NIGHT-FLIGHT SENSE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 244, 9 July 1919, Page 7

NIGHT-FLIGHT SENSE

(By PfUil Bewsher,- in the "Daily Mail.")

To obtain a "B" pilofe certificate for flying commercial machines under tho now Air Regulations, an airman has to fly for half an hour in the dark. 'Since night flying will probably be quite a feature of commercial aviation in the future, this test seems to te an extraordinarily inadequate one when the skill required for navigation across country in an aeroplane is considered. It was found, during the war, ttat some piiote could instinctively find their way, while others werq hopeless, in spite of long and careful training. Somo airmen, if Pent from Hendon to Croydon, would land near Birmingham. Others could fly from London to Aberdeen on a direct line. I remember how, at my night bomomg squadron in France, a pilot vas overtaken by the darkness whilo shootin" i 1 uck some way from tl\e aerodrome. Suddenly he heard a Handley Page roar overhead. He realised that the raid haa started, and he knew lie was down to fly a machine. Ho ran back a mile io tho aerodrome, rushed out to the hangars, found "his machine, climbed up in the clothes he was wearing, heard the observer say "Bruges," aud went, straight th"i*e and back without a thought. _ Those airmen who can find their nay instinctively usually do it by picking up landmark after' , landmark on the ground, below and comparing them with their iiian. They rarely use the compnss; so little. Meed. that, in my own caso, the us," of the oompjss is forgotten. Having flown tor nearly two years t>y map. I became lost atnisht far out at sea. in a machine in which anenginehad failed. Wβ were slowly losing height, and had no mark in ttie heavens or the earth to fjuide up. All was black, empfir mist. The result was that we finally struck the sea nine miles off Ostend, and tho nilot wns drowned. If we had been accustomed to use the coffmass' we should have probablv gained the land in safety. If night-iving , machines working on commercial transport tire lost at night they will have frequently to make "forced landings," and will be liable to crash owing to collision with .unseen obstacles. :.,Carel»3 or inefficient navigation , will interfere with the success of commercial flyinsr. and the testa to be passed by pilots will later have to be made more etrineent if civilian flying is to be ran on a stable basis.