6000 FEET UP TO GET COOL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11955, 14 March 1917, Page 4

6000 FEET UP TO GET COOL.

OCR AIR ASCENDANCY IN MESOPOTAMIA. (From EDMUND CANDLER.) MESOPOTAMIA. Tip in the air on© loses the mirage. Immediately you leave the ground things cease to be blurred, and the dancing images and shapes of a level horizon become infantry, or sheep, oxcamels. Our ascendancy in I#ie air is as complete here as in France. The closest touch has been established between artillery commanders and pilots nnd observers, with damaging effect to the enemy's guns.

(lie ic.iiiit. ol lights in the air has been that a week often passes without tt sight of a hostile aeroplane. Low flying, no easy thing in the dark, has become the rule of late. In a raid at Shumran the other night 0110 of our machines was hit by splinters from its own bomb.

Sometimes the air is cmite calm at the ground level, while there is a gale blowing at 5,0001"t. In the hot weather Hying conditions are very trying. At night and in the early morning the air at 500 ft is far hotter than on the ground, and it becomes hotter and hotter until you reach 3.600 ft. To a must feel cool. The intense heat thing the oil; you can never run your engine full out or she will get red hot. After !) a.m. the heat makes conditions most adverse for flying, for the wood warps and shrinks in the sun. The dust chokes the engines and the sand blows as high as 4000 ft.

Now we are having things A r erj much our own way, though the onerny have brought out some good machines, fine fliers, and gallant men. Their two Fokkers disappeared after a fight with our airmen on August 13 and have not been seen since.

_ Chaff is fxchanped freply between the rival Flying Corps. Many of the enemy pilots are Germans/' but even the Hun can become a gentleman in the air. His nature seems to improve with the element he frequents—most gross on earth, less gross at sea, least gross in the clouds-

A 1001b bomb or a drum of machine gun bullets is a better currency than chaff, but our air scrapping is none the less formidable for the high spirits in which the Flying Corps goes into action. Smith inquires of Sohultz. "Why don't you use the aeroplane we left you at Kutr Can drop yon spare parts if they are of any use.'' It was a mere shell of a machine, and we had heard they were trying to put German engine in it. "Go On dropping bombs on our aerodrome," Schultz retorts. "It is 800 yards by 800, and you haven't done any damage yet. Bv tlie way, we have a machine that will strafe you, born of an English mother by a German father (engine), an _ improved 1916 type." Hence its barbarous hum (barbarisches Hummen). "Punch," the "Tatler," and the "Sketeh," when thev contain anything likely to penetrate the Hun epidermis, are dropped on their aerodromes, whil" ■' Rimplicfssimus " and "Jugend" rain upon ours. Tho airman is naturally breezy and glad. He is the beau sabreur of his element nnd performs the bloodiest execution with an easy grace-