THE WAY OF A MOTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 233, 1 October 1929, Page 2

THE WAY OF A MOTH

Wanganui’s to have its very own airport soon; and in a few years—just sufficient for the infants of ,the town to exchange shawls and bonnets for rompers—there will bo nothing uncommon or distinguished in saying to one’s wife, “Well, dear, put the dinner in the oven for mg: I’m flying to Auckland to-day, and may be a littlejate in getting back.” And I wonder whether our .sands will have a colony of Moths similar to that in Christchurch? You haven’t been long in the stately and sobey Cathedral City before you realis'd that there is something unusual about it. Its inhabitants may ride meekly on bicycles all the days of their life, but now and 'again you catch a £lint of silver wings, I hear a loud, whirring buzz which suggests that a man-made engine is somewhere defying the laws of gravity, or see a Moth turn over in a new kind of somersault that sets the blood spinning in your veins. The big black and silver sausage, which bobs gravely about at Sockburn, telling which way the winds do blow, is the first landmark of the air colony. Then there are long she and men in shirtsleeves, and perhaps .wo or three shining ’planes motionless in the field, waiting for somebody to say 4< Go” to their wings. Going up in an aeroplane is a comparatively simple matter, thesg days; but there are a few formalities to be observed. One is the signing of the “death warrant,” as the pilots cheerfully call it. -His Majesty’s Defence Department admits no liability at all if you happen to descend from the skies too abruptly: and you must recognise this before starting on the noble sport of cloud-chasing. However, the little ceremony is morg or less of a joke, and when the taxi-driver who has brought you to the grounds whispers cheerily, “Take it from me, Miss, you’re a whole lot safer in the air than on the bitumen,” you don’t feel even a trifle inclined to stop and make your will. Leather jacket and helmet, and goggles to protect your eyes from the wind, give you a decidedly businesslike air. You feel that you’ve been at the game of flying all your life—or anyhow, that you were cut out for it—and even more does your first spin appeal to you when you arg introduced to the little ladies of the air world, the Moths, silver chariots looking very ready and willing for their aerial joyride. They are grotesquely like the insects for which they are named. You have become a sort of Ariel, only with a mbth’s wings instead of a bat’s back for your sole support, Your seat is in the front of the machine, and the pilot sits behind you. You can’t eee him, except by a corkscrew movement of ycur neck, and, once the machine begins to drone, it’s not much good endeavouring to talk to him. Anyhow, the machine has quite enough to say, without human interruptions. It has a deep-chested, whirring song which seems to go right through you, like the music a ship’s engines make when the sea is white and grey ahead.

Leaving the ground is a more or less imperceptible matter. OnB moment, you aro bumping more or less happily over a normally uneven field, the next, the Moth has reached the cool silk of the air. And it’s no time at all before’ earth is a very unimportant thing. You realise how stale and stodgy it was to have stayed always tethered to the one element. Far away there is the harsh blue line of the sea, and th'e river winds like a little silver ribbon towards it. Everything is perfectly distinct, but in miniature, the country world beyond the town’s edges laid out in chessboard squares of chocolatg colour and green. Every now and again, the steady wings tilt sideways, the motion not nearly so forcible as the jolt a motor car gives in crossing a pothole: that is exactly what you are doing—crossing potholes in the air. But the jolts aren’t so noticeable as the singing strength of the machine. It has human steadiness and care, to add to its birds’ wings. It can dip and curtsey and glide if it wants to, but you are a passenger, on your first trip up, so its behaviour is unimpeachable. By the way, you have completely forgotten that you ever had a pilot. Perhaps because are in the front of the machine, and can feel its vibration

tingle through you, you are convinced that you are somehow managing the whole affair: and for the first time you can understand how <men love their big, obedient machines, which give them the power of gods,'and nt ver let them down except through some human fault or error. * Just when you ha‘/e arrived at this conclusion, tho ’plane puts its nose down towards earth, and you see small green fields hurriedly coming up to meet a perfectly still machine. You haven’t the faintest idea whether you arg falling or not. \Evcn if you are, you have a dim, defiant feeling that the flight would be worth it. Then the ’plane brings its noSo around to the angle where a nose ought to be, and you feel positively fond of it. The fields aro very near: there is a slight jar, and you have lam led. The pilot merely grijis when you tell him all about the reirhrkable qualifies of his machine. Ho [is used to anything from his passengers—enthusiasm or mal de mer as the case may be. Himself, he is perfectly at home in his second element, one of a new race of men whose kingdom-, has gone beyond the jedges of the earth.