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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0029.PDF
JANUARY 2ND, 1941. WINDY DAYS (Continued) The Howard Wrightbiplane on which the author made his firstpassenger flight with Lieut. Watkins. Thispicture actually shows Mr. T. O. M. Sopwithin the pilot's seat. clearing of the mist, I found myself look- ing down on a sort of quarry. Turning back more or less in the direction from which I had come, I was confronted by two lots of telegraph wires converging on each other. In fact, there seemed to be telegraph wires <tf/Tverywh,ere. So I decided to land, and : managed this with a steep-banked descent, and sudden left turn to right the machine before impact. I did not quite succeed, but the only damage was a broken skid. There I waited until a breathless party, headed by Jullerot, arrived, not disguising their satisfaction that I was not hurt. Jullerot said, " Now you are a real flier. It is neces- sary to break wood in order to become one." At least, what he said was to that effect. He also assured me that if I had had time to think I could never have got the machine down there without completely wrecking it. Learning to fly for the R.A.F. in 1940 is very different. Of course, speeds are much greater, and the engine is in front. In one respect crashes in those days were less serious. Outbreak of fire was rare, but in pusher crashes there was always the danger^p^'the engine falling on the victim's back. At that time the increasing use of mono- planes, ill-designed and poorly constructed, began to in- crease the number of accidents. " Flight " photograph. BROOKLANDS, 10,10 : A typical aerodrome scene at the period of which Major Turner writes. The machines are a Lane mono-plane, Avro triplane and a Voisin.
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