FORCED LANDINGS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3150, 31 July 1917, Page 6

FORCED LANDINGS

I ° ■ HOW mm RISE TO "HIGHER FLIGHTS" (By a British Airma'i in tho "Daily Mail.") I sat in a colossal machine, with a small engine, known as a "Long-Horn." The pilot fat in front of me, giving instructions. It was my first flight. A cry of "Switch off, suck in," which means that a mechanic is to turn tho propeller and get the engine-cylinders full. Then "contact," and presently, witti a whirr-, tho engine is running. Then away, bump, bump, bump over the ground, and a smooth slipping off into space, and the earth suddenly far below, and tree-tops disappearing beneath the planee. The signal came to put my hands on the controls and feel the pilot'a movements. They fere incomprehensible, busy all the time, while the machine rocked and swayed in the air. It was a "bumpy" day. Sharp gusts of mna, striking trees and hedges and buildings and folds in the ground, would shoot upwards like ocean breakers against tho sea wall. These could be felt at 2000 feet, and would throw one up and down 50 feet and more at a time. . . . a very "ood day for a first flight, but pilots were in demand and time precious. Then suddenly the rhythmic roar ot the engine was broken. Crash, bang, bang, bang, and it stopped. The pilots arms waggled furiously, and I let go He did a sharp "bank" into the wind and we grazed over the treetops and down into a field among horses. A smashed rod in the engine and forced landing from 1000 feet-not an easy job in a clumsy machine in wooded country on a out. "My word," I said, "this is interesting!" . That was all I ielt . . . . and I worked like a slave all day on the re"Tlittle later I was in. a much more delicate typo of machine-a.real fljing ! machine, not a '"bus." The was "first flight alone under highei instruction." Kying was sWI n,, rl f l T pstiii"" game; its terrors were still unknown. Again I experienced tnat sudden silence from the enginc-and only trees below. Trees, trees everywhere, and ono little patch of green, and the machine gliding lower, every second, at GO miles an hour Suppose one hit a tree . I passed too high ever those trees 'to hit the patch of green whero there was room to run. 'J he opposite hed»o loomed up, just where I ought to meet the ground: I charged right at, nnd at the last moment zummed up and hopped it, and flopped down on tho other side. Strange to say, only a shock-absorber was broken. In another flight long after, came the same sudden, sickening cessation of cnrine The wind was blowing strouglv from tho west, . blowing one away from "home" country. Un that occasion I was high over the Hun line,, 15,000 ft. or more, sitting over a town wliile "\rchie" burst furiously aron>dvou can never get out of .range of -Archie " The same long glide down, but rhe wind was so strong against mo time tho machine simply hovered. AVo were iottlin" down, the machine and I on to that town with "Archie" getting nearer 't waSl tho height-meter hand «- cpflo I watched a certain cross-roads in front of my right wing; it seenud to remain iiist the same ahead. a I In" than 1000 ft.. with machine-gun and rifle bullets whistling past me, dodgand prosress possible. i ?• u down" iiE lenirth on the ground a little e iud our lines with Hun shells burstin "a about me. Then a scramble tor cover and the collapse of utter exhaustion. '