AVIATION INVITES
The reception given us—and accorded the flyers who preceded
us—indicates, it seems to me, the increasing air-mindedness of America.
And it is not only air-expeditions, pioneer explorations and “stunts”
which command attention.
The air mail, perhaps more than any other branch of aeronautics, has
brought home to the average man realization of the possibilities of
aviation. Its regularity and dependability are taken for granted by
many. While our development of this phase of air transport is notable,
the United States is somewhat backward in other branches, compared
with the European nations. We lag behind the procession in passenger
carrying and the number of privately owned planes, in proportion
to our size.
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot of sitting Earhart signing a book
caption: LANDING AT BURRY PORT—THE UBIQUITOUS AUTOGRAPH SEEKER
© _Wide World Photos_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot of man helping Earhart off a boat
caption: THE FIRST STEP IN ENGLAND. HUBERT SCOTT PAYNE HELPS ME
ASHORE
© _International Photos_
]
Abroad, the entire industry is generously subsidized by the various
governments. Of course, aviation here knows no such support, a fact
which means that, so far as we have gone, our industry is on a sound
basis economically.
Although air transport in the U. S. A. has had to pay its own way,
and is behind somewhat, slightly over 2000 commercial airplanes were
constructed in 1927, and operations in the field of mail and transport
flying approximated 6,000,000 miles flown. Nearly nine thousand
passengers were carried, and two and a half million pounds of freight
transported.
Impressive as are these figures, they are not comparable to the volume
inevitable.
When I am asked what individuals can do to aid aviation my reply is, to
those who haven’t flown: “Fly.” For, whether or not aviation will be
found useful in their lives, or whether they find flying pleasant,
at least they will have some understanding of what it is, if they go
up. Every day all of us have opportunity to do our bit—and to get our
bit—by using the air for our long-distance mail, and at least some of
our express and freight. And perhaps some who come to touch aviation in
these ways, will find an interest which will carry them into the ranks
of plane owners.
Most people have quite incorrect ideas about the sensation of flying.
Their mental picture of how it feels to go up in a plane is based on
the way the plane looks when it takes off and flies, or upon their
amusement-park experience in a roller-coaster. Some of the uninitiated
compare flying to the memory of the last time they peered over the edge
of a high building. The sensation of such moments is almost entirely
lacking in a plane. Flying is so matter-of-fact that probably the
passenger taking off for the first time will not know when he has left
the ground.
I heard a man say as he left a plane after his first trip, “Well,
the most remarkable thing about flying is that it isn’t remarkable.”
The sensation which accompanies height, for instance, so much feared by
the prospective air passenger, is seldom present. There is no tangible
connection between the plane and the earth, as there is in the case of
a high building. To look at the street from a height of twenty stories
gives some an impulse to jump. In the air, the passenger hasn’t that
feeling of absolute height, and he can look with perfect equanimity at
the earth below. An explanation is that with the high building there
is an actual contact between the body of the observer and the ground,
creating a feeling of height. The plane passenger has no longer any
vertical solid connecting him with the ground—and the atmosphere which
fills the space between the bottom of the plane and the earth doesn’t
have the same effect.
Many people seem to think that going up in the air will have some
ill effect on their hearts. I know a woman who was determined to die of
heart failure if she made a flight. She isn’t logical, for she rolls
lazily through life encased in 100 lbs. of extra avoirdupois, which
surely adds a greater strain on her heart—besides not giving it any
fun, at all.
Seriously, of course a person with a chronically weak heart, who is
affected by altitude, should not invite trouble by flying. A lame man
should exercise special care in crossing a street with crowded traffic,
and one with weak lungs should not attempt swimming a long distance
unaccompanied.
Consciousness of speed in the air is surprisingly absent. Thirty miles
an hour in an automobile, or fifty in a railroad train, gives one
greater sensation of speed than moving one hundred miles an hour in a
large plane. On the highway every pebble passed is a speedometer for
one’s eye, while the ties and track whirling backward from an
observation car register the train’s motion.
In the air there are no stones or trees or telegraph poles—no
milestones for the eye, to act as speed indicators. Only a somewhat
flattened countryside below, placidly slipping away or spreading out.
Even when the plane’s velocity is greatly altered no noticeable change
in the whole situation ensues—80 miles an hour at several thousand feet
is substantially the same as 140, so far as the sensations of sight and
feeling are concerned.
Piloting differs from driving a car in that there is an added necessity
for lateral control. An automobile runs up and down hill, and turns
left or right. A plane climbs or dives, turns, and in addition, tips
from one side to another. There is no worry in a car about whether
the two left wheels are on the road or not; but a pilot must normally
keep his wings level. Of course doing so becomes as automatic as
driving straight, but is, nevertheless, dependent upon senses ever
alert.
One of the first things a student learns in flying, is that he turns by
pushing a rudder bar _the way he wants to go_. (The little wagons of
our youth turned opposite the push, remember?)
When he turns he must bank or tip the wings at the same time. Why?
Because the plane would skid in exactly the same way a car does if it
whirls around a level corner.
The inside of an automobile race track is like a bowl, with the sides
growing steeper toward the top. The cars climb toward the outer edge
in proportion to their speed, and it is quite impossible to force a
slow car up the steep side of the bowl. The faster it goes the steeper
the bank must be and the sharper the turn. A pilot must make his own
“bowl” and learn to tip his plane the right degree relative to the
sharpness of his turn and his speed. A skid means lack of control,
for a while, either on the ground or in the air, and of course is to be
avoided. By the way, compensating for skidding is the same with a car
or plane—one turns either craft in the direction of the skid.
Besides skidding, a plane can stall exactly as a car does on a hill.
The motor is overtaxed and stops. The plane motor doesn’t stop, but
just as a stalled car starts to roll backwards down the hill, so the
stalled plane begins to drop. Recovery of control with an automobile is
simple; only a matter of jamming on the brakes and getting the engine
started again. With the plane there is similarly little difficulty;
it falls for a moment until it attains enough forward speed to make
the rudder and elevators again effective. This is comparable to the
ineffectiveness of a rudder on a too slow-moving boat. If a plane stall
with out motor occurs so close to the earth that there isn’t time to
recover control, a hard landing results.
But in the air, as with automobiles, most accidents are due to
the human equation. The careful driver, either below or aloft, barring
the hard luck of mechanical failure, has remarkably little trouble,
considering what he has to contend with.
I think it is a fair statement that for the average landing, the
descent of the plane is less noticeable than the dropping of the modern
high-speed elevator. It comes down in a gentle glide at an angle often
much less than that of a country hill. As a result, unless a passenger
is actually watching for the landing, he is aware he is approaching the
ground only when the motors are idled.
“I would gladly fly if we could stay very close to the ground,” is a
statement that I have heard often in one way or another. As a matter of
fact, a plane 100 feet off the earth is in infinitely more danger than
one 3600 feet aloft.
[Illustration:
description: Photo full outdoor shot of Earhart in dress clothes
standing next to a door
caption: IN LONDON (MISS EARHART)
© _Topical Press Agency_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo high over shoulder shot of crew facing crowd
of photographers
caption: “A BIG SMILE, PLEASE!”
© _Paramount News Photos_
]
Trouble in the air is very rare. It is hitting the ground that
causes it. Obviously the higher one happens to be, the more time there
is to select a safe landing place in case of difficulty. For a ship
doesn’t fall like a plummet, even if the engine goes dead. It assumes
a natural gliding angle which sometimes is as great as eight to one.
That is, a plane 5000 feet in the air can travel in any direction eight
times its altitude (40,000 feet) or practically eight miles. Thus it
has a potential landing radius of 16 miles.
Sometimes, a cautious pilot elects to come down at once to make a minor
engine adjustment. Something is wrong and he, properly, is unwilling to
risk flying further, even though probably able to do so. Just so the
automobile driver, instead of limping on with, say, worn distributor
points, or a foul spark plug, would do well to stop at once at a garage
and get his engine back into efficient working order.
All of which obviously points the necessity of providing frequent
landing places along all airways. Few things, I think, would do more
to eliminate accidents in the air. With perfected motors the dread of
forced landings will be forgotten, and with more fields, at least in
the populous areas, “repair” landings would be safe and easy.
Eliminating many of the expected sensations of flying doesn’t mean that
none are to be anticipated or that those left are only pleasant. There
are poor days for flying as well as good ones. Just as in yachting,
weather plays an important part, and sometimes entirely prevents a
trip. Even ocean liners are occasionally held over in port to avoid
a storm, or are prevented from making a scheduled landing because
of adverse conditions. In due time a plane will probably become as
reliable as these ocean vessels of today, because although a severe
storm will wreck it, its greater speed will permit it to fly around the
storm area—to escape dangers rather than battle through them as a
ship must do.
The choppy days at sea have a counterpart in what fliers call “bumpy”
conditions over land. Air is liquid flow and where obstructions occur
there will be eddies. For instance, imagine wind blowing directly
toward a clump of trees, or coming in sudden contact with a cliff or
steep mountain. Water is thrown up when it strikes against a rock
and just so is a stream of air broken on the object in its way, and
diverted upward in atmospheric gusts which correspond to the spray of
the seaside. Encountering such a condition a plane gets a “wallop”—is
tossed up and buffeted as it rolls over the wave.
There are bumps, too, from sources other than these land shoals.
Areas of cool air and warm disturb the flow of aerial rivers through
which the plane moves. The “highs” and “lows” familiar to the
meteorologists—the areas of high and low barometric pressure—are
forever playing tag with each other, the air from one area flowing
in upon the other much as water seeks its own level, creating fair
weather and foul, and offering interesting problems to the students of
avigation, not to mention variegated experiences to the flyer himself.
The nautical boys have an advantage over the avigators. Constant
things like the gulf stream can be labeled and put on charts and
shoals marked. But one can’t fasten buoys in the atmosphere. Flyers
can only plot topography. Air, like water, gives different effects
under different conditions. The pilot must learn that when the wind
blows over a hill from one direction, the result is not the same as
that when it blows from another. Water behaves similarly. The shoals of
the air seem a little more elusive, however, because their eddies are
invisible. If one could see a downward current of air or a rough patch
of it, avigating might be easier sometimes.
“Bumpiness” means discomfort, or a good time for strong stomachs, in
the air just as rough water does in ocean voyaging. There is no
reason to suppose, however, if one isn’t susceptible to seasickness or
car-sickness, that air travel will prove different.
Some of the air-sickness experienced is due to the lack of proper
ventilation in cabin planes. Many are not adequately ventilated for
with the opening of the windows, the heat and sometimes the fumes of
the motors are blown in. Adequate ventilation is one of the amenities
which the plane of the future will have to possess.
Perhaps the greatest joy of flying is the magnificent extent of the
view. If the visibility is good, the passenger seems to see the whole
world.
I have spoken of the effect of height in flattening the landscape,
always a phenomenon in the eyes of the air novitiate. Even mountains
grow humble and a really rough terrain appears comparatively smooth.
Trees look like bushes, and automobiles like flat-backed bugs. A second
plane which may be flying a few hundred feet above the ground, as
seen from a greater altitude looks as if it were just skimming the
surface. All vertical measurement is fore-shortened.
The world seen from the air is laid out in squares. Especially striking
is the checkerboard effect wherever one looks down on what his brother
man has done. Country or city, it is the same—only the rectangles are
of different sizes. The city plays its game of checkers in smaller
spaces than the country, and divides its area more minutely.
If one is fortunate enough to fly over clouds, another world is
entered. The clouds may be grey or white or tinted the exquisite
colors of sunset. Sometimes “holes” occur in them through which little
glimpses of the earth may be seen. It is possible to be lying in
sunshine and to look down on a piece of dull grey earth. There is sport
to be had playing hide-and-seek through the light fluffy clouds that
are not compact enough to be ominous. An instant of greyness is
followed by a flash of sunlight as one emerges into the clear air. By
the way, a flyer can dissipate a fairly small cloud by diving into it.
That is the fun of the clouds which look like “mashed potatoes.” The
big fellows can be much more serious. Once into them, and one has
the sensation of being surrounded by an everlasting mass of grey,
comparable, so far as visibility goes, with a heavy fog. In such clouds
one can find all varieties of weather—rain, snow, or sleet.
In the trans-Atlantic flight, we encountered both rain and snow. There
lies one of the greatest risks of long distance flying—I mean moisture
freezing upon the wings of the plane. The danger zone of temperature is
said to lie chiefly between twenty-four and thirty-eight degrees, when
slush begins to form. Once in trouble of that kind, the pilot does his
best to find warmer or colder temperature, normally by decreasing
or increasing his altitude.
As an example of the ice menace, I was told of a plane which after a
very few moments in the air was barely able to regain the field whence
it had taken off in a sleet storm, coming down with a coating of ice
which weighed at least five hundred pounds.
Speaking of ice, I am often asked about the temperatures in the air.
“Is it dreadfully cold up there?”
Recently a group flew from New York to Boston on one of the hottest
mornings of the summer. The temperatures at about 2000 feet were
probably some degrees lower than those prevailing on the ground. We all
know that unless one encounters a breeze, often the temperature on a
mountain 5000 feet high is no more agreeable than that at its base. In
a small open plane, as contrasted to the cabin ship, one would have a
pleasanter time on a summer day, and conversely more discomfort in
cold weather. It parallels the experience in an open car.
[Illustration:
description: Photo full outdoor shot of Earhart standing next to
a police officer
caption: THE BOBBY SAID: “IF MY WIFE SEES THIS!”
© _Keystone Views_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo full outdoor shot of Earhart standing next to a
woman and two men who are in formal attire
caption: OFF FOR ASCOT—MRS. GUEST AND HER SONS WINSTON AND
RAYMOND
© _Keystone Views_
]
In crossing the Atlantic I think the lowest temperature we had in the
unheated aft cabin of the Friendship was around forty. Our lowest
outside temperatures were only a few degrees below this. On the
Atlantic our maximum altitude was about 11,000 feet, with an average
far lower. Doubtless it would have been colder had we flown high more
of the distance.
In addition to the visual joys of airscapes, there is much else that
flying gives. Nothing, perhaps, is more appealing than the sense of
quick accomplishment—of getting somewhere, sooner. Aviation means an
approach to the elimination of time wastage, and seems to point the way
to further increase in the world’s leisure.
Humanity reaches for leisure—as time in which to do what it wants. The
Orient finds contemplation its pleasure, while the Occient is not
content without action. Of course, Americans are noted for the
work they do to play. Perhaps aviation will tend to make them enjoy
life a little more, by providing time to do something else.