AN AVIATOR’S LOG BOOK

Taranaki Daily News, 10 September 1934, Page 7

AN AVIATOR’S LOG BOOK

BIRTH OF DOMINION FLYING EXPERIENCED PILOT LOOKS BACK. SELF-TAUGHT; PRIMITIVE PLANE. DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT YEARS. In 17 years aviation, as distinct from experimental aeronautics, has made an immense stride from the approximate to the exact. Flying is no longer a mechanical “sport,” it is a tried and proven means of transport and communication; a factor—and an important factor—in the commercial and economic structure of the age. While its development may have been a shade too rapid to the layman to adjust his ideas and accept the stages of its evolution at their practical face value, at least its novelty and spectacular appeal have laid hold of the public imagination. In the minds of most people the aviator is still an adventurer. But the truth of the matter is that the stock pilot is no more an adventurer than a commercial motor-driver, the engineer of a locomotive, or the ferry-master. His aeroplane is designed, constructed, sold, owned and turned to profit by someone else. He is merely its “driver.” However much this may be true of modern commercial aviation—particularly overseas,- wnere aerial passenger, freight and mail services are established, everyday institutions—aviation,-itself has had perhaps the most dramatic and meteoric history of any branch of human endeavour. Stratosphere, long distance and high speed flights are still adventures for the adventurous; but 17 years ago, when Pilot-Officer lan Keith first handled an aeroplane, flight itself was adventure for the adventurous. There are few men in the southern hemisphere who have had continuous active connection with aviation for 17 years—fewer still in New Zealand. But those few have been privileged to watch and to participate in what is perhaps the grandest adventure of modern times. Their personal remiirtsences are never without interest for layman or brother-pilot. The three articles of which this is the first are based upon Mr. Keith’s personal recollections of 17 years’ flying. As he himself says, he is a pilot whose career in aviation has been “quiet.” He has refrained from “stunts” and he has taken his job seriously and quietly. He has had the privilege of watching and feeling aviation grow in its most sensational “growing years.” EXPERIMENTAL YEARS. In 1917 the present instructor at the Western Federated Flying Club’s aerodromes took a ’plane off the ground for the first time. It was a year in which the passage overhead of an aeroplane stopped traffic in any New Zealand town; and it was a year which saw revolutionary changes in aeroplane design overseas —changes that had been hastened by the requirements of modern warfare. But Mr. Keith’s interest in flying had been keen for years before he even set dyes on an aeroplane. He could remember the days when flying had been g fantastic feat; Santos Dumont was flying above the streets of Paris in a baby “blimp,” tying it up to the rail of the fire escape and climbing out of the gondola into the top-storey of his house; days when the same pioneer’s huge, unwieldy biplane made hops of 50 yards or so and was considered successful because it had left the ground. Before the early years of the war countless designs for “flying machines” were-being tried out—some astonishingly like the modern aeroplane, others fantastic, clumsy things that hopped and flapped and roared, and seldom flew, but ■Whidr : enjoyed eqdal prominence with more simple and practical designs, possibly because of' their vety picturesqueriess. The world was thrilled and excited. Experiment was rampant. But the grim necessities of modern warfare sorted the grain from the chaff with almost incredible rapidity, as' the tacticians realised that the aeroplane was a new weapon which might easily decide the issue and the fate of the nations. -• The war gave aviation its chance, and the war gave the aviator his. Men from every conceivable walk of life who had been interested in aviation or who had merely thought they were interested, answered the call of the R.F.C., for men —and were weeded out by a slow (and certain) method of elimination. Only the best ever set foot in France as the member of an R.F.C. or R.A.F. unit. Even the men of the colonies were given a chance, and it was at the Christchurch training school that Mr. Keith had his. At the age of 18, barely having left college, he obtained the required deposit of £lOO (£75 refundable by the Government if the pupil was successful in getting a ticket) and began training. ONLY TWO SCHOOLS.

At this time there were only two instruction schools in New Zealand, that at Christchurch which Mr. Keith attended, and a school at Auckland where seaplane instruction made the course long, difficult and almost prohibitively expensive. The type of land machine used at Christchurch for the instruction of pupils was the Caudron, biplane, a primitive, under-powered, clumsy contraption which was partly controlled in the air by wing-warp. The pilots had leather sections set into the shoulders of .their flying kit to which the wires from the wing tips were attached. When the pilot wished to bank the machine he leaned steadily to right or to left, dragging the wing tip out of alignment. Even so Caudrons were up to date in comparison with machines used in earlier instruction work. They at least had a rudder bar and a joystick that would control the angle of flight. '

Perhaps the most amusing and incredible feature of Mr. Keith’s story of those early days is the fact that the man who instructed the pilots-to-be was himself unable to fly! They queued up in the morning for instruction and were permitted to do “straights” up and down the field, learning to keep the machine absolutely true in direction with rudder and tail plane. After a few days of this, the “kiwi” instructor would explain the uses of the joystick and tell the doubtful pupils that they were to make a slight hop on the way downfield and on the return journey. Having learned to take off and land ' again with a minimum of damage, the instructor’s next suggestion was the one to raise wind in the calmest of weather: “All right. . . . Now instead of hopping, keep your stick back, go just over the hedge, turn her gently and come down again.” “DELICATE TOUCH.” The senior instructor, however, retained for himself the right of putting the final polish on the pupils. He took them for a few actual flights as dual instruction, praising their “delicate touch” on the controls, but making very certain that they never had the slightest opportunity of actually using them. So, after the imposing tota- of three hours and 20 minutes dual and solo flying time (a quarter of this running up and down the aerodrome) a Government inspector who knew nothing at all about aeroplanes arrived, watched the pupils fly the machines, and granted them all their licenses provided they were fortunate enough to escape wrecking anything. “The only really spectacular accident I saw at this period of training,” said

Mr. Keith, “was a crash from 150 feet. Besides being clumsy according to modern standards, those old Caudrons were dreadfully under-powered. Their top speed was barely the stalling speed of a modern machine. On this particular occasion the pupil was climbing at an angle which placed too great a Strain on the asthmatic engine. It was all over in a second or two. From the debris in the middle of the field the figure of the dazed pupil detached itself and stood more or less upright. Instead of breaking every bone in his body he had merely bruised his face so badly that he took his food through a straw for days afterwards. It was too painful to chew! “Shortly afterwards the Caudrons killed our senior instructor, Cecil Hill. He tried to stunt one and it fell to pieces.” With three hours flying time, then, but brand new Government recommendations, a detachment of 15 New Zealand recruits, including Mr. Keith, sailed for England via Panama, at the beginning of 1918, by tire troopship Maunganui.