AIR-LINE PILOTS MUST BE WARY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1934, Page 25

AIR-LINE PILOTS MUST BE WARY

Disappointment awaits anyone, writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph," who becomes acquainted with air-line pilots and expects to hear from their lips stories of incidents, accidents, and adventures, of perils daily encountered and skilfully mid daringly overcome.

Most of them will tell you that any excitement in their flying careers occurred in UiOj Air Force, or when they were otherwise engaged, before they "settled down"- to air-lino piloting.

The cynic explains that such is the nature of flying that thoro is only one incident in an airman's career, and that one having occurred he is no longer alive to tell the tale. But the cynic in this case, as in ■so many others, is wrong. The air-lino pilot's life is really not dangerous, and is distinctly monotonous.

For that. reason it calls for a very special type, of man —a mail who, in spite of the monotony of .daily long flights over the same country, is never for an..Jnstant inattentive, and must over be ready to spring to action, to decide swiftly, and to exercise ■ that piloting skill which may have become almost dormant.

iTn-pcrial Airways has about sixty nir-lino pilots, :-.whilst there aro half as many again on the other regular British air routes. Even Captain 6. Ollcy, who as special-■■ charter pilot, has hurt to make many hurried, journeys to out-of-the-way place's,"" lias had no large number of exciting experiences.

On one occasion, while piloting on a 'regular service with about a dozen pas-

sengers aboard, ho caught sight in ai mirror of one of them trying to climb out of a window. Ho promptly dispatched his engineer to the cabin, where a great struggle was in progress between some of the passengers and the man, who appeared to havo become demented.

Tho offender was secured, and Olley landed as soon as he could. Imagine his indignation when the prisoner explained that he had been so impressed by a film showing the exploit known as "wing walking" that ho had had an irresistiblo impulse to try it himself!

Captain ]?. Dismore, who has just completed twenty-ono years as a pilot, was piloting a_ big four-engined liner when one of the propellers broke —by collision,- it is believed, with1 a bird. Fragments, by a strange chance, struck two- other propellers, breaking them; and the pilot), besides '.being under the 'necessity of instantly shutting off the engines, had to bring the machine down in the only field available, one not' more than 300 yards long, iit the landing direction.

Most of the'incidents nowadays seem to be due to aeroplanes encountering heavy birds when flying in India, Africa, and the Far East. . These are definitely a danger; in fact, the Aero Club of India and Burma warned competitors in the London-Melbourne air race of the risk.

Thero are a few eases on record of birds deliberately attacking, to their own destruction, and also in some cases damaging the fabric of the machine.