HE DARED DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23169, 15 October 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

HE DARED DEATH

Coffin Screws Aided Airman To Make First HAVE you ever wondered what the airmen in the first rickety aeroplanes really thought and felt a* they dangerously hopped a few hundred feet above the a'book ha* been written that tells these things more graphically than they have ever been told before. It is the biography of Robert Loraine, by his wife, Mr.. Winifred Loraine, just published in London by Collins.

Robert loraine was best known as an actor, but his contribution to aviation was large. He was the first man to Ay in a storm. He was the first to fly the Irish Channel, which he did just over twenty-eight years ago. Some of the most thrilling chapters of the book toll of Kobert Loraine* intimate experiences and feelings »» these pioneer flights. He describes his first flight in a small single-seater monoplune, thus: Heart Leapt \ ryi in T went to the far corner of the untied the cloche and opened the throtUe all out, to find that the new engine nave ire much more power. .Astonishingly more nowcr So, as soon as I had full speeo on! I pulled back the cloche with great determination and we leapt Ml® a*rl A last I was flying I I, myself, c, I *.? fulfilling an instinct so it easily over-rode any other instinct ox seir preecrva T looked at the ground and fclt like a conqueror. The machine leapt !,1^. er ' T B0 _ o „,p my heart, higher still—then— paff!—l came to earth, having stalled and crashed. On his next big flight the machine was broken, and no screws of the proper length could be bought in the locality. Loraine went to the undertakers and repaired his 'plane with coffin screws. And with coffin screws in it he made his first flight in a storm—a flight meant to disprove the scoffers contention that flying was only for fair weather. He took off from Bournemouth sitting between his planes on a plank of wood:

iliich I met it.- Very soon I was soaked tn the skin, right through my life-belt and leather-lined jacket. Visibility whs reduced to almost nil, and with no conitKißH or alternator and, of course, riot a glimmer of a landmark to guide me, I had to guess my direction. Presently, because I could not see, I lo»t all sense of gravity. I could not tell whether the earth was under me, to the right or to th« left of me. I must have been blown far ont over the English Channel, for I was well to the south of the Isle of Wight—as it proved later —although I thought I had turned the 'plane successfully back toward home, when a rift in the mist disclosed a spot of green grassland,' 1500 feet below me, to my left. When he flew the Irish Channel there was not a ship in the vicinity that could have rescued him. He started from Holyhead. Suddenly when he was in mid-air the engine stopped and he started diving down into the sea. I never felt so sick in my life, but I hadn't much time to think, for tho sea was rushing up towaid me I remembered it would be quite as hard to strike as asphalt, and I couldn't think how I was going to escape, but all the time I was with the petrol supply like mad. opening the robinet a notch or two, and tnen closing it in case she choked. All of a sudden, when I was twenty feet above the water, the engine spluttered and started firing again. Into the Sea Several times this occurred. Halfwav across he ran into a squall of rain which nearly unbalanced the rtiachine. .Just as ho came in sight of Howth lighthouse on the Irish coast his machine dived straight into the sea. He dived deep to clear the wires of his erumpled-iip machine and struck out for the lighthouse. In a little time the first man to fly the Irish Channel clambered up the rocks—having swum the part be couldn't fly. • • • Now, twenty-eight years later, there will soon be a passenger air service to New York from Southampton.

The velocity and penetrative power of this rain was greatly increased by the speed at