DANGERS IN THE AIR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3168, 20 August 1917, Page 6

DANGERS IN THE AIR

ENGINE FAILURE AND CLOUDS. Flying men will not admit that their occupation, is dangerous. ■ "If statistics are taken of the number of miles flown per accident, or of tho number of accidents per annum at any aerodrome it will be found that though risks have to be faken in the they do not constituto a danger," says' an eminent airman. Tho chief cause of accidents is engine failure. Accidents due to faulty aeroplanes aro very rare. Engine failure is not due to inherent defects in the engines, but to some accidental detail, such as dirt in the petrol tank. Faulty piloting is also a cause of accident, but a careful, experienced pilot seldom makes a mistake in the air that ho cannot rectify. The common error on the part of the novico is to turn so sharply as to lose flying speed. This often resulfa in the machine taking a nose dive, arid unless there is sufficient time to allow the pilot to "pull up" the machine before it readies tho ground the accident is often fatal.

Clouds are one of the chief that the pilot • encounters in the air. When in a. cloud the pilot aan see nothing but his machine. He loses his eenso of direction, and 'he cannot tell at what angle he is flying. He may th'ink- ho is on an even keel, when as a matter of fact he is climbing almost vertically or falling headlong to Hie earth. "There have been a large number of accidents during Hie past three years due to flying through clouds," states Captain 11 ticks. "In some cases pilote emergo from clouda in si 'spin,' others arc known in which the planes have collapsed un(ler the strain of the 'sudden 'pull up' from tho vertical none dive. A squadron commander in France told me that on one occasion, when he was flying in a cloud, everything loose in his machine fell out. He was flying upside down, wTffiouE being aware that his machine Siau turned over,"-