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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0617.PDF
AUGUST 20, 1915. furnished a striking illustration of the difference in methods of our own and the enemy's aviators. He was relating in a typical, unassuming way one of his many bomb-dropping excursions to points of military import ance, and told of how, one day when his mission was to get home on a certain building, he slightly overflew his objective, and had to make a detour before being able to launch his bombs on the mark with decent certainty. It was evident that to him and his brother pilots this was so much a matter of course as to require no special emphasis, and it was told quite incidentally. All the while he was being peppered by anti-aircraft guns, and it does not require a very vivid imagination to appre ciate how great must have been the temptation to let loose right away the whole cargo of bombs, seeing that a bullet or fragment of shell might at any moment explode the lot and blow him and his machine to " kingdom come." When comparing the self-restraint that enables a man to refrain from dropping his bombs where innocent civilians might be injured, and to prefer running the maximum of risk in order to make sure of hitting the sought-for mark, and hitting that onty, with the indis criminate way in which the enemy's aviators scatter their missiles broadcast, one begins to appreciate more and more the spirit that has enabled our aviators to establish the personal ascendency referred to by Sir John French in his despatches. XXX When one comes to consider the nature of aerial trips over hostile territory, be they reconnaissance flights, range- finding, or bomb-dropping expeditions, subject all the while to the liveliest fire from anti-aircraft guns, it really seems a marvel that pilots, and observers too for that matter, do not suffer from nervous breakdown after a A French Volsin brought down by the Germans In Breisgau. The French officers managed to set fire to the machine before being captured. few weeks of such gruelling. Imagine a machine going about its business with shells bursting all around, the observer being on the look-out for the object of the flight, while the pilot is keeping an eye on the missiles, so as to change his altitude when they begin to burst uncomfortably close, and at the same time watching his instruments and having an occasional look round to see that his machine and observer are all there. There are several instances of planes returning with stay wires cut, with chunks of metal from shell fragments stuck in inter- 6 [^JCHT] plane struts, with spaTS partly cut through and petrol tanks pierced. One pilot returning from a flight on a Maurice Farman found on landing that both the upper tail booms were nearly severed, one being half cut through and the other hanging by only a thin splinter. When to these dangers of breakage in the air is added attacks by hostile aviators, armed with machine guns, trying to " get" the pilot or observer, an opinion—only an inkling of course, but still some idea—can be formed of the terrific strain to which these riders of the air are subjected. XXX Week in and week out we receive proof of the thorough ness with which our readers peruse the pages of Flight, READY! A German military biplane awaiting the order to start. a case in point being an anonymous letter sent me the other day by a writer who, after reading the par. in " Eddies " of last week about Hawker's little flight on the Beatty-Wright, sends the following " laconicism " : "Flight, Vol. 4, page 1005, ' British Notes of the Week,' paragraph 1. Really I '/Eolus' should read his own paper (or go to the front and let a woman come in)." Well, to be quite frank, at the time of writing the par. Hawker's excellent performances on fast Sopwith machines was so vivid in my memory as to exclude temporarily his 8 hrs. 23 mins. flight on the Sopwith-Wright for the Michelin Cup in 1912. Anyhow, had I wanted to " wriggle out" I might have stated in defence that the par. in question did not state that Hawker had never flown a Wright, but that most of his experience had been gained on high-powered fast Sopwith machines. The anonymous note would, under ordinary circumstances, have gone straight to the wicker-work structure, resembling the fighting top of an American battleship, at the side of my desk. But I stayed my hand by reason of the feminine handwriting, the evidence of the use of scissors in insulating the par. from " Eddies," which a mere man would have accomplished by jagging it with his pocket knife or by simply tearing it off, and the up-to date advice given in the last part of the letter, all unmistakably indicating a lady reader. Under those circumstances I could hardly consign a scented (at least I think it was, but am not certain, as I am at present enjoying a cold) epistle to the w.p.b. Could I now ? "^EOLUS." 7
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