QUEER DOINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 24, 30 January 1933, Page 8

QUEER DOINGS

AIRCRAFT AND BIRDS

REMARKABLE HAPPENINGS

A full list of queer doings in the air', if such could be compiled, would fill volumes, asserts T. J. C. Martyn in the "New York Times." . And the'advent of the aeroplane in the heavens must be the queerest happening of all to the birds. Tlje aeroplane,: as might be expected, is viewed with suspicion by the birds. Occasionally they, have aided their feathered friends; as -when a'few months ago they swiftly moved stranded swallows south "from Austria and Switzerland, thus assisting in. a winter migration. '. ~-.*-• But more usually the larger ones have cocked a hostile eye on the aeroplane. He proceeds: "There are several authenticated- cases of condors attacking aeroplanes 'in the Andes. Eagles, too, resent aeroplanes. -They usually prefer the frontal attack, but a German eagle, which thought it knew better, decided oh a flank attack from a frontal angle. ' This was a .grave error. -He was picked up with a broken neck; v "Often the mere presence of-an aeroplane is enough to cow the smaller birds. It seems that they take them for large eagles. Thus, in a war on some marauding crows, the presence of an aeroplane flying low overhead was enough to keep the chattering blackbirds in the trees, while the farmers massacred them with shotgun's. Aeroplanes were' used for hunting lions in Africa, until a Government de,cree halted them. Herds of horses out West have at'times been much alarmed by the passage of aeroplanes. But there have been times when the aninjals have scored. Once a horse found an aeroplane in a field. He approached it stealthily, gave one lick at the fabric, and found it rather tasty. ' In a few minutes he had demolished the entire tail, eschewing the wood and chewing only the doped fabric. One of the most curions of queer happenings in the air occurred in the war. One day, about-noon, a British 20 was sighted 'gliding down toward its airport. But instead of circling to land it kept steadily on and passed over the field. Instant suspicion crept .into every man's mind that the Germans were landing a . spy in a captured machine. A truck was manned and a half-dozen stalwarts, armed with revolvers, made off in the direction in which the aeroplane disappeared. In a few minutes the machine was discovered, standing still in a large field, its "prop" turning over slowly. From ample cover, someone called out. There was no answer, thought two men could be seen sitting in their cockpits. - Finally some intrepid soul stealthily approached, only to find that both airmen were- dead. The machine had actually flown them home and landed them safely, without any damage to its structure. There is the story of a pilot who went looking for trouble. Up in front of him loomed a giant thunderhead. He thought to himself, "I should like to see what is inside." As soon as the pilot got into the cloud he felt his heart sinking into his shoes, as if he were being shot upward in an elevator. He was elevated at the alarming rate of 1400 feet a minute. He pushed the control forward as far as'it would go. It made so difference: he was still being carried upward and— to make matters even worse—sideways at a speed of some seventy miles an hour. Eventually his experience came to an end; for he suddenly'shot out of the cloud in a djve, yet several thousand feet higher than when he had entered it, '