NOT ENOUGH RECKLESS FLYING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3381, 4 July 1927, Page 7

NOT ENOUGH RECKLESS FLYING.

(By An Experienced Pilot.)

Reckless flying, far from being the cause of R.A.F. fatalities, is the best safeguard against them. "What is wanted in the R.A.F. is more flying and fewer restrictions. We shall never have an efficient Air Force or a reasonably low percentage of fatalities until we have rid ourselves of the fear of the casualty list and the fear of flying which are at the back of tho minds of all those well-mean-ing officials who follow the Safety Firstpolicy. It was well said during the war that a pilot did not really learn to fly until he crossed the line in Flanders. It was perfectly true. All the “stunts” which he dare not try or was forbidden or discouraged to try at home, he was there forced to do by the enemy. This applied also to bad weather flying. Pilots crossed tho line on offensive patrols and long distance raids in all sorts of weather when necessary, and even with the less efficient machines of those days it was an almost unheard-of thing for a pilot to be beaten by rough weather only. Fog, of course, is an exception. The restrictions on low flying (necessary of course over towns), and flying in bad weather px-event pilots gaining the only experience vfhich is of any use to them in an emergency. The type of officer who wants to “stunt” low or who wants to fly in all weathers is the least likely of any to crash.

It is becoming a tradition among these officers that they are not real pilots until they have been courtmartialled for reckless flying. And so long as flying is restricted by aii - -shy superiors they are quite right. The casualties are obviously most likely to occur when a pilot comes up against conditions of which he has never been allowed to gain experience—conditions which he will encounter in certain types of flying difficulties (as in forced landings) and unexpected adverse weather.

All the precautions of the air-shy safety-first school entirely omit tlie human factor. Few men indeed will tackle flying “stunts” or bad weather beyond their capabilities—they do not want to die.

The fact that civilian flying also develops so slowly because of the air-shy xegulations which hamper it suggests that this safety-first policy is dictated by persons who have had no extensive experience of flying, or worse still, and more probably, who crashed early and were made permanently air-shy. There are quite a lot of them where the regulations are mad© as any pilot knows.