BRITISH AEROPLANE STUNTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 150, 26 June 1924, Page 5

BRITISH AEROPLANE STUNTS.

LANDING IN THE SEA. I '■••'■ (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 8. An interesting and exciting experiment was carried out last week at the Felixstowe air station. An aeroplane was made to execute a '"forced" descent in the sea, in order that the results of an accident of this nature might be observed. The machine was a De Haviland IS, and the pilot, a flight lieutenant, remained in the machine until it had been in the water for some minutes. After he was taken off, ballast equivalent in weight to four passengers and a pilot was loaded into the cockpit. i When the aeroplane struck the water ] the forepart was forced down, and the pi lot, whose cockpit was behind the cabin, was in no danger after he had succeeded in resisting the shock of contact, which nearly threw him into the sea. The aeroplane settled at an angle of about, 30 degrees, with its nose in the water, but gradually lost buoyancy and. at the end of half an hour, sank ,j in the same relative position. . | The principal lesson of the e.xper*- .! ment is that some flotation device ought to be installed with the object of conn- ,- teracting the weight of the fore part a of the machine, which causes the nose , to be submerged almost immediately. The main problem appears to be that Jof keeping the machine in a perpendicnpilur position for a lime which Would v , enable air buoys to be inflated. Prospective travellers can take comfort in ''I the reflection that no British commercial aeroplane vet ha- been forced to c descend in the Knclish Channel, and, „ lowing to the height at which such . ! machines always ilv « hen over the water, j the danger of such an emergency is slight. 'Conditions ha l e changed enormously P -luce the .lavs when Mr. Latham took '.' periodical sea baths in his effort to ilv from Kngland to l-'rance. Moreover, ' the present s\.-lem of wireless telegraphy 'j< s o pei feci that any pilot who finds ' himself in diflicullies can summon assistance in an exceedingly short time.