A PLUCKY AUSTRALIAN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2860, 26 August 1916, Page 9

A PLUCKY AUSTRALIAN

HOW HE LOOPED-THE-LOOP, Lieutenant Hart left Australia last October to join the.Royal Flying Corps, but after having been used.in instiucfcion work for several months, his old injuries, incurred when .his /biplane fell with him at Windsor several'years ago, manifested themselves, and he had to be invalided back. He was told that if lie continued the work he would crack up altogether. • • However, 'the trip has benefited him immensely, and he looks quite well again. "The machines over there," he'said yesterday, referring to Brooklands Aviation Ground in England, "are simply marvellous. .You could never imagine the developments that the war has caused in aviation—particularly ' with regard to • safety, speed, • and -carrying power. I saw machines that did 136 miles an hour. I saw others, that carried cwo and three machine-guns. Some, too, were fitted .with searchlights to facilitate landing at night. Nearly all had self-starters. Hundreds and hundreds; of learners are going through the Royal Flying Corps' course, and fully 75 per cent, of them are colonialsAustralians, New Zealahdcrs, arid Canadians. The Australian is regarded as a natural-born airman. "Let' me tell you an incident. I saw a young 'Australian loop-the-loop after he had been in the flying school only a week. He came to me one day and said: 'Mr. Hart, how do you loop-the-loop ?' "I answered carelcsslv: 'Oh, dip Tier nose down until she dives, and when she comes up again you know she is over.' " 'Thank, you, very much,' the youngestei' said warmly, and walked away. "He went up in his machine, and suddenly I saw it do the most awful nose-dive. It made my heart stop. 'Good Lord!' bo's gone!' flashed through my mind. Then I saw the machine flatten out in an atrocious curve, and somehow wobble round the loop. How it got- round I don't know \et. .The machine . landed, and ho came running to vie. 'You were quite ri"ht. sir,' he said. 'I tli<l what you told me.' "Of course," Mr. Hart continued, "there is no time for slow learners. From the time you co on to the flying, wound you are «ivet\ one week to learn to fly. If yon don't learn in that time you are not regarded as likclv to become a suitable-airman. ' "Ymi don't know (here is a war on here," lie concluded. "But in England it >'s different. ' Tn Brighton in'a quartor-hour's walk I uassod "00 men who had lost one oF their limbs."