HOW AIVATORS ARE MADE IN AMERICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1787, 9 February 1918, Page 2

HOW AIVATORS ARE MADE IN AMERICA.

SO much is anticipated in the near future from the Allies’ aviators that it cannot but be of interest to our readers to know something about the training that the “bird, men” have to undergo. America is paying very close attention to training aviators, and the preparation that they are undergoing appears to be most thorough. The mere mechanical part of the business, the actual Hying, does not call for any comment. There does n<H appear to be any particular difficulty in learning the mechanical side, provided the student has the necessary nerve, and there are few young men essay the task unless they have the necessary cool courage. But there is other knowledge to gain besides the mechanical art. A certain knowledge of astronomy is necessary to those “bird men” who undertake night flights. An aviator must

know the stars, for they will guide him home, iji fact they frequently arc his only guide, and without a knowledge of the position of the leading planets he would be like a ship without a aompass. Students have to listen to lectures concerning air currents, which at times are very peculiar. The professor places at either end of a long table two air blowers, one elevated somewhat above (he other. Then in the middle of the table he places two Hags, one Hying higher than its companion. When the experimental winds are let loose the student perceives how two Hagsjdaced side by side, one slightly higher than the other, can float in opposite directions. What is the aviator to do when he suddenly experiences a sudden change from one current into another? This is one of the technicalities of Hying with which he has to become acquainted. Probably the most interesting work by an American aviation student is that performed in the miniature range. This gives the student that preliminary instruction in artillery spotting which is perhaps the most useful service rendered by the aeroplane. On a huge table in one of the science halls is an immense picture map of a section of Belgium. It shows the city of Ypres and all the surrounding country, including every farmhouse, barn, country road, open Held, river and pond. In a gallery, about ten feet above this may sit several of our future aviators. They ‘are supposed to be in airplanes, six thousand feet in the air. The scale of the map is so graduated that, as they gaze down upon it, the terrain appears precisely as it would look were these men actually Hying in the air at that height. Their business is to locate exploding shells, and wireless back to their own batteries the accuracies or inaccuracies of the aim. And shells are actually exploding all the time on this miniature sketch of Belgian territory below them; not real shells, perhaps, but representations that convey a complete illusion. Under the map, which is of paper, and therefore transparent to light, are located hundreds of lit-

110 electric light bulbs. The professor, by touching the appropriate button, can light his selected blub, the little flash appearing on the map giving a complete representation of an exploding shell. The apprentice airman in the gallery selects the German battery which his own men. are attempting to destroy... The professor touches off his imitation shells in close proximity to this battery—these are supposed to represent American attempts to reach the mark. As soon as each shell explodes a tapping is heard up in the little gallery; the student is wirelessing to his friends, telling them how far they have come from hitting the object. The wireless message may take such cryptic form as telling the American battery that it is “ten o’clock and three hundred yards.” This may puzzle most people, but it locates precisely the spot where the shell has fallen. For purposes of signalling the German battery is taken as the centre of a clock, with twelve o’clock pointed perhaps due north. When the airman signals “ten o’clock,” this means that the shell has exploded on an imaginary line which would represent the-clock pointed in this direction. The “three hundred yards” gives the distance between the exploding shell and the German' battery. The business of the student is to locate these exploding shells almost instantaneously. Unless he gains great proficiency in a short time, he has no future in the American air service.