AIRMEN'S TRIALS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 251, 11 July 1918, Page 6

AIRMEN'S TRIALS

• 9 LANDING AT NIGHT. ' To make what is known as a "forced landing at sight in an aeroplane is most exciting. Landing at night on a familiar aerodrome, with ;,11 its prearranged system of lights and signals, is hazardous enough, but to land in -a strange field with unknown ditches and hedges in it is a very dangerous proceeding. When a missing machine is reported (o have landed safely somewhere behind the lines the phrase "crashed to bits, no ona hurt," is quite- u frequent ending to the account. Imagine a raiding machine, which h.is passed throe or four miles behind „ the enemy lines, steering a straight course towards some objective. Suddenly the engine pops and bangs. Taps aire turned, pumps operated, levers pulled, every kind of first aid given to the fick mechnnism, whose disease cannot be diagnosed,, but with,no result. There is only one eano thing to doto turn back at once, 'j ho machine wheels round, and tho pilot shouts to the observer to drop his bombs on the first good target, for landing with bombs is very dangerous, especially in a "forced landing." when ,a crash is probable. The engine slill gives a" little power, but the finger of tho altimeter % steadily moves backwards as the machine losee height. Tho bombs ore dropped on a railway junction, and the thud of their explosions can be heard above tho clamour of the engine. At last tho pilot crosses the barren line of earth, whose watered surface he can see in tho moonlight, and throttles back his engine so as to save it as much as' possible. Sparks are pouring out of it, and it is "back-firing" dangerously, and ho has a fear of fire addid to his anxiety about landing. . Two thousand feet records tho altimeter. The observer and the pilot look down, trying to find a likely landing ground. At 1500 fwt the observer drops a parachute flavo to illuminato what he , thinks is a good field. The light bursts out and hangs swinging below the while parachute. ■ The fields look smooth and flat, eo the pilot begins to take his machine down as quickly as ho can in steep spirals. A fow hundred feet off the ground another flare is dropped which lights up a grassy field, small, but with an appar; ently good surface. So he "flattens out a few hundred yards away, and glides,in very sWlv towards it. He presses a button in'front of him and two great lights burst out beneath the wings, lighting the surrounding country and the field ahead. He just float* over the hedge, almost touching it with Ins wheels, glides lower and lower, back Ins control wheel, and tho machine hangs on the air a minute, and drops with a heavy bump on to the ground, bounces upwards, and bumps again and again, runs along, and stops. , Safe! lie climbs out, and a few feet ahead sees a thick hedge and a deep ditch, and realises without sun-prise by how little ho has escaped such great da 'Tfun along and find a 'phone and say we're all right!" he shouts to the ob- . server. "I'll wait here."-S.T. in the "Daily Mr»U."