A BIG AEROPLANE

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2644, 13 October 1919, Page 7

A BIG AEROPLANE

TIE THRILLS OR A FLIGHT IN' 'j WORLD’S BIGGEST BORING MACHIN E. “It was a lovely smash !’’ said my guide, showing me a photograph of the wreckage of an aeroplane, the body of which looked like a factory chimney shooting up out of the ground. I thought it rather inconsiderate to talk about smashes just when I was about to make the official test flight in this other mighty bomber that- stood with twin, four-bladed propeller;: slowly revolving. The expert in charge of this great Handley-Page machine came forward. “Of course, you- know you go at your own risk ?” said he. “Yes,” I said, and clambered up into the interior of the fuselage. I could not reach the fabric-covered top with my hand. The bombs were in their rack before me, just, as they will be when about to be dropped on some German town. I clambered up to another little platform and took my seat in the after gun-ring where the machine-gunner sits to defend his craft from hostile attack. Before me the huge propellers were doing their best to blow my head off. Behind me the great body of the machine stretched interminably down to the tail, and I could watch the double rudders working. The noise of motors, which were bad enough before, became inconceivably worse. We rocked a bit. The hangers began to slide away. In a hundred yards we were of! the ground, and the hangers were rushing pell-mell into the distance. Then we started to climb, and the noise of the engines was painful in its intensity, and the gale that whistled past my head was worse than anything 1 had ever imagined, let alone experienced. The wind you feel when you put your head out of a train rushing along at sixty miles an hour was a gentle breeze compared with this.

We climbed and climbed, and the houses and streets grew smaller and smaller until they had turned into a relief map, just like those you see in exhibitions. Still we shot up steadily. Suddenly I wondered what tricks the horizon was playing as it swung up almost perpendicularly, and at the same time I leaned a bit to the right to counteract a strong tendency I had of slipping to the left. What was wrong ? Then I realised that we were merely banking round and heading for the open country. A tiny scout shot between us a couple of thousand feet below, an glided into the distance. Up we went until there was a bluish haze stealing over the earth. I saw clouds above me, and almost before I knew it we were among them, and th whirling propellers were rending them to pieces. So high did we go that the earth became like a. huge basin. I saw the River Thames, a greyish ribbon hardly wider than the palm of my hand, winding through the great city of London, which was now but a collection of the tiniest buildings imaginable spread all over one side of the basin of the earth. The rim of this basin was the blue horizon, which always remained on a level with my eyes, no matter what our altitude. My fingers were freezing with the cold in spite of my lined gloves, and my face felt as though it were being Rayed alive by the wind. As for the noise, I had long since become deaf owing to it. Beneath my feet was an open trapdoor through which was a sheer drop of thousands of feet to the earth. On each side of me was merely a sheet of linen stretched between me and death. We were so high that, judged by things on the ground, we barely seemed to move, yet we were travelling at a greater speed than I dare mention. At one period we seemed to be anchored to a tree. Time ceased to be. We swung over a railway, and I saw a railway-train so small I could have slipped it into my pocket. The awful noise of the motors sud- , denly ceased, and wo went swiftly j down until trees and houses began to j move again. I saw the aerodrome, I and as we shot into it the buildings ] were just hurtling past. There was j not a jar as wc landed lightly as a : hawk and came to rest in front of ; the hanger. I had been up a hour and a half, yet it seemed but five I minutes. | “She’s through,” said the pilot, ! announcing to me that she had pass- ! ed her tests. ; I left the experts working out oil [ and petrol consumption.