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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 1157.PDF
DECEMBER 21, 1916. " A country where the elements are so perverse as they are in Mesopotamia must have its air disabilities. At different altitudes you meet currents blowing in contrary directions, and the change as you pass from one into the other makes very bumpy flying. This is an accentuation of the atmospheric conditions which at one time we re referred to as' air-pockets,' the popular idea being that the machine suddenly found itself in a void through which it fell, having no supporting envelope until it reached normal atmosphere again. " Though the wind currents over the desert are eccentric, the Shamed, or north wind, blows at some level or other all through the year. If it is not blowing on the ground you will strike it in your machine if you go high enough. Sometimes the air is calm at the ground level, while there is a gale blowing at 5,000 feet. Or you may ascend in a gale, which increases in violence until you have passed an altitude of 6,000 feet, when you strike an atmosphere where it is perfectly smooth going. In the hot weather.conditions for flying are very trying. At night and in the early morning the air at 500 feet is far hotter than on the ground, and it becomes hotter and hotter until you reach 3,500 feet. You must make 6,000 feet before you begin to feel cool. The intense heat thins the oil; you can never run your engine full out or she will get red hot. You lose 20 horse-power at a temperature of 115 degrees. Long flights are impossible. After 9 a.m. the heat makes conditions most adverse for flying, and there is nothing doing in the evening. The wood warps and shrinks in the sun. New machines have to be rerigged when they come out,' and the dust chokes the engines. The sand rises in clouds and blows as high as 4,000 feet. " During the last rainy season mud sometimes put our machines out of action. After a single day's rain at Oran a 90 horse-power engine and eight men could not move an aeroplane in the driest part of the aerodrome in the driest part of the camp. Then there are the floods. An aeroplane at Kurnah or Nasiriyeh, between April and July, has the same difficulty in finding a dry spot as Noah's dove. And it is much easier to land than to get away. At the beginning of the campaign, when we were operating in country where the tribesmen were in the pay of the Turks, the landing difficulty increased the odds against our airmen. An aviator going up to Nasiriyeh in July, 1915, had to land in an inun dated area. He was able to bring his machine down in the flooded water on the friendly side of the river. He escaped with his revolver and rations as the Arabs on the other bank 1/itGHTl H H Air Work in the Verdun Push. WRITING from Verdun on December 15th as an eyewitness of the Verdun battle, Mr. G. H. Perris in his despatch to the Daily Telegraph makes the following reference to the work of aircraft:— " Heavy purple clouds filled the sky, but only a few scurries of rain and sleet fell during the day, and the dark hillsides rising toward the central crest of Douaumont remained clear of mist. This was an important advantage, for the French aviators were able to carry on without cessation their valuable raade^for the machine, but friendly Arabs opened fin* on them and scattered them, and the aeroplane was recovered intact. During the return from Nasinyeh. two machine* came to ground, one alighting near Khamisiych. It waa just after the defeat of the Turks, and a responsible Shaikh received the pilot and entertained him hospitably. The other machine came down the same day within 15 miles, but it fell amongst defeated and retreating auxiliaries, who were iu no mood to give quarter. Both pilot and observer were killed. " Now we are having tiling very much our own way, though the enemy have Drought out some good machines, fine fliers, and gallant men. Then two [•'okk.ers disappeared after a fight with our airmen on August 13th. and have not been seen since. One landed well within"the Turkish lines; the other on rough ground by the Tigris bank, where it was broken up by our gun tiro. Since this 0111 machines have carried out their work unmolested. One of our pilots made a great sensation in the Turkish camp the other day when he looped the loop and cartwheeled over Kut in contempt of their Archibalds. Prisoners tell us that this derisive little bit of bravado impressed our friends immensely. "Chaff is exchanged freely betwecu the n\.il living Corps. Many of the enemy pilots are (Vermans, but even the Hun can become a gentleman in the air. His nature seems to improve with the element he frequents. Most gross on earth, less gross at sea, least gross in the clouds. " Apparently, altitude purges and refines, or it may be that the finished clod does not take to the air in the beginning. A 100-lb. bomb, or a drum of machine-gun bullets are a_ better currency than chaff, but our air scrapping is none the' less formidable for the high spirits in which the Flying Corps goes into action. Smith inquiries of Schultz : ' why don't you use the aeroplane we left you at Kut ? Can drop you spare parts if they are any use.' It was a mere shell of a machine, and information had come through that they were trying to put a German engine in it. Go on dropping bomb* on our aeroplane,' Schultz retorts ; ' it is from 800 to 900 metres high, and you haven't done any damage yet. By the way, we have a machine that will strafe you, born of an English mother by a German father (engine), an improved 1916 type.' Hence its barbarous hum (barbanscht Ilummen). The English illustrated papers, when they contain anything which may penetrate the Hun epidermis, are dropped on their aeroplanes. Simplicissimus and Jugend rain upon ours." 13 13 work. Despite a strong and icy wind, the great biplanes and the little Nieuports came and went, while a dosen sausages held permanent guard at the end of their long cables. There must have been some German planes near the front, but I did not •see one on our side of the lines, and I only saw one German observation balloon, and that was falling like a huge torch beyond Douaumont, an incident typical of the enemy's day. " Everywhere the sky is splashed with the rising and tailing flames of signal rockets, and in every part of the front intrepid airmen swim in and out of the zone of death." IN THr WHITFHEAD AIRCRAFT WORKS.-On the left a wood-workers' gallery, and on the right a IN THE WHITEHEAD AIKCKAF^ ^^^ some ol the women worker*. 1129
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