THE AIR EXPRESS PILOTS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 76, 23 December 1919, Page 8

THE AIR EXPRESS PILOTS

LONDON TO'PARIS SERVICE. There was a little expectant thrill. Then with a last lingering pull at a cigarette, a young, man m a very wea-ther-beaten flying suit stepped towards the London-Paris aeroplane. "Yes," he admitted with a smile, Ira the driver." The nest moment he was settling himself in his seal, with four passengers snugly ensconced in the cabin behind him; and precisely to the' minute at 12.30 p.m., and with a rhythmical, healthy roar from its 350-h.p. motor, the "express" ran forward smoothly across the ground and was in tho air. • He and eight others are following an absolutely new profession-piloting express passenger and parcel aeroplanes as a matter of daily routine. _ ' ! The names of these famous nine, who are making commercial aerial history, ore: Captain D. 11. Baylis Lieutenant H. Shaw, Lieutenant E; 11. Lawfnrd, Lieutenant C. R. M'Mullin, Lieutenant A. C Carnpbell-Orde, Lieutenant G. B. Powell, Lieutenant 11. W. Chattaway, Lieutenant L.Tebbit, and Lieutenant D. Lindlcy. ' „ They arc all picked men, the cream, as has been truly said, of the Royal Air Force; and as our R.F.A. pilots arc, as a body admittedly the most wonderful Hying 'men in the world, the superb naiilb're of these 'W-expiW ipSaJ'U inav perhaps be imagined. ■ Cloud dodging, they will tell you,,, is one of their chief preoccupations. A pilot' in a cloud is like a man in a fog; he can see nothing and feels supremely uncomfortable. So. when, a big cloud-bank comes rolling up, as they pilot the air express, they either swoop up over it or dive below it; <and it is a thrilling moment for a passenger when one of these great cloud* confronts the aeroplane suddenly, and the engine deepens to a hoarser note as the pilot accelerates it and sweeps up royally over the drift- ! ing mass. . The "thrill" is almost equally great, I too, if the pilot elects to slip down below the fleecy obstruction, and the bow of the aeroplane sinks in a smooth, swift, effortless glide. The air-express pilot, like a railway engine driver, gets accustomed each day to flying over the same course. "I know this London-Paris 'airway' now," says one of thorn, "just like the palm of my hand." And it, is an enormous help, in adverse weather, or when visibility is bad—as it so often is on this trying route—for a man to know so well his landmarks by the way. One of these young men, during tho first critical week of the service, when all eyes were on it, was heard to remark' that nothing was going to ston his gettine the air express through; and nothing did—though on one day lie did something which no other flying man had ever done before. He brought tho Paris-London air express through a hurricane blowing at an officially recorded strength of more thaii 10ft miles an hour -through weather, in fact, it was never thought an aeroplane could possibly hvo

He was utterly exhausted when he iyrriver] at TTounslow—Mono io a turn l hut the two passengers, sitting snugly in their cabin, expressed themselves as being quite pleased with their (rip! Another rather amusing case of wncro ignorance is bliss" occurred m' midChannel during bad weather. There is a little aperture between the passengers cabin and pilot's seat through which me'sages can be passed; and m this in6Kinee"onc of the four floral voyagers, scribbling a hastv note, duly slipped it thronali to the pilot, reporting how comliPpvl >' ; * fellow-travellers were. and linw imicli they were enjoying themselves. The pilot's renly,' scrawled in word's which were'on'v inst decipherable, w>s laconic and to the point. ' "I'm liavijiT hell," lie wrote, "but I'll pet through." AVhieh represents rather well the attitude towards new profession of the pilots of the nir exnross.—By Harry Harper, in the ''Daily Mail."