FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0919.PDF
AUGUST 15, 1918. a regular delivery. This is but a beginning, so it is said, Greek enterprise hoping to be well in the front in the field of aerial mails. WONDER whether General Brancker came back to England from the United States by aeroplane ? Or have we got some- thing superlative in the way of greyhounds of the sea ? Anyway, from the other side came cabled reports of General Brancker's doings and sayings in Washington on August 8th, duly recorded in the Press this side, but it was certainly General Brancker in the flesh who was down Twickenham way last Saturday when Princess Patricia christened an A.S.C. " Camel" gift for the R.A.F. There was nothing of the hump apparent about the somewhat unlooked for visitor. - So our one and only " H.P." is no more. At least so laments Le Matin of August 9th—and justifies it by a psean of praise that only those who are no longer in a position to take ad- vantage of it, can possibly expect. To read one's own obituary notice with frillings is not an unmixed blessing— sometimes. In " H.P^6 " case it does not seem to have had any ill-.effects, judging by the enjoyment which the victim appears to have got out of its perusal. At the same time, the nation has a lot to be thankful for that Le Matin is not as accurate in its information this session as it usually aspires to. When we rang up patriot Handley Page on Saturday to condole with him and to ask him all about it, it was the cheeriest corpse which, in a very fine imitation of Handley Page himself, promptly replied " Na pooh ; far too busy getting out still more hefty Hun straf ers to have time to think about passing in my checks yet awhile. Sorry if you are dis- appointed.'' So there it is. Now it is up to Le Matin to do a resurrection stunt. • . WHAT' s in a name ? Wasn't it Lloyd George who originated the 9d. for 4d. stunt, which has hung so clingingly on our weekly labours ever since ? And now again it is his name which has worked another little nr/ancial wonder in even more astounding ratio. Put up for sale by auction, after it had been read to the audience at Worthing Pier Pavilion last week, a copy of the Prime Minister's message to the nation was sold for 20 guineas, which will be given to the local " Hat Week" Fund of the Y.M.C.A. The purchaser was an airman, Mr. E. G. Benham, who paid another five guineas for the envelope in which the message was sent. - THE HUN. By L. W. FAUCETT. THREE undercarriages, one wing tip, yards and yards of gauze, have I consumed from British stores. As a result of me, one instructor is prostrate with neurasthenia and the rest are tippling on the verge. One perfectly good British Rumpety have I brought down, decidedly out of control. My every flight is a jaunt of destruction for the cause of King George. I'm the chap who, in pre-war days, rocked the boat and fired the gun that wasn't loaded. Now I'm in the R.A.F., and I'm the lad who keeps your mechanics toiling till the midnight wick wanes, the raison d'itre for aircraft depOts, the sine qua non of crashes—in other words, A HUN 1 There are Huns and Huns, the difference being that some of us are worse. Have you met the shy, young tabby-boy, who bashfully asks for joyfiys—a coming lace, but success- fully camouflaged for the present as a Hun ? He sits at the same table with the wash-out, who always has wanted to be an A.E.O. He is positive that he is unsuited for the air before he has been off terra most finna. And then, woe is me; there's the numskull I In various squadrons he is known by various names—" the invalid above the eye- brows," " the bloomer with bats in Jiis belfry," or perhaps " the chap with things in his thatch." By any other name he would be as dreaded. If the lot were fastened in night as Alpine climbers, there wouldn't be a one to hold the -others up, for all <are hopelessly duds in the dome. Another Hun whom instructors see coming is Sweetieboy, the swanker, who thought the uniform would become him. Speaking technically, at the 'drome he spends most ,of h^ time wangling mikes by swinging lead ; but he does his best flying in Piccadilly, where even the birds adore him. Outshouted by the funkers, swankers and duds, but far from outnumbered, are the sportsmen—keen, modest and capable—true Britishers. ^ . • , - :•, -^ - '•-•»•:•'•" Such are the Huns! ' *•••-. • . Once, as Fledglings, we were wont to swank, but no longer do we theorise nonchalantly about that mysterious angel of incidence, which in some wonder-working way wafts the bus heavenward I No longer do we speak off-hand oi the stroke of the Clerget cylinder that runs so smoothly in its piston I And neyer again shall we startle fond, admiring parents, with startling facts of aerobatics, nor will Tom Brown again tell grandfather how, after being sucked along the hollow crankshaft and through the inlet valve into the cylinder,, the spark is compressed, fired and exhausted to the atmosphere. Alas t these days are gone for ever, and the Fledgling has become a Hun—a very humble animal, indeed. It happened this way. t The instructor is ready. The cocky Fledgling steps up and takes his seat. At once the engine roars like a Judg- ment Day barrage. The machine gathers speed. Before the erstwhil j swankling is aware he is in the great unknown, a neophyte in a new element, a helpless passenger belted to a wild creature with the fickleness of an Irish colleen, the fury Ministry of Information. An R.A.F. patrol flight leaving the aerodrome on the British Western Front in France for the German lines. 917. - ^v:-;- '"•••••"•••^^;
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
