot. Yes, Brighton, indeed, is a funny place, and no commercial traveller will go there if he can possibly avoid it. It is one of the jokes of the trade to send a new man to Brighton on his first trip; if that doesn't break his heart, he will turn out a good man. XXX The difficulty of landing the fast little Morane-Saulnier monoplane has been seen at Hendon recently, where three of them have turned turtle after a good landing and when almost at the finish of their run. It seems rather a pity that this machine is not fitted with some sort of small front skid, not with any idea of saving the machine in a rough landing, but simply to offer some resistance to its standing on its nose just at the end of the run, and so save a few broken propellers. It seems to take very little 11
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