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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0762.PDF
\fiMn OCTOBER S, 1915. FLYIJ^ DON SOMEWHERE on the coast, somewhere in England, there is a confrire taking his ease, and what he would call a well-earned rest, who ought to be herein the office writing these notes. I make this explanation that I am not the usual Hendon Notes man, in order that I may have the opportunity of telling you, before, as the office boy would say, you " rumble " me. True to my promise to my absent friend, but inwardly somewhat ill at ease with the mag nitude of my task, I started on Saturday to report the week-end at Hendon to the best of my ability. Saturday is soon disposed of—it rained in that gentle yet persistent manner so beloved of farmers at certain times of the year, but never any good for flying. Hendon was cold and dark and miserable. The ground was veiled in mist and rain, there was not a machine out nor a soul in sight. The machines I knew were in their sheds, the souls I found where souls only could congregate on such a day—I shall not disclose the identical spot. Later in the day, the rain cleared, and machines and men appeared as from nowhere, to start school work. Together they filled the air, and were all over the ground like rabbits out for sport. I religiously started to make notes, but gave it up in bewilderment. To me it was impossible. Aeroplanes were around and all over me, and to attempt to get any idea as to who the pilots might be was beyond me. My impression was that four hundred Caudrons were chasing school 'buses and Avros and Farmans and Beatty-Wrights all over the ground and in the air, making sudden dashes at them on the earth, and following them into the air when they tried to elude them. How ever they managed to escape colliding I don't know. This was, I am told, the usual evening school work at Hendon, and I can only say in the words from across the pond—" Gee ! Some school! " Sunday was fine, fine to the extent of making up for the previous day and some to spare. I arrived to find Moore and Hall in the air, apparently trying to fly at one another's throats, the while Virgilio and Winter circled round the pair as though rounding them up. Evidently their spirits, in the reaction from the damping effects of the previous day's rain, had risen under the influence of the genial sunshine, and they, creatures of the air that they are, bounded up to whisk and dance in its smiles. Baumann, Roche-Kelly, and Manton were busy carry ing passengers, and Osipenko roared around on the big "Flight" Copyright. Mr. A. E. Barrs, who is flying the Mann biplane at Hendon. "Flight" Copyright. Mr. A. E. Barrs returning on the Mann biplane at Hendon, after having taken her up to an altitude of 5,000 feet. 762
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