“ZOOMING ”

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7915, 7 August 1917, Page 4

“ZOOMING ”

ALL THE TRICKS OF FLYING. WHAT ARMY AIRMEN MUST LEARN. An Australian officer who is in charge of a party of mechanics engaged in one of the great aviation schools in England gives some interesting particulars of the work of the schools. According to the Melbourne ‘ ‘ Argus, ’ ’ he says:— “The instructors can fly, and no mistake. Every pupil has to learn to loop the looj), nose dive, do spinning nose dive, look sideways, tail slip, recover and loop, side slip, and do a figure of eight at 4000 ft. with his machine on its edge! All day long you see them at it when the weather is fine. I have been up 10,000 ft. in a fast scout type, which did 130 miles an hour. I also had a flight with the air-fighting instructor in a 100 horsepower machine, which can climb almost perpendicularly, and does 90 miles an hour.

‘ ‘ We looped the loop twice, and did a ‘zoom,' which is all the tricks rolled into one. It makes one wonder which day of the week Friday is. One second you see the ground where the sky ought to be, and —swish! Down you shoot to the earth spinning round as you fall, and then a back somersault, and off up into the sky as though you were shot out of a 15in. gun. Then steady flying for five seconds. Down go the right-hand planes until it’s a case of straight up and down, and over you roll sideways—over and over and over for 1500 ft. down. Then away up like a huge projectile to 4000 ft. again. Now over on to the left planes until she is nicely balanced on edge. Then you make a big figure of 8, each loop of the 8 being at least half a mile across, flying on edge all the time. After this classical performance we fly level again, then—whoosh! up she goes again with her nose perpendicular until we again reach 4000 ft. Down goes her nose, the engine stops, and, my word! you do travel earthwards. This is very nice, but when Captain starts to spin her round I wonder what next? Down she goes in a big screw, just spinning in her own plane width. The first half-dozen spins are deadly, but after that yo.u become used to it, and enjoy seeing all the camps spin round underneath you. If you look over the nose (the observer’s seat on this kind of battle-plane is in front), the aeroplane seems stationary, and the world going round you at a terrific pace. “It is much the same when you are ‘zooming,’ but it is a very weird sensation. Strangely enough, you don’t feel a bit afraid, and if your stomach didn’t seem as though it were rolling round and round inside of you it would be splendid. Looping the loop is the nicest stunt of the lot, and is very easy to do. Of course, I was very securely strapped into a comfortable seat. One has to sit very still, so as not to make the plane wobble about and get out of hand. If a chap has a weak stomach this trick flying would make him horribly sick. When they are training the pilots, if one becomes sick more than once they transfer him from the fighting squadrons to a scout or a bombing squadron. All the trick flying is very necessary in order to beat the Hun aviator. Captain has recently returned from the West front, where he flew daily at 16,000 ft. altitude for 13 months. They can only stand an hour of it each day, as the breathing is so very difficult up there, afid after they come down they are done for the rest of the day, and have to take oxygen. Captain has ‘downed’l3 Fritzes, and in July he goes back to France. He is a pastmaster in the art of aviation, and can do anything he likes with an aeroplane.