FLYING FOR ALL

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

FLYING FOR ALL

By ERNEST SMITH. A distinguished general belonging to the R.oyal Air Force told me recently that aviation had made more rapid strides in effectiveness and security during four years of war than con’d have been anticipated in a quarter of a century of peace. I could quite believe him when, a few days later, I went up in an aerial bus—once a Handley Page bombing machine—with seven companions, and gave a start and a .beating to the motor-car which was bringing across country my overcoat and umbrella, which I had exchanged for a R.A.F. flying coat to wear in the air. My mind went Ibacik nine years to the evening at Rheims when I first saw an aeroplane put to practical use for passenger carrying. A Frenchman was so intent on seeing a compatriot break a distance flying record that when the airman descended lie told him that he had just abou-tl missed his last train to Paris. “ Can’t catch it at Rheims Station,” exclaimed the airman; “does it stop anywhere within 20 miles? If it does I can catch it for you!” A hurried glance at a time-taib’e, a wayside station was selected, and within a minute the marooned Parisian was bundled into the machine with his hand bog, and up. The airman was bock in half an hour or so to let us know he had seen his passenger sofely in the train, and the incident made for us journalists tlie first story of an aeroplane being put to practical use. While I was visiting the Royal Air Force centres in England several officers declared that they would never go abroad again by train and boat if they could have an aerop’ane. “Think of the discomfort of travel! The wait at Charing Cross, the bother of luggage and changing train and boat at Folkestone and Boulogne—all can be avoided if you travel by air!” AIR SICKNESS. One section of the thoughts with which I beguiled my time in the air was devoted to forming impressions as to what the travel of the future would be like. These impressions have since been compared with the sensations of land and sea travel, with which we are familiar. The most frequent question I have been asked is : “ Did you feel giddy ?” I didn’t, and none of my companions, most of them up for the first time, made any comp’aint. Another inquiry, and this came first, from an experienced airman with whom I travelled, was: “Did you feel sick ?” I didn’t; and unfortunately I cannot on a rough sea journey. I can only get a first-class headache. But there is no doubt a great many people would feel sick in the air, just as a number of people’s stomachs become unruly at the very thought of a steamboat. The sensation of air travel in my case was quite pleasant. T have since been trying to compare it with what 1 feel in my every-day method? of transnort. There was no movement of the machine, either in starting or landing, so violent as the jerk you sometimes experience in a starting motor-bus, or the skid that makes you o’utch at something when occasionally it pulls up badly in a hurry or swings across the road in an emergency to avoid traffic. When in the air yo-u may experience two sensations common to the train and the boat. These are a dip if you barmen to come into what u co d to be eallerl an air “poeket.” and a sideways glide if von are struck bv a. particularly nngrv 'mrst -when the movement, of tlm novnnlnne i= /»y.nc77v l’t'e a. o - n vrn'-o into the t’wmh -f th- s^n. GETTING USED TO IT. Being in the air, and realising that you are in the air for the first! time, you notice these things more than i.f you were in vour regular train or on board an oft-tried Channel steamer. The drop into the pocket is not a. hit more noticeable than a dip yon often experience in a fast-running train passing over the Regent’s Canol iust after v°-n have run through St. -Tobn’s Word Station in the direction of Baker-street. But you are in the air, you are a novice, and you are not so used to the movement of an aeroplane as you are of a first-class carriage. You take no notice of the latter because you have had it before, and the other probably becomes second nature to those who have undergone it several times. As a- matter of fact, a very much more pronounced -dip is felt in a motor-car when it gets over the top of a narrow raised bridef 1 when scorching along a country road. When you come down from the air you are full of the thought that you have seen the earth tearing along beneath you with the tar expanse of country apparently stationary. The first journey in a train afterwards shows that you have l>een watching the same phenomenon from a different view point every time you have passed through rural England with near-placed trees and lim'd iners dashing past, and a seemingly immobile .stretch of country in the background. Thanks to the impetus given by the war, the immense amount of money put into aerial research and aircraft mechanism that private enterprise would have taken long vears to furnish, the aeroplane is aeoniring reliability nt as f-’isf, a rMo as the motor-ear did after the abolition of the Rod Fjp.o- Art in the la to ’nineties. Aviation risks have patvvnllv l oo n cowator «o for th-p tW Wih ho ip thn yonr* +o wb-n the means of Vmmrtmn ~-ill ™ r _ haps even strop *w.. r copimoroiad impulses for deveVnmepf than military.

A noticeable feature of the French casualty returns is the relatively small number, 31,300, of officers killed as compared with the 1,010,000 men. In France alone the British army lost 32,769 officers killed, as against 526,843 men. This is explained by the fact that the proportion of French, regimental officers to men is at least 25 per cent, less than with our own army. The total French los;s in killed (1,071,300) is greater than that of any other of the belligerent nations in proportion to the numbers brought into the field, our total being 658,704, that pf’ the Germans 1,600,000. and of the Russians 1,700,000.

The vine-growing region of t-lie Gironde, in France, has been quite extensively equipped in recent ve.v-*s with tail metal rods, similar to lightning-rods, known as paragreles or “electric Niagaras,” and alleged to afford protection

from hailstorms. A careful study of the functioning of these rods during the six years 1912-1917 has recently been pub-

lished by M. F. Cou-rty, of the University of Bordeaux. The statistic-s presented show that numerous hailstorms have ocurred in the vicinity of all the rods. Moreover, according to M. Courfcv, there has been no obvious change in the character of these storms since the erection of the rods. Hi? artio'e is specially valuable because while not pronouncing finally and positively against hail-rods, ho points out some of the principal reasons for the erroneous con'dufiiom that others have drawn in favour of them

Admiral Beatty’s fa?ewe 11 speech to the American Sixth Battle Squadron under Admiral Rodman, expressed the mingled feelings with which every true sailer regarded the abiect surrender of the German High Sea, Fleet. “It was a

pitiful day to see those great ships coming in. like sheep being herded by dogs to their fold, without an effort on a'ny-

body’s part, but it was a day everybody could be proud id.” Lord Fisher is reported ro have said, early in t-lie war. when some one asked him whether the 'German fleet would come out:— “Would you ' , ome out irom your house If you knew -Tack Johnson was waiting for you on the doorstep?” But at the end .of the- war, when our superiority had been greatly increased by our own efforts and by Americaln help, the enemy fleet had to come out and give itself up in sheer despair.