ORDEAL IN UPPER AIR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19135, 2 October 1936, Page 5

ORDEAL IN UPPER AIR

PERIL OF SUFFOCATION PILOT IN SEALED SUIT HELMET WINDOW SLASHED (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9.30 a.m. RUGBY, Sept. 30. A dramatic story was told of hia experience in the upper air by SquadronLeader Swain, the test pilot of the experimental section of the Royal Air Force establishment at Farnborough, who has been personally congratulated by the Air Minister, Viscount Swinton, on the success of his flight of 3hrs. 20min. in which the world's altitude record was captured on Monday. The occasion marked the first attempt by the Royal Air Force on the record, and by reaching a height of 49,967 ft., Squadron-Leader Swain outdistanced the previous record established last month by a French pilot by 1396 ft. The great achievement was accomplished by a specially designed Bristol 138 open aeroplane, fitted with a Pegasus engine. The fuselage is of monococque construction, rounded in front and rectangular in the Year. ' "Willi a' wing span ,of 66ft.," it was one of the largest single-engined aeroplanes ever built. CRITICAL MOMENT The pilot, who was encased in a helmeted and sealed flying suit to give him warmth and oxygen in the rarefied upper air, says the most critical moment in the flight occurred during the descent, when he began to feel suffocated. "I had the impression that I was getting short of oxygen," he says. "I was gradually feeling weaker. I pressed the release lever which should have opened- the cockpit cover, but that failed to function. I tried the zip cord attached to my suit for such an emergency, but. could not find the fastener over my suit.

"I was wearing fighting harness and parachute harness. I. had to get my head clear of my helmet as I was gradually getting weaker, and the only thing to do was to cut open the window of the helmet with a clasp knife. VIEW FROM: 46,000 FT.

"I had great difficulty in doing this because I was feeling so weak, but. with a final effort I thrust the knife through and slit the window, tearing it off with my hand. As soon as the fresh air got in. I felt better. I found I was then 14,000 ft. up over Yeovil." Describing the view as he looked down from a height of 46,000 ft., SquadronLeader Swain says: "I could see the whole of the English south coast from Margate to Land's End and north almost as far as the Wash. London looked like a toy town and the Thames like a pieco of narrow ribbon.

"To the south I could see the coast of Franco and the Channel Islands, the latter looking like small stones in the bed of a river. I felt small and lonely, and had the impression that England was a very small place."

The machine used for the altitude night is a metal monoplane powered by the latest type of Pegasus engine, fitted with double superchargers so that it will continue to give full power at high altitudes where lack of oxygen would normally cause i 4 to stop. The object of this and succeeding flights is not only to reach a height of K>.oCoft,, but also to investigate the possibilities of flying in the upper atmosphere where scientists believe that speeds of hundred's of miles an hour are possible. The pilot's cockpit is not hermetically sealed. As a protection against intense cold he wears a special suit, complete with gloves and boots, which a Loudon firm made after months of experiment. Inside the thicknesses of the suit are electric heaters which keep the pilot warm despite 100 degrees of frost. A helmet oxygen mask completes the guise of some strange monster. Instead of the pilot having to adjust the flow of oxygen himself, he simply turns a needle on a dial to the figure of the altitude reached and the flow of oxygen to the mask is automatically increased or decreased to the amount needed by the human body, plus a margin for safety. The altitude crown has been worn 'since 1929 in turn by the United States, Britain, Italy and Fiance. In May. 1923. Lieutenant L. Soucek, of the United States Navy air arm, flew to 42,000 ft. This stood until the one-armed Briton. Oyril Uwens, reached 45,000 ft. in September of 1932, for which he was given the Britannia Trophy for the year's outstanding feat in aviation. A month later a Frenchman, Jeane Lemoine. failed by £ooft. to equal his mark, which remained the record until B. Donati, an Italian army flyer, in pursuance of Signor Mussolini's ambition to gain all the aviation honours, flew to a height of 47.3C0 ft., in April, 1934. This year a Frenchman, Georges Detre, beat this by 1400 ft.