CROSS-COUNTRY FLYING
When a pupil has finished his flying school tests, and has received
his certificate from the Royal Aero Club, he is in a stage of
proficiency which means that he has learned to control an aeroplane
when above an aerodrome and in conditions that are favourable, and
that he may be relied on to make no elementary mistakes. But as to
cross-country flying, with its greater hazards, he is still a novice,
with everything to learn. And so it is to flights from point to point,
generally between neighbouring aerodromes, that he next devotes
himself.
Aviators have been commiserated with, often, on what is thought to be
the monotony of a cross-country flight. The pilot, raised to a lonely
height above the earth, is pictured sitting more or less inertly in
his seat, with nothing to do but retain his control on the levers, and
look out occasionally so as to keep upon his course. But the beginner,
when he first attempts cross-country flying, will have an impression
not of inactivity, but of the necessity to be constantly on the alert.
He will be engrossed completely by the manipulation of his machine,
with no time to sit in idle speculation, or to analyse his feelings as
the country passes away below.
When preliminaries on the ground have been gone through, and the pilot
is in the air, there will first be a need to gain a height of several
thousand feet. Altitude is essential in cross-country flying. The
higher a pilot flies, within reason and having regard to the state of
the atmosphere, the better chance will he have of making a safe
landing, should his motor fail suddenly and force him to descend. So
the first concern is climbing--and in doing so the pilot must remember
the teachings of his instructor, and not force his craft on too steep
or rapid an ascent. He may prefer, in his early flights, to remain
above the aerodrome while he is gaining altitude, watching his height
recorder from moment to moment so as to note his progress upward. He
will be occupied also with his engine, listening to its rhythm of
sound, and keeping an eye on the indicator that tells him how many
revolutions per minute the motor is actually making, and which will
warn him at once should it begin to fail.
Granted his motor is running well, a pilot should soon gain altitude.
Then, assuming the air is clear--as it should be on his early
flights--he will note some landmark, away on the line of his flight,
and set off across country towards it. Fixed conveniently in front of
him will be a map, of a kind devised specially for the use of
aviators. A pilot's view, as he flies high above the ground, is
bird-like. Landmarks fail to attract his attention, at this altitude,
which would be clearly seen if he were on the ground. Hills, for
example, unless they are high, are so dwarfed as he looks down on them
that they scarcely catch his eye. What is done, by the designer of air
maps, is to accentuate such details of a landscape as will prove
conspicuous when seen from above. A river, or an expanse of water, is
clearly seen; so also are railways and main roads; while factory
chimneys, and large buildings which stand alone, may be identified
from a distance when a pilot is in flight. So on an airman's map, made
to stand out by various colourings in a way that catches the eye, are
railways, roads, rivers, lakes and woods, with here and there a
factory chimney or a church, should these be in a position rendering
them visible easily from the air. That such maps should be bold in
their design, and free from a mass of small details, is very necessary
when it is remembered that the aviator, passing through the air at
high speeds, has no time for a leisurely inspection of his map.
With a good map, and aided when necessary by the compass that is
placed in a position so that he can see it readily, a pilot has no
difficulty as a rule, once he has acquired the facility that comes
with practice, in steering accurately from point to point, even when
on a long flight. On a favourable day, when the land below is clearly
visible, he will glance ahead, or to one side, and after observing
some landmark, look on his map to identify the position he has just
seen. Under such conditions steering is easy, and the compass plays a
subsidiary part. But it may happen that, while he is on a long flight
and at a considerable altitude, the earth below may be obscured by
clouds, or a low-lying mist, and all landmarks vanish from his view.
Sometimes too, he may find himself flying through mist and cloud, with
all signs of the earth gone from below. Whereupon, robbed for awhile
of any direct guidance, he must fly by aid of his map and compass,
holding his machine on its compass course, and noting carefully the
needle of his height-recorder, so that he is sure of maintaining
altitude. A risk exists under such conditions, when there is no
visible object by which to judge a course, that an airman may make
leeway, unconsciously, under the pressure of a side-wind; and so he
must be ready to note carefully, immediately that a view of the earth
is vouchsafed him, whether he has actually been making leeway, either
to one hand or the other, even while the bow of his machine has been
held on its compass course. There is a risk also, when a pilot is
flying in fog or at night, that, having no visible horizon from which
to gauge the inclination of his craft, it may assume gradually some
abnormal angle, without his own sensations telling him what is taking
place. The craft may, for the sake of illustration, incline sideways,
imperceptibly to the pilot, till it begins to side-slip. But science
can meet this danger by providing inclinometers, fitted within the
hull so that the aviator can see them easily; and by means of these
instruments, which are illuminated at night, it is possible for a
pilot to tell, merely by a glance, at what angle his machine is moving
forward through the air--whether it is up or down at the bow, or
whether its position laterally is normal.
The beginner, on his first cross-country flight, need not be troubled
by such intricacies. He is flying, one assumes, on a fine day, with
the land spread clearly below him. So as he moves through the air,
listening always to the hum of his motor, he need have no fear,
granted that his observation is ordinarily keen, of losing his way.
Naturally, being a novice, he will feel the responsibility of his
position. His eyes will rove constantly from one instrument to another;
as indeed, from habit, do those of a practised flyer. He will glance
at the height recorder; then at the engine revolution indicator; then
at the dial which tells him what his speed is relative to the air.
There is a dial, also, showing the pressure in his petrol-tank; while
there will be a clock on his dashboard at which he will glance
occasionally, after he has marked some position away on the land below,
so as to determine what progress he is making from the point of view
of time.
Besides these preoccupations, and the ceaseless even if almost
unconscious attention that he must pay to his engine, there is the
need to bear constantly in his mind's eye the lie of the land. Should
his motor fail suddenly, or something happen which necessitates an
immediate descent, it is imperative that he should be able, without
delay, to choose from the ground that is visible below him some field
or open space that will provide a safe landing-point. And this is
easier said than done. The earth, when viewed by a airman who looks
down almost directly upon it, is apt to be deceptive as to its
contour. A field that is selected say, from a height of several
thousand feet, may not prove--as the aviator nears it in his glide--to
be at all the haven he imagined it. More than once, seeking to alight
on a field which appeared to him, as he was high above it, to be level
as a billiard table, a pilot has found, when it is too late, that the
ground has sloped so steeply that his machine, after landing, has run
on downhill and ended by crashing into a fence or ditch.
It is very necessary for an airman to learn to judge, by its
appearance, the difference between an expanse, say, of pasture land,
or a field which is in green corn or standing hay. It has happened
often that a pilot, descending after engine failure towards what he
has reckoned a grass field, has discovered--when too low to change his
landing-point--that his pasture land is actually a field of green corn;
and a landing under such conditions, with the corn binding on the
running-gear of the machine, may end in the aircraft coming to an
abrupt halt, and then pitching forward on its nose; with a broken
propeller and perhaps other damages in consequence.
In choosing a landing ground, as in other problems that face the
novice in cross-country flying, experience will prove his safeguard.
He will learn for instance that cattle or sheep, if they can be
discerned below in a field, go to show that this field is one of
pasture and not of crops. If no cattle are to be seen in a field, and
the aviator is doubtful about it, and yet if it happens to be the only
suitable one he can locate, then he may look closely at the gateway
which leads into the field. If, in this gateway, he can detect such
scars or markings on the ground as are caused by the feet of cattle as
they walk daily in and out, he may feel satisfied the field is one of
pasture.
When cattle or sheep are seen standing in a field so that they face in
the same direction, this may suggest either the existence of a slope,
or the presence of a strong ground wind; while a stream or brook at
the edge of a stretch of open land, or a belt of woods, may suggest a
sloping of the ground.
It is amusing for a pilot--or it was so, rather, in the days when few
aeroplanes were in existence--to note the astonishment which his
descent, made quite unexpectedly perhaps in some quiet and rural
country, will occasion amongst the inhabitants. Sometimes, under the
stress of such an excitement, people appear to lose for the time being
their power of coherent speech. A pilot in a cross-country contest,
not being sure whether he was on his right course, decided to make a
landing and ask his way. He noticed, after a while, the figure of a
man in a field below. Planing down, and alighting in the field, he
shouted questions to this man, switching his engine off and on, while
he did so, in order that his words, and those of the other, might be
audible. But the man in the field, demoralised by the advent of this
being from the air, and gazing at him and his machine with an
expression of blank amazement, was unequal to the task of giving even
the simplest directions. He waved his arms, it is true, but no words
that could be understood issued from his lips. The pilot repeated his
questions, but it was no good. The man waved and mouthed, and rolled
his eyes, but when he tried to speak intelligibly he could not. So the
aviator, loath to waste further time, accelerated his engine again and
continued his flight.
As a contrast to this, there was the experience of a pilot who, after
a long flight from England to the Continent, landed at length near a
small village. In the next field to that in which he alighted there
was a labourer, digging patiently. The aviator expected that this man
would fling down his spade in excitement, and run wildly towards the
aeroplane. But such was not the case. This labourer, a marvel of
placidity and unconcern, merely raised his head slowly and looked
across at the aircraft, and then went on with his digging.
In his first cross-country flights, being concerned chiefly as to the
manipulation of his machine, and having so many things to think of,
the novice may feel tired after even a short journey by air. His chief
sensation, as he switches off his engine to descend towards the
aerodrome he sees below him, will be one of relief that he has escaped
engine failure, and that he has been able to find his way from point
to point. The joy of flight, of passing swiftly thousands of feet
above the earth, will have made but a small impression upon him--at
any rate consciously. It will not be until the handling of his machine
becomes less laborious, and he has time to accustom himself to his
unique view-point, and the strangeness and beauty of the scene below
him, that the novice will realise some of the fascinations of aerial
travel; fascinations that it is difficult to describe. The sensation
of having thrown off the bonds of earth-bound folk; of soaring above
the noise and dust of highways; of being free from the obstructions of
traffic; of sweeping forward smoothly, swiftly, and serenely--the land
stretching below in an ever-changing panorama, with the drone of the
motor in one's ears, and a wine-like exhilaration in the rush of the
air: these, and others more obscure, are among the sensations of
cross-country flying.