INTO THE UNKNOWN

Otago Witness, Issue 3414, 20 August 1919, Page 66

INTO THE UNKNOWN

WHAT HAWKER AND GRIEVE LEARNT. >p What are the lessons of the great flight? Hawker, whose nature is to decry bis own skill and courage and give every ounce of credit possible to others, has but one "answer to the question: "Ask Grieve; he will tell you. The lesson of the flight js Grieve's navigation. If I do it again I shall do it with the same machine and the same engine and the same navigator. You can't better them. But, in navigation, wo went out into the unknown, and the lessons of the flight are there!" Commander Mackenzie-Grieve became instantly graver than his wont when I put the questions to him: "What lessons have you learned? How can other men benefit by your experience?" • 0 In replying, he used the same phrase as Hawker: "We went into the unknown. To me it was entirely new. I had never crossed the sea at such a height or at such a speed. "The lesson I learned was that it was possible to take accurate observations under most adverse conditions. I found that I could use a cloud horizon, flying over the fog on the Newfoundland Banks, as easily as a sea horizon thousands of feet below. The fog lay like a sea below us with, clearly-defined bounds. After the clouds broke up I could- only rely upon the compass and the known drift, but as soon aa 1 could take another celestial observation—from a star—l was able to find our position correctly and put the machine back on the direct course again. -- . "What I missed most, and wanted badly, was correct barometrical readings and adrift indicator which would show me the drift of the machine—that is to say, the strength of the beam wind—when' the clouds below us made the sea invisible. As General Seely said, we want a drift indicator most when the sea or the land is invisible. " Por the good of aerial navigation the scientists should be called together and these problems should be placed before them. They should be asked to devise instruments for giving us the true barometrical reading at any height and the drift when the surface is invisible. That sounds difficult, ■ 'but it might be done.

" Such, a drift or wind indicator' would tell'us something about a storm should we encounter one. . We want to know which way It is travelling It is true, as Hawker has told you, that an aeroplane meeting a storm can go round it or fly above it. But if you go round on© way you will find, let ua say, a westerly wind, and if you go round the other way, an easterly-! wind. It is most important to know what wind you are going to find when you go round your storm." Taking the results as a whole, it is clear that the Atlantic flying machine of the future must have good speed, long range, and a great climbing quality. Hawker was fortunate in having a Sopwith machine, which rose rapidly over the cloud and fog bank and gave the navigator a cloud horizon before they had gone 10 miles. Simy larly he was able to carry his machine to a great height when more clouds were met, and had it not been for the trouble with the radiator filter he would have completed his flight at a height of ten to twelve thousand feet above the flying scud and thick, "dirty" weather on the sea Every flying man will read with minute caro the plain statements made by the pilot and navigator on this first great Atj lantic flight and benefit by them. show that the seaman is in a natural ment when flying above clouds over tlfl sea, though all the marks to which he M accustomed are obliterated. Knowing the _s .M and the weather, he "senses" his positicM acts by acquired instinct, and is afraid though the worst seems to have befallen him. If he meets a storm he rejoices in his newly acquired and most glorious ability to fly over or round this air vortex, confident that his machine will pull him through, barring accidents, and the clouds will break again.— GC.C in the Daily Mail.