DARING AVIATORS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 43, 12 August 1911, Page 9 (Supplement)

DARING AVIATORS.

SOME THRILLING MOMENTS. "Flying is one of the safest means of travel imaginable, provided that reasonable precautions arc observed," said Mr. Wilbur Wright recently, and Mr. Gra-hame-White fully agrees with this view. At the same, time, it would seem that, although every precaution is taken, it is impossible to ensure absolute safety from -mishap. One of the most careful flyers to-day is Mr. Grahamo-Wliite, who has made hundreds of flights under all sorts of conditions. And yet he came to grief recently at Eastbourne. An equally careful 'aviator is M. Le Blanc, whom Mr. Grahame-White defeated in the Gordon Park, and who had a most marvellous escape from death at the meeting. He was flying at a pace of seventy miles an hour in a 100-h.p. Bleriot, which, he says, "is almost unmanageable without its full power. Suddenly, high in the air," continues Mr. Le Blanc, in his account of the incident, "my gasoline pipe jarred loose from the motor, and T was absolutely bereft of power—a plaything for the wind. I sat tight through a few terrible seconds, realising that I had to fall, but hoping that I might fall on soft turf. Then a gust of wind caught the planes of my machine and hurled it against a telegraph pole about 12ft above the ground, and struck so hard that the pole snapped in two places." Naturally everybody expected that M. Le Blanc was killed outright, but by a miracle he escaped with only a few bruises. It was a Belmont Park, too, that Count Lesseps had a thrilling escape. "I had soared up to a height of 6000 ft," he says, "when I seemed to bo plunged into a cloud land. I could sec nothing. I had no compass, and could not tell where I was heading, but I knew the only thing to do was to stay up where I was. After an hour—it seemed much longer than that to me—l finally got out of the clouds. At least I made out the hangers of 'home track,' and swooped down on them, but my troubles were not over, for a stiff wind had come up while T was above the clouds. My Bleriot is not very good at wind jockeying, and I had a tough time in getting back to earth. Once or twice I thought I was gone." Hubert Latham's second attempt to cross, the English Channel in a Bleriot furnished the biggest thrill of his life. "T started," he says, "in the morning from Calais cliffs, followed by a torpedo boat. The sea was smooth and grey. On and on T drove, when suddenly, to my horror, my engine began missing fire. I knew I would have to come down. There was no help, for it, and down I plunged into the sea. As I struck the cold water [ felt myself wondering if I were due for the bottom. But the aeroplane righted itself, and floated perfectly. I clambered as far out of the waves as I could and resolved to take things coolly. My aeroplane might sink at any moment, or I might be swept out to sea. But finally the boat did come up, and it was a glad moment when I was hauled out of the water, and the boat was headed for home with the aeroplane in tow."

That daring American aviator, Mr. Walter Brookins, tells of a thrilling experience he had at Atlantic City last year, when he reached the altitude of 5705 feet, and then found himself without a drop of gasolene. "I had started out," he says, "to smash the altitude record, and I knew I was higher than I had ever been before. The cold bothered me quite a little. The crowds of people were just a.blur, and the ocean was just a bowlful of blue water. Suddenly my motor began skipping. First two cylinders stopped sparking. I thought the spark plugs were missing fire, but suddenly a thought came to me that fairly froze my blood—l had forgotten to fill my gasolene tank before I went up. I was trapped in mid-air with a helpless motor. Then the engine stopped altogether. I began to volplane down in long circles. I took great dives that made my hair stand on, end, but T knew that I would have to keep cool if I came out alive. It seemed to me that I was shooting down at a rate of ninety-five miles an hour. All at once the long million-dollar pier loomed in front of me. If my machine wouldn't rise and clear it I was a goner. T set my rising planes, and the gallant little Wright roadster rose and cleared the obstruction like a horse taking a hurdle, and I landed safely on the sandy beach."