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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0648.PDF
1W ^ ^*£O*'*MS*£IA strong point, done byJLieut.yLeist, is a peculiar piece of subfusc work, the colour of death. Mr. Caton Woodville has a debonniare picture, the " Entry of the 5th Lancers into Mons." Mr. W. B. Wollen's " Cavalry of the Air " is a convincing canvas, though after so much battle, murder, and sudden death, one was grateful for a simple study of a lady taking a recherch? looking tea (with egg complete) in bed ! THE gem of the exhibition, from an aeronautical point of view, is Capt. Louis Weirter's " British Aeroplane being pursued by German machines after photographing their positions, August, 1917." This is wondrous bad, so unreal, and so nightmarish, that even the women-folk exclaim at its untruth. It has been given the best position in Burlington House, why ?—Heaven knows ; but it makes you remember Lord George Sanger's posters, or those multicoloured sheets outside kinema shows. The tail of the British aeroplane has shrunk coyly up into the fuselage, and the air is thick with cotton-woolly explosions. " Help from the U.S. Destroyers," by Bernard Gribble, is very different. An almost foundered seaplane, the exhausted pilot flattened helplessly on the wing, and the boat's taffrail lined with eager U.S. Jackies. " A Lame Duck in the Channel," by Julius Olsson, is a fine picture of a dazzled destroyer limping home under the baleful eye of the moon, peeping through the cloud-wrack overhead. "The Surrender," by Charles Dixon (more German Fleet) has a pretty salmon-flecked sky (was it a fine day when the whipped Hun came in ? I think not), and an unnatural clarity. THERE is magic in Lieut. Gilbert Holiday's work, " Quo fas el Gloria ducunl," the gunners of the 2nd Army passing the saluting base on the Hohenzollern Bridge, December 13, 1918. The cobbles gleam in the rain as the gun-teams go glorying past ; you feel proud as you watch it. There is a shilling's worth of inspiration here, though in some of the other rooms it is far to seek. As is always the case, many of the exhibits make you wonder whether the Selection Com mittee suffered en masse from ophthalmia. But there are some jolly little things hidden in odd corners, which the people with lorgnettes don't seem to discover ! AN old friend, Major Arthur Partridge, once a fellow- scribe in New York, and now official starter at St. John's, writes us a few hurried and lurid lines concerning the delay in taking off. It appears that the weather is " perfectly pestiferous," with never-changing east winds, fog, rain, and cold. Neither Hawker nor Morgan has a proper ground from which to unstick, as the island was manifestly not designed for this purpose. Both aerodromes are cramped, awkwardly placed, and prone to turn into seas of mud on the slightest provocation. Trees and rocks abound, and there does not seem to be anywhere to alight in case of engine OUR YOUNG MAJORS AND VETERAN E.O.'s "Now look here, my son! " etc., etc. MAY 15, 1919 failure. The men are bearing up stoically in the face of repeated rebuffs, and the sarcastic comments of the locals, though naturally the strain is telling on them. "Wherever you go you tumble over inquisitive New York reporters, as persistent as Jerome's snowstorm that " wanted to go to bed with you ! " BUSINESS folk will learn with sorrow that the aeroplane has added what the French call " a new shudder " to life. " The Knight of the Grip "—or the commercial traveller, as we call him, the sportsman with the Little-Oil-Bath tongue, who trots round with non-spillable inkwells, non-leakable fountain pens, and non-readable books, is likely to " drop in " by 'plane. The precedent has already been established ; a Norwich building firm sent off an estimate and had it in the enquirer's hands in forty minutes, nearly two hours' saving on the time that a train journey would have occupied. A NUMBER of smug sportsmen rather given to " thinking through their lungs " are gibing more or less covertly at the waiting aviators in Newfoundland. During the early days of flying in America there was much of this sort of thing, and many a first-class pilot was killed by allowing an angry crowd that wanted something for its money, a crash if nothing else offered—to " haze " him into going up against his own better judgment. We remember an instance where an exhibition pilot was browbeaten by the onlookers on an exceptionally treacherous and gusty day. He flushed to the eyes, and favoured them with some really inspired pro fanity. Then he went up, in spite of the efforts made to deter him by those who were aware of the risk. A cross wind spoilt his landing, and consequently he sustained a compound fracture of the left leg. Let us hope the men across the water will take for their motto the old—" They say—what say they—let them say ! " THERE seem to be possibilities in that aeroplane display department on the ground floor of York House, Kingsway. There are yards and yards of aeroplane linen, suitable for pyjamas, as one salesman suggested (though for our own part we should think that they would produce an effect akin to sleeping on a very scrubby ice-floe). Several rather obese ladies were noticed on the occasion of our visit making sotto voce enquiries as to a cheap reduction gear. A CAPTAIN in the Royal Engineers writes to the papers to say that he is having quite a good time in what was " German East " big-game hunting by aeroplane. Imagine the hectic joys of the pursuit of the coy quagga or the gay gazelle en avion ! The nimble wart-hog in his fastness could be bombed out, and the demure rhinocerous enticed up a suspended rope. Apart from this sort of thing—it really would be rather interesting to see whether the protective colouring of the beasties is as effective from above. In the ordinary way the zebra and the girafie, for all their dazzle effects, melt into sun-flecked woodland backgrounds perfectly. You can see nothing until a betraying tail or ear flicks and discovers the whole. But I hope the idea won't come to anything ; man is quite deadly enough to the jungle folk as it is, without further aids. • H H H The Risks of Flying SPEAKING at a luncheon given by the Overseas Club and Patriotic League on May 7, Major-Gen. J. E. B. Seely, Under-Secretary for Air, said he looked forward to the time when they would be able to travel from Australia to England in a few days instead of many weeks. There must be many disappointments, and he was told that they would not be able to get the Prime Ministers of the Dominions to visit them because they would drop into the sea, but he did not believe it. From the latest figures it appeared that, if one wanted to learn to fly, one's chance to live was that one would not be killed till he had flown 70,000 miles. Even in the process of learning it would be possible to fly to Australia and back three or four times. In ferrying across the Channel it worked out at only one death in 180,000 miles. Travelling by airship, figures showed that there was likely to be one fatal casualty in every 45,200 miles covered. If during the next few years we made anything like the same advance as had been made in the past five years, we should get rid of all the most common forms of accidents. Maj.-Gen. Sir Hugh Trenchard, replying to the toast of his health, said the R.A.F. got its name entirely by the work of its pilots and observers and ground men who kept the machines in order. If they went out, say, with 12 machines and lost n, before he could give an order another squadron went away and turned what looked like defeat into victory. That "was what the Germans could never understand. 648
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