AVIATOR'S VISION OF DEATH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 20, 25 January 1911, Page 10

AVIATOR'S VISION OF DEATH.

FLIRTING WITH "IT.** PROPHETIC UTTERANCE. Ralgh Johnstone, the American aviator, who was killed at Denver, U.S.A., in November by a fall of 800 feet, made the following remarkable prophecy a few days before his death. Johnstone not only expressed' his belief in his own fate, but made similar reference to Moissant, Hoxseyj and Latham. Moiasant and Hoxsey have been killed during the past week, and Latham narrowly escaped death only last Wednesday. The following is Johnstone's prophecy: — T have been asked' to tell why I "defy death to conquer the air." IMy to live. If I didn't have to I wouldn't. It's going to get me some day. Sooner or later it's going to get us all. ■Ours is the most hazardous occupation a man can follow. No professional aviator does it for the advancement of science — the men who advance the science are those who stay on the ground and when we fall and are killed ngure put the weak point in the scheme that killed us. We, the most of us, Uy for money. De Lesseps has made a fortune, so has Grahanie-White, so have half a dozen others. Some of us fly in the line of duty — to give, as I say, the man on the ground a chance to figure out where the calculations have been ■wrong when we drop a thousand feet or so. That's the way most of the Germans have died. And some fly for fame, for a sporting chance at records — like poor Rolls, who crossed and recrossed the Channel, and poor Chavaz, who crossed the Alps, and died from a fifty- • foot f aIL I am a fatalist. I believe that every man's time is marked out for Hhn, only those of us who are drawn for the air game have their time black-inked well up toward* the head of the list. The only way to cheat it is to quit. But if you're marked: down to stay, then you can't quit till it gets you. Unless Da Lesseps quits it will get him, and it will get Moissant and Grahame- White, and little Hoxsey and Latham, and me — all of vs — sooner or later. I say IT, and not death, because that's the way I always think of what may happen. The minute you leave the ground it's close about you. It may get you when you're only a few feet up. It may stop your motor or crumple one of your planes when you are a couple of thousand feet up. It may snap a warping wire or break a propeller 1 blade, it comes unexpectedly; not one chance in a hundred have you to meet it, and it seldom needs to strike a second time. •When you get into the air, then comes the intoxication of flying. No man can help feeling this. The easy motion, the sense of freedom, the birdKke facility of flight — these lead a man into a calmness that is almost hypnotic. Then he begins to flirt with IT, tilts his plane into all sorts of dangerous angles, dips and circles, and coasts. This feeling is one of the traps IT sets for us. No part of *»n aeroplane is superfluous. Every wire, every inch of canvas, ever lever, every screw, every individual part of the machine, is put there for a purpose, and not one of them may be dispensed with. No part being superfluous, it follows logically that no part can fail and the machine remain eifec- " tive. When the machine ceases to "be effective its rider dies. Everywhere else one has a chance. Tho sailor has water to fall into, and a dozen means of escape. The soldier may be hit in a dozen parts of his body and live. Firemen and automobilist, the engineer, the miner, the acrobat — there are a thousand and one ways that intervene to save them from death. But there's nothing between clouds and the earth to save the aviator once he begins to fall. He never flies again — not in this world, anyway. Then the man on the ground "dopes out" why we fell, and tries to prevent that particular thing from happening again. But does that help those of us who have fallen? A thing they will have to discover is x how to keep a warping wire from breaking. These wires are used to counteract the effect of sudden gusts of wind which " tilt one or the othur wings. When the fe wind causes the right wing to rise, manipulation of the warping wire causes . the left wing to rise, too, and thus maintains the airship's balance. If the wire snaps, the airship and pilot are at tbo mercy of the wind. He falls. The rudder of an aeroplane is far more vital than that of a ship. If the ship's rudder goes by the Board it may not be possible to steer the vessel, but there is little danger. The ship will follow wind or tide. But with the aeroplane there is no stopping. But one could go over every part of the machine and over every phase of the air currents. There is danger in all. That is to the aero of to-day. The aero of to-day is really a toy. We are only demonstrators, who pilot them because the danger is so great that we are paid better than any other class of men ; that, or because we love excitement and; fame of a sort. But don't think that our aim is the advancement of the science. That is secondary, and, as I have said, worked out by the man on the ground. And, let me tell you, the people who go to see us don't go for the advancement of the science either — not one in ten thousand; that's bunk. What they want are thrills. And, if we fail, they think of us, and go away weeping? Not by a long shot. They're too busy watching the next man, and wondering if he will repeat the performance. The nontaankilung aeroplane of the future will be created from our crushed bodies. And that's how ifc goes. IT is right there on the job whenever we are. Maybe man will beat IT in the long run ; he has on everything else. But not in my time, and not in that of any of the others who are here to-day. IT'S bound to get us all !