HAWKER'S FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 253, 21 July 1919, Page 3

HAWKER'S FLIGHT

AIRMEN'S STORY OF GREAT ADVENTURE "LANDING" IN THE ATLANTIC ("Daily Mail" Special.) Inverness, May 26. Mr. Harry Hawker and Commander ■ Mackenzie-Grieve, R.Ni, arrived at'flruvso from H.M.S. TTevenge this morning and had a great municipal welcome. They havo since made a triumphal progress through the. Highlands en Touto to London. ' At every little Highland etation tlßy were cheered and men clung to tho moving train. In'minutes between Mr. Hawker gave me this plain tale of adventure. "Everytiiing," ho said, "wont well at the start. We had a very difficult ground to rise from on the other side. To »et iii the nir at all we had to run diagonally across the course. Once wo got away wo climbed very well; but about tenminutqa i up we passed from firm, clear weather into tho fog of flie'Newfoundland Banks. , We got well over this, however, and, of course, at once Tost sight "oT~The sea. The. sky was quite clear for the first four hours, when tho visibility became very bad. Heavy cloud banks were encountered, and oventuallr we flew ino a heavy 6torm with rain-squalls. "Trouble did not; begin until we weie five and a half hours out from St. John's. Then the temperature of the water in tho radiator began to rise. That did not mean a gTeat deal at that moment, but we could see tfwt something was the matter with the water circulation. It was part of my job to watch. Grieve was busy taking "sights. It was about 11 p.m. Greenwich (midnight, summer time), and the clouds wero exceptionally thick. We had not seen the water since wo wero ten minutes out from St. John's. Our "height was ahout 10,000 ft, and there ■were many cloud peaks up to 15,000 ft., making a very bad horizon: there being iioi mcon, it not having risen by then, and having to go round the clouds, it was difficult to steer a good course. "Not Cold a Bit." "We were very comfortable—not cold a bit, but it was freezing hard. On we went, and the water temperature in the radiator rose from 169deg. to 176deg. (212deg. is boiling point) in a few min- • ute3, and maintained that for a couple of hours or more. We were now looking for a cause, and I came to the conclusion that something had got into the water filter between the radiator and water pumps, and the only thing we could do was to stop the motor, out the nose of the maohine down steeply with the hope that this would clear the refuse in the filter, and this was successful. But it was again choked in the next.hour, and this brought us to about £00 miles out. The weather was still very bed and the olojffe very high, and several times we tried 1 ' to clear, but unsuccessfully, and doing this meant losimr height at every attempt. 'Each tirne nfter climbing the water boiled tadl.v. That meant wanting water (i.e.. the water for'cooling the engine), and after getting to 12,000 ft. again we decided' to stop at this height for the, rest" of the way. We had not yet doubted being successful in ' getting across. We wero then-above most of the clouds. Tho moon wa3 up, and we were keeping a good course, although we had to close the throttle and go a little lower to keep tho. water temperature below boiling point. •'>_ Black Clouds. ,:,v;We continued on this until twelve nV;V'a half hours out. Then we came to v.' ! ';'iida again, very, very high, I should sayV,-mit 15.000 ft., very black, too. almost to fly through. Each time we'tried to climb above them we boiled badly. So I decided to go beneath them. Coming down to about ,6000 ft. we found it blaoker than ever. Eventur allv I got to 1000 ft.' above the water before we could seo to fly. We started on our courso with the sun '"st getting Tip, but could not keep the temperature below boiling. "Then it was we reached the fateful decision to play for safety. We decided \o fly, diagonally south-east .and then e'oufh-wesfc' across ouf course,to see if we • could find a shit>, for we knew we could not go on indefinitely boiling our water away. This we did for about two find 'V half hours before we found a ship, the sea being very Tough below and wo get- . t.ing knocked about very bndly at times. The wind ivas blowing from the northeast at half a gale. , . "At last I sighted'a shin close to ue on our port (left) bow. We were both fairly in tho fog with the clouds low, and we were almost on the top of her ibefnre we saw her. "Wo flew alongside her at 4flOft.. fired three VeTey distress signals, and waited ' eomo time flying across and across until she got some men up on deck. A Very Good "Landing." "Then we went ahead about two miles and landed in front of her. W.u made a very good ,'landing' although a very high sea'was running,, and the machine floated on an even keel well out of the water. " 'And that'a that,' we said, and watched tho steamer approaching. We i put our own boat out and etcod by in case the machine should break up and sink, which it began to do rapidly in a heavy fiea. The sea was running avo to 12ft. and breaking light over the machine and us. Our life-saving suits kerit us dry. and for an hour and a half we watohed tho crew of the Mary tryiny to launch a lifeboat. She was only two hundred yards away. After much difficulty shn succeeded in getting to us, and wo boarded tho lifeboat, and were pulled to the ship by a line. ■ Owing to the heavy sea it was impossible to salve anything at all. When we got to the I shin we were; without boots or caps, and Grieve without. a coat. We weTe. very dorry to lose a lot of valuable instruments and mail; "Altogether before being picked up we \ bad been 1-iJ hours out from .Newfoundland. We were picked lip at 8.30 a.rh. on Monday, Greenwich time (9.30 British summer time). Met .by Destroyer. "On climbing nboard wo found that Captain Duhn spoke very good English. He had been afraid we should go down before his boat reached ua. 'Another hour,' he 6aid as wo went on the bridge, 'and you would have gone down.' Hβ thought we were Americans, and we were struck by tho casual manner in which he took the whole- business, as if it were an everyday affair to take airmen out of the Atlantic. "Wo immediately asked him his .bearings and what likelihood there was of meeting a ship that day or tho next and being in tho main route of shipping. At that time ho thought there would be a very good chanco of seeing a ship, with wireless, at any moment. "That night the storm got worse, and ho had to heave-to, onily making about a knot in a northerly direction, this taking us off the shipping route and lessening tho chance of meeting another ship. , "Wo slept, or tried to, most of the time, drank tea, and read tho captain's English books. We saw St. Kilda, but jt was not until the Butt of Lewis that wo could communicate. "Off Loch Erribol wo were met by the destroyer Woolston and conveyed to Scapa Flow, where we had a splendid welcome home from Admiral! Fremantle and the men of the Grand Fleet. | "What we want to emphasise is that the fault was not due to the motor, which was in every way reliable, running ■ satisfactorily from start to finish; even after boiling all the water away the motor was still running merrily, though red hot, when we a'.ighted in tho water." GRIEVEJSJTORY FEEBLE WIRELESS. Commander Grieve says the wireless was not a great success. "The first wireless fitted was tried during our trial flight at St. John's, when the exciter of tho generator burnt out owing to the too great speed of the small air-driven propeller. This set was then discarded, and n email 'Soy Soout' plain aerial set was installed, which was designed to give a radius of about twentyfive miles. Owing to the long delay wn had time to receive- a now set from England of a pattern different from the first. A trial flight to test this was imnossible owing to the danger of risking the machine on the 'limited aerodrome snace. On starting the flight the spark was found to be very feeble, and only a small amperage could bfl obtained. This

was due to the undersized propeller used to drive it."In mv opinion we should even so havo obtained a range flUfticiont to communicate with any ships sighted, and messages were sent out continually, but no reply was received.' I was sending messages every half-hour. Any chip in hearing -would have replied. "Mv chief object was to let them know we were still in tho air. During tho last few hours, when tho engine was throttled, tho speed of the machine was not sufficient to drive tho wireless, and no soark could be generated. But I made nn S.O.S. every quarter of an hour on tho off-chanco of tho spark operating. "Prom the navigating point of view I Dlaoed no reliance on the wireless other than ns a means of asking positions of euch shins as we might pass over. Ships had Drevipusly been asked by wireless from St. John's to make known their nosition if they saw us by Any, or if wo fired red Verey lights by night. As we fliiw no vesael no light was fired. Tho Samnangcr may have seen the red glow of our exhaust. "T preferred to navigate chiefly by celestial observations, and my position by the stars when nicked up was practically correct. I used a cloud horizon instead of the sea horizon, as the sea was hardly visible at any rmrt.of the time we were in the air. For tho first four hours after leaving we wero lMssing over fog banks, and the clouds bolow were like thn sea, giving, a perfect hetrizon. • I had only to judge our height above them and fake tho sun, .as on a sea horizon, and about seven o'clock Greenwich mean time I saw the sea for a few' seconds through a hole in ths fog and cloudbank. Fiflht With a Gale. "I obtained the drift of the machine by noting the breaking wives through the drift, indicator, niid we wero than at 4000 ft.. and climbing. Tho drift wns lOdeg. to the right, of our course, which I had already allowed for on starting, owin« to the north-east wind then blowing from St. John's. Up to ]0;l5 p.m. (Greenwich) we steered to make a true east course, not a magnetic east. During that period I took sights everv. hour, and at 10.15 I made her 400 miles from St. John's, "I then altered ou.r course to north 73 east true, to keep in the track of ships, which wo ehonld just have entered at that time. The clouds got badly broken up and made siijhts impossible until About. 1.30 a.m., when I managed to get a Pole Star down to a flat piece of cloud and was surprised to find we were about 150 miles south of our course. I immediately altered a little to the northward to counteract this drift. From a furthor sight obtained hr.lf an hour later I found we were still setting to Wie southward, end realising that a very strong northerly gale must have b«en blowing- I made a decided alteration up to the northward and worked tho machine up to lat. 50deg. north and into tne track of the shins. "At 5 a.m. I got a good position by two stare and found that we were on the direct course and about Jl5O miles from St. John's. Further sights were impossible owing to being in the clouds and the approach of daylight. I "At 6 a.m. I made our. position 50deg. I north, 2Meg. SCmin. -west. AVe. 'hen I came down low to look for ships, making a bit to the northward to get in the track." Mr. Hawker used 170 gallons of netrol out of the 340 gallons he had started with. , } Commander Grieve says further navis"ition in the nir undoubtedly Hps with ■ directional wireless, when this is perfected. A £5000 Prize, ' The attempt made by Mr. Harry Hawker and his navigator, Commander Grieve. 8.N.. ended at 6.30, when the time limit of 72 hours expired. Desiring, however, to recognise the determined nature of their effort, which has filled their countrymen and women 'with admiration, the "Daily Mail" decided to award them a consolation prize of .£SOOO, which wa.= doubtless divided between them in the proportions upon which it is understood they had agreed with regard to tho .£IO,OOO prize.