WEIRD INCIDENTS IN THE AIR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 41, 12 November 1918, Page 7

WEIRD INCIDENTS IN THE AIR

STORIES FROM THE AMERICAN TRAINING CAMPS, FEATHERED RIVALS A MENACE . ,i. ; ~7'.- ', c A visit paid to. the principal camps find training fields controlled by tho United States Director of-Military Aeronautics and several long flights have enabled Mr. W. T. Beazell .to make an interesting contribution to the Ne«- York "World," of whose staff'he is a member. He finds .that the air service is rapidly 'establishing its own terminology. Avia'iors aro "birds" and-'planes aro "ships." r Non-fliers among Ihe officers of the air service: are called Kiwis, after tho, New . Zealand bird, whose wings are so rudi- ! ; mentai-y that it cannot fly. The director, >Major W, L. Kenly, intends to do away, •with the nickname by having no nonflying officers in the service. Even chaplains will be required to train. Kenly remarks they will be "the first real sky 'pilots." Official figures- show that 155 deaths have occurred in the training fields. These represent less than 2 per .cent, of the fliers who' have been trained. In the early stage the flights last only fifteen minutes, and the fatalities are about one in 10,000 flights. Veterans have a habit of faking aocount of only grave i injuries. Within an hour at one of the fields in Texas three cadets were injuredtwo, in a collision in the air, 1 and one during a tail spin. The executive officer, who had spent thousands of hours aloft, was asked if one of tho boys had not been badly hurt. Tho reply was—"No, indeed. He was bruised about tho chest, and his face was cut, and he lost four or live teeth, but he wari't really hurt." , _ Aij adventure that" nil" aviators fear, ■was experienced by Grenyille Keogh, ; whose father is a Supreme Court justice '}n New Eochelle. This 'airman narrowly escaped, death in France because his propeller was'wrecked'by a bird. A pigeon flying into a propeller turning 1400 times a minute Will splinter it completely. The pigeon itself sustains injury .which even. the executive officer-just mentioned :by Mr.' Beazell would admit to be serious. When' aviators race fea-

thered birds, it seems, from what the writer has, to say, to' be well, for both .groups/of competitors to keep well apart. i At Gerstner Field, in Louisiana, the "pursuit": fliers often' matched their ■ speed last winter with wild geese, and made the geese look slow.. .Every opportunity is taken to watch the flight of the • buzzard, for. not even! the majestic motion of tho eagle is to. be .compared with the splendid, effortless achievement of' the buzzard. No device has yet been discovered that will measure accurately the speed .of an a'oroplane. When homing pigeons aro taken .'tip to .be trained for service care has 'to be exercised to prevent them from', striking a strut, or the rudder... After being released they drop 300 or 400 feet before they: ''find their, wings." Then-ther. return home at theratpof fives' miles fin Q minutes. Mention is. made of a dog belonging to Major Reinburg, commanding officer at Taliaferro Field, which became an ardent flier. Every time Major Eeinburg went up the dog would, try to go.-with him, holding on to tho tail skid'till the ship was several'feet iin the, air. '.'As a reward, for his perseverance, tho dog became his master's regujar companion.in the air. In recounting some of his own aerial impressions, and incidents brought under his notice, Mr. Beazell says-.— "Very little, sense of speed comes to one in the air. . There is, of course, the tremendous rush; of air ipast one's face; hut a, whirling propeller .will give that before one has left the ground. There aro.no landmarks in the air. and it is J>y landmarks,that we measure.the speed of trains and / automobiles, . for .instance.' After a. time, the landlubber begins to realise that what'he was''regarding as suburban plots . are ..really farms; that the' fish ponds are town re- . seryoirs; that tie brooks are rivers, and that by holding out his hand he can blot from view:a county. When that happens he begins to get iproper perspective of himself. Nothing can be moro beautiful than a. formation flight viewed from the ship at the point of the V." I went from Kelly. Field,,San.Antonio,. to Austin \ in .the ship in which Lieutenant R. L.

'Dobie, of Beeville, Texas, led a formation of ten. The ( only sensation I had 'from my own ship'was that it was driving onward like a' bullet. When I looked back each of the nine planes behind was lifting and falling as regularly, 'and as gracefully .as a bluebird;.after a timo the picture likened itself to the lapsing of waves along the sides of a steamship. _ It held the eyo and the fancy |,until it was hard to turn from >jt. to the swift unfolding of the silvers, the greens, tho golds, , the-, cobalts, the ;pnrplos, the reds of the landscape as it I changed from a'mesquite wasto to a rich •farming country. '» .'•;.'.• "In a much longer trip, from Port Worth, Texas, through Wichita Falls to ,Fort Silk Okla., a rain storm offered a

distraction., The sum had been battling 'with the clouds since early morning. , Now. and then a: golden finger.would find a rift, only to. have.it closed like 'a trap.. In the south-east the grey was doing its best to turn to black.' Finally it succeeded well enough. 1 . It appeared to justify some direct.action. Lieutenant vain E: James was'holding to a lane '6000 feet up when the rain came. It , beat .oh, our faces in drops the size of buckshot,. ahead of us they shone j against the clouds like -burnished steel

Just before we reached Fort Sill I joined battle with a powerful desire to lake if nap. Only a lively feur of what I might do to rudder or, control stick in my sleep kept.' me awake. I was told afterwards that there wns no reason why 1 should j;ot have had the experience, which has been enjoyed by many. Scores of- cadets have written letters during flights, "the first time up" by choice. It is reassuring to anxious mothers to get such messages. The solitude, of the heavens is a very real thing. Captain Boy N. Francis, one of the true American veterans of the air, flew me at Kelly Field. AVe had -circled over the city, and were heading into the south again when ho called attention tp two machines 3000 feet'or so above, us and two or three miles distant. They were turning loops, one after another. They looked like nothing so much as leaves that had become the toys of an autumn wind." A cadet came back to the aerodrome at Kelly aviation field at tho end of u period, but instead of landing circled about' overhead. His stage commander signalled for him. to come down, 'but he kept encircling. On his. fourth circuit the brass-bound card which all cadets wear inscribed with their names and numbers came fluttering down. On it the cadet had inscribed: Throttle jammed; send for ambulance. It was plain that the boy sawno other prospect than to keep on until his gasoline gave out and, his engine dead, he came down in a crash. In such circumstances he thought it just as well to have tho surgeons. on hand. The stage commander realised that, the cadet had not. thought of his switch when 'his throttle jammed. The problem of calling this to his attention was hard, but a wav was found. The other cadets, 25 or 30 of them, were lined up, and tho next time the Tiiriaway came by, 300 feet in the air, each cadet reached out his right, nr throttl?, hand and shook his head, then held-out his left, or switch, hand, and nodded his head. Three times the runaway went by, and three times the lino of cadets went through the pantomime. Then the boy. in the air : uu T derstood, snapped off his owitch, and, came down without harm. Tho humanj element will always bo vital 'in aviation. The story is told "of'a boy whoso engine burst into, flames at a high altitude. Going ahead would have meant that the flames would be carried back to the pilot, as. well as. to the fabric of the ivinsrs arid fuselage. Going into a spin would have meant prohably a crash in which the engine would fall on the pilot and his observer. The pilot, therefore, went into a slido slip in which the flames •were thrown out from the engine.

. Every possible effort is made to -keep fliers in good physical and mental condition. Athletics/ form a requirement of training and nfany executives would like to) see them occuny a still more important place. The Medical Eeaseroh Laboratory at Garden City, under Lieut.-Col. W. L. Wilmer, a place where medical science, as it pertains to .aviation has l>een well advanced. Especially has this been true with regard to the effects of high altitudes upon the functioning of the. human system. "Under the practice developed by tho laboratory it, is now Dossible to determine exactly the height to which a man. may po before his senses and organs become affected. -