THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HENDON: A FIRST VISIT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3149, 22 July 1914, Page 77

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HENDON: A FIRST VISIT.

By Maorilanda

The word “Hendon” has but one significance to the ordinary person. Once it may have been the name of a suburb of London where people lived; now the word means the aerodrome and nothing else. The life of Hendon centres round the “flying ground”; this seems the raison d’etre for the existence of the place, and the very signs used in the district show the inhabitants’ consciousness of it. On the way down' Colin Dale avenue, irom the car to the turnstiles at the entrance gate, we meet such temptations to refreshment as “The Airman’s Hoh>e Restaurant,” “Propeller Stores,” and “Flying Cafe”! The grounds themselves are not unlike a racecourse, except that nothing has been .done to smooth away unevenness; the land rises and falls as ordained by Nature. Fronting the lawns are the-gigantic sheds that shelter the aircraft, from some of these the French flag flies, but above the majority the Union Jack floats on the breeze. Through half-opened doors one catches glimpses of wonderful things; here th& white nose of a monoplane, there a tent-like biplane. When seen at rest in their sheds these ships-of-the-air appear enormous; later, when high above the flying grounds, they resolved into mere specks. Hendon no show, nor bid for popularity, as one might expect. The management of the Aerodrome provides no authorised guide to explain the difference in craft; neither is there an exhibition hall models. An early arrival will find nothing save the green flying ground, banked in the distance by full-leaved trees, a row of striped tea-tents (that remind one of a bathing beach), a couple of lowroofed restaurants, the giant sheds, and endless ranks of empty chairs, and an army of programme sellers. Later, usually some half-hour after the time scheduled for commencement (for there is always the question, “Will they fly to-day?”), the audience assembles; but even when the enclosures fill it is apparent that visitors are of little account at Hendon. A man with a megaphone is detailed off to give an occasional- piece of information and to proclaim that “passenger tickets may now be obtained, rates from two guineas” (knd ever and anon some daring spirit ventures towards the office to reappear smiling, audaciously, ticket in hand); but for the rest interest centres round the great sheds. About them, ignoring the staring public, gangs of mechanics hover in greasy overalls. Here is one with a paint pot, there another with a handful of cotton waste; others pass swiftly backwards and forwards with oil and screwdrivers, for nothing must be left to chance, and to the last minute bolts are being tightened, wires inspected and tested. “Are they going to fly or are they not?” asks each man of his neighbour. “Is the wind too high?” comes the counter question. Presently a boy whizzes by on a motor cycle. A moment later the doors of one of the vast sheds are swung yet further open, and half a dozen youths lay hands on the mighty monster within. Out she comes—tail lowered to earth, white wings gleaming in the sunlight,—running easily on the inconspicuous, pneumatic-tyred wheels placed beneath the long white body. “That’s a monoplane,” says somebody; “look at her!” And everyone makes a move towards the low iron fence that separates the paddock from the flying grounds. Round she comes, outstretched, immovable wings supported by a couple of darkhaired youngsters in grown dungaree (aeronautics seems a young man’s game), two others at her torpedo-like nose, one balances the tail. There is joke and laughter among them, though more about the informal game of cricket the arrival of the motor cyclist had interrupted than about the flight about to be undertaken. Then one yonth suddenly reverses his cap, puttine it on back, to front, so that the peak shall not catch the wind, and springs into the pilot’s place on the aeroplane. “So long,” he cries with a nod to the others. “I say. who’s ,coming?” Another youth makes the necessary, if unpretentious, change in his costume, and squeezes himself into the opening at the narrow end of the cigar-shaped Tbodv; a third swings the propeller, and amidst a sudden silence the great white dragon-fly runs swiftlv off. attended by a youth clinging to the tip of one wing. On she "goes across the ground, but still on wheels. They put her at a rise; she runs up it, tops' it, goes on mounting—and the audi-

ence gives a gasp. ‘‘She’s off!” And she is—away into the blue towards the distant trees. We watch her, fascinated; it looks so easy and safe! Presently the hum of the engine sounds louder again as the mechanical bird circles homeward, not to descend, but to mount higher and higher above us, white, gleaming, and beautiful. Necks are crooked and eyes strained as she travels, and we novices 'cast an amazed glance towards the oil-stained band of young mechanics. They are not watching their confreres, but have returned to cricket! Meanwhile, on the wide green grounds a sober little group of ambulance men are carrying out stretchers and equipment. The sight causes a shudder, and for a moment we do not like to look at the great white bird hovering above us. Once again the motor cyclist bangs past; again the wide doers are opened, and as the band starts up a gay strain another aircraft is run out. We forget the danger of the great modern game and follow with the rest beside the double-decked monster of a biplane that now takes the field.' On the back of this is a basket chair, which offers accommodation to a passenger. The aeronaut takes his place on the projecting peak; his feet dangling into space.' Bending forward to steer with and feet, this pilot can see the void beneath him and watch the audience dwindling to the size of molecules. “Ye gods; what.nerve!”. mutters someone, and we echo the cry as the great ship rises, rises high above us,' pitching, tossing, curveting in the breeze, and sets off in apparent-pursuit of the monoplane. Now the excitement becomes fast and furious, for while we have been watching the ascent of -the biplane another monoplane has taken the field, and Miss Davis, the famous lady flier, is being helped to her place behind the pilot. With a smiling farewell and a wave of her handkerchief to her friends she is off—gone to unknown parts so far as we are concerned, for' within the space of hardly more than seconds she was out of sight; nor did we see her again that afternoon. Hardly had she passed from our ken before a whisper ran round that the man behind the goggles now scrambling into place on yet another biplane was none other than Bleriot himself. He rose into the air just as the two first aeroplanes settled to earth near the grand stand, preliminary to beginning the feats of the day—--altitude tests (when the competitors actually disappeared from view behind the drifting clouds), speed tests, and the new craze of “looping the loop,” ending finally in a cross-country race, when the competing aircraft toe the line and rise at a given signal like a flock "of mammoth birds Such is Hendon, and leaving the aerodrome one ponders the fascinating advertisement of the Graharne-White School, which promises a complete course of instruction (until the pupil obtains his Royal Aero Club pilot certificate! for the 'moderate sum of £75. Why do not all of us learn to fly? \ High above the aerodrome we still see the great white birds coquetting with the wind, as they circle this way and that, now swooping gracefully downward, now mounting higher and higher at will. Beneath them stand the gazing thousands, and round the empty sheds, with their waving flags, the youths in tljeir stained overalls still play cricket. Such is Hendon.