PILOT’S BUGBEARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 September 1940, Page 8

PILOT’S BUGBEARS

HEAT, COLD, AND DUST. In the course of a 8.8. C. broadcast recently, Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert gave an interesting description of the special difficulties which ’ have to be met by Air Force men in their work over North Africa. 1 During the Summer, he said, the differences in climate between Egypt and Abyssinia are immense. Both ' are hot, but while the former is ex--1 tremely dry, the latter, with the approach of the rains, is very damp. ' “Let me first of all describe the flying conditions at this season in North ! Africa and the Red Sea area. There are two great bugbears which plague 1 the airman. Before he leaves the ground he has got to run his engines ' up in conditions of intense heat where 1 each movement is an effort and where every stitch of clothing is rapidly ■ soaked with sweat. Once he has tak--1 en off and has climbed to a great height the temperature drops rapidly, and his sticky clothes turn to ice on his shivering body. One has to be fairly tough to avoid getting pneumonia in these circumstances. “The second" trouble is dust—dust such as we people in European countries cannot even guess at. Dust that gets into every crevice in the aircraft and in the engine, into one’s hair, one’s eyes, and in between one’s teeth. Dust that plagues man on the grotmd, dust that reaches to a height sometimes of 10,000 feet, turning the sky into a grey wilderness where’ nothing can be seen half a mile away and where navigation becomes one long anxiety. There is no horizon on which to fly and the only resource is to use the instruments as though flying in cloud. Far below, the small circle Of visibility directly under the aircraft gives from time to time a glimpse of a landmark. But at three miles a minute this narrow space is soon passed over and the navigator has to be very quick off the mark if he is going to spot anything that is recognisable, MILES OF NOTHING. “Remember, too, that in most .of this region there are just miles and mile of nothing at all, flat stretches of dried mud, big areas of sand dunes, the monotony of the whole broken by occasional patches of scrub where a few goats exist precariously. Rarest sight of all are the oases where some depressed-looking palms and a thin patch of greenery indicate the presence of a little brackish water. “This short sketch will give you some idea of the difficulties with which our pilots have to compete, and my description of the dust is a measure of the labour which our maintenance crews have to go through in order to keep their aircraft and engines serviceable. “Much the same conditions prevail southward towards the Sudan, although the Nile and its cultivation does refresh the eye from time to time with its strip of green and blue. This is the region of the dreaded sand storm, which rolls up like an immense black cloud with very little warning, obscuring everything from ground level up to almost any height, and destroying any aircraft that has the misfortune to be caught by it in the air. Even on the ground it requires ! very strong holdfasts and a great deal of care to prevent the overturning [ and smashing of everything that has 1 wings. ' “Going further south at this season, the pilot must encounter conditions of heavy cloud and tropical storms with rain so heavy that it sounds like thunder on the structure of the aircraft. A pack of minor difficulties are apt to follow, such as flooding of the instrument board and threatened short circuits of the electrical gear, not to mention the soaking of the crew to the skin. - . “Put quite briefly, flying in the greater part of Africa, and indeed in Irak and India as well, is often an uncomfortable and sometimes a highlydangerous proceeding.” :