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OPPORTUNITIES IN AVIATION
OPPORTUNITY BOOKS
OPPORTUNITIES IN AVIATION
BY LIEUT. GORDON LAMONT
CAPTAIN ARTHUR SWEETSER
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS
BY JAMES MELVIN LEE
OPPORTUNITIES IN CHEMISTRY
BY ELLWOOD HENDRICK
OPPORTUNITIES IN FARMING
BY EDWARD OWEN DEAN
OPPORTUNITIES IN MERCHANT SHIPS
BY NELSON COLLINS
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817
[Illustration: At work on one of the F-5-L type of seaplane at the
Naval Aircraft Factory, League Island, near Philadelphia. The F-5-L is
one of the largest type of naval seaplane, and flew from Hampton
Roads, Va., to Rockaway Naval Air Station, L.I.]
OPPORTUNITIES
IN AVIATION
By Captain ARTHUR SWEETSER
U.S. Air Service
Author of "_The American Air Service_" and
GORDON LAMONT, Late Lieutenant
in the Royal Air Force, Canada
Frontispiece
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS
_Publishers_ New York and London
Acknowledgement is made to the _New York
Evening Post_ for some of the material
which first appeared in its columns.
OPPORTUNITIES IN AVIATION
Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published, January, 1920
To that great new gift which is so soon to come
to us, this little book is enthusiastically
dedicated by the authors.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION i
I. WAR'S CONQUEST OF THE AIR 1
II. THE TRANSITION TO PEACE 11
III. TRAINING AN AIRPLANE PILOT 24
IV. SAFETY IN FLYING 39
V. QUALIFICATIONS OF AN AIRPLANE MECHANIC 52
VI. THE FIRST CROSSING OF THE ATLANTIC 63
VII. LANDING-FIELDS--THE IMMEDIATE NEED 76
VIII. THE AIRPLANE'S BROTHER 85
IX. THE CALL OF THE SKIES 96
ADDENDUM 107
INTRODUCTION
Any ordinary, active man, provided he has reasonably good eyesight and
nerve, can fly, and fly well. If he has nerve enough to drive an
automobile through the streets of a large city, and perhaps argue with
a policeman on the question of speed limits, he can take himself off
the ground in an airplane, and also land--a thing vastly more
difficult and dangerous. We hear a great deal about special tests for
the flier--vacuum-chambers, spinning-chairs, co-ordination
tests--there need be none of these. The average man in the street, the
clerk, the laborer, the mechanic, the salesman, with proper training
and interest can be made good, if not highly proficient pilots. If
there may be one deduction drawn from the experience of instructors in
the Royal Air Force, it is that it is the training, not the
individual, that makes the pilot.
Education is not the prime requisite. Good common sense and judgment
are much more valuable. Above all, a sense of touch, such as a man
can acquire playing the piano, swinging a pick, riding a bicycle,
driving an automobile, or playing tennis, is important. A man should
not be too sensitive to loss of balance, nor should he be lacking in a
sense of balance. There are people who cannot sail a sail-boat or ride
a bicycle--these people have no place in the air. But ninety-nine out
of one hundred men, the ordinary normal men, can learn to fly. This
has been the experience of the Royal Air Force in Canada.
There will be as much difference between the civilian pilot, the man
who owns an airplane of the future and drives it himself, and the army
flier, as there is now between the man who drives his car on Sunday
afternoons over country roads and the racing driver who is striving
for new records on specially built tracks. If aeronautics is to be
made popular, every one must be able to take part in it. It must cease
to be a highly specialized business. It must be put on a basis where
the ordinary person can snap the flying wires of a machine, listen to
their twang, and know them to be true, just as any one now thumps his
rear tire to see whether it is properly inflated.
The book, in a large sense a labor of love, is the collaboration of
an American officer of the United States Air Service and another
American, a flying-officer in the Royal Air Force. If the Royal Air
Force way of doing things seems to crowd itself to the fore in the
discussion of the training of pilots, the authors crave indulgence.
In a subject which lends itself dangerously to imagination, the
authors have endeavored to base what they have written, not on
prophecy, but on actual accomplishments to date. The latter are indeed
so solid that there is no necessity for guesswork. Aviation has proved
itself beyond peradventure to those who have followed it, but up to
the present the general public has not sufficiently analyzed its
demonstrated possibilities.
The era of the air is undoubtedly at hand; it now remains to take the
steps necessary to reap full advantages from it.
ARTHUR SWEETSER,
GORDON LAMONT.
OPPORTUNITIES IN AVIATION
I
WAR'S CONQUEST OF THE AIR
The World War opened to man the freedom of the skies. Amid all its
anguish and suffering has come forth the conquest of the air.
Scientists, manufacturers, dreamers, and the most hard-headed of men
have united under the goad of its necessity to sweep away in a series
of supreme efforts all the fears and doubts which had chained men to
earth.
True, years before, in fact, nearly a decade before, the Wright
brothers had risen from the ground and flown about through the air in
a machine which defied conventional rules and beliefs. The world had
looked on in wonder, and then dropped back into an apathetic
acceptance of the fact. Despite the actual demonstration and the
field of imagination which was opened up, these early flights proved
to be a world's wonder only for a moment.
For years aviation dragged on. Daredevils and adventurers took it up
to make money by hair-raising exploits at various meets and exhibits.
Many died, and the general public, after satiating its lust for the
sensational, turned its thought elsewhere. Flight was regarded as
somewhat the plaything of those who cared not for life, and as a
result the serious, sober thought of the community did not enter into
its solution.
Business men held aloof. Apart from circus performances there seemed
no money to be made in aviation and consequently practically none was
invested in it. What little manufacturing was done was by zealots and
inventors. Workmanship was entirely by hand, slow, amateurish, and
unreliable.
Strangely enough, scientists were equally apathetic. It might have
been expected that their imaginations would be fired by the unexplored
realms of the air and by the incomparably new field of experiment
opened to them; but they were not. The great question, that of flight
itself, had been answered, and but few were interested in working out
the less spectacular applications of its principles. Aviation remained
very much of a poor sister in the scientific world, held back by all
the discredit attaching to the early stunt-flying and by failure to
break through the ancient belief in its impracticability for any
purposes other than the sensational.
So the science limped along, unsupported by either public interest or
capital. Now and again some startling feat attracted the world's
attention, as when the English Channel was first crossed by air and
England was made to realize that her insularity was gone. For a moment
this feat held public interest, but again without a true realization
of its significance. There seemed nothing which would drive man to
develop the gift which had been put within his reach.
Up to that fatal moment in August, 1914, when the World War broke out,
aviation had made but little progress. All nations had what passed as
air services, but they were very small and ill-equipped and were
regarded with doubt and suspicion by the military leaders of the
various countries. Compared with what has since taken place, the
experiments previous to the war were only the most rudimentary
beginnings.
Then came the war. Man's imagination was aroused to a feverish desire
for the development of any device for causing destruction.
Conventions, usages, and prejudices were laid aside and every
possibility of inflicting damage on the enemy was examined on its
merits. Sentiment or any regard for personal danger involved was
thrown to the winds. Science was mobilized in all lines in the
struggle to keep one step ahead of the enemy.
Almost immediately aviation challenged the attention of the
responsible leaders. The handful of French planes which in those early
fateful days of August penetrated up into Belgium brought back the
information of the German mobilization there, and this led to the
rearrangement of French forces in preparation for the battle of the
Marne. As a result aviation at once leaped into high repute for
scouting purposes and the foundations were laid for its great
development.
But as aviation had proved itself in the warfare of movement leading
down to the Marne and sweeping back later to the Aisne, so it proved
itself in the French warfare which was so unexpectedly to follow. When
the two opposing lines were so close together that they locked almost
in a death grip, each side kept such strict watch that ground
observation was greatly hampered. Apparently there was only one way to
find out what was going on behind the enemy's lines. That was by
looking from above. The first aviator, therefore, who sailed into the
air and spied the enemy introduced one of the most important
developments in the strategy of modern warfare.
Thereupon began one of those silent battles of the rear, of which we
see and hear so little, but which indeed decides sometimes far in
advance of the actual test of battle just which side is going to win.
Scientists, inventors, manufacturers, and practical fliers began
coming together in increasing numbers to exact from this latest method
of warfare its last degree of usefulness. In the studies and factories
on both sides of the lines men dedicated themselves to the solution of
the problem of flight.
Stage by stage the difficulties were overcome. First it was the
Germans who with their terrible Fokker planes harnessed the
machine-gun to the airplane and made of it a weapon of offense. Then
it was the Allies who added the radio and made of it an efficient
method of observation and spotting of artillery fire. Increased
engine-power began to be developed, and bombs were carried in
ever-increasing numbers and size.
The moment an enemy plane fell on either side of the line the victors
gathered about their prey with a keenness which could come only of the
hope that they might find in it some suggestion that would make their
own flying more efficient. Each learned from the other, so that the
different schools on either side of the line had all the advantage of
watching the development of their rivals. Very shortly after an
improvement appeared on one side it reappeared in the planes of the
other side.
It is doubtful if ever a more desperate scientific battle was fought
than that which featured the development of the air services of the
various belligerents during the war. Control of the air was so vital
that neither could afford to overlook any possibility; and, as a
result, the scientific evolution was truly astounding. No man was
reserved on this subject of airplane improvement. All contributed
their best skill and ability to the common reservoir of knowledge.
Very soon man's conquest of the air became so complete that different
types of planes were developed for different kinds of work. The plane
of the early days which wandered off by itself wherever it saw fit,
gathered what information it could, and returned to drop a note to the
commander below, developed into a highly efficient two-seated plane
equipped with machine-guns for protection against attack, wireless for
sending back messages, and cameras for photographing the enemy's
positions below. The plane which had earlier dropped an occasional
bomb in a hit-or-miss fashion over the side now developed either into
a powerful two-seater with a great weight-carrying capacity and a
continually more efficient scientific method of aiming its missiles or
into a huge machine for long-distance night-bombing work capable of
carrying from two to a dozen men and from two to four tons of bombs.
During this time the strictly fighting plane, usually a single-seater,
increased in speed, "ceiling," and agility till it could dart, twist,
and dive about, three to five miles above the trenches, protecting
friendly bombing and observation planes below from enemy attack or
swooping down to send enemy planes in flames to the ground.
Vital though all this work was for the war, it had an incomparably
greater value for the perpetual struggle which all mankind is waging
against nature. While the various nations were seeking to destroy one
another through the air, they were in reality destroying the chains
which bound them to the ground and winning their freedom in a new
element. The advance which the Allies or the Germans made over each
other in scientific aerial development was a joint advance over the
restrictions of gravitation.
This, indeed, apart from the spread of democracy and internationalism,
may well stand out in history as the war's richest heritage. Problems
which had been considered insoluble were solved. The casting aside of
all conventions, all restrictive habits of thought, all selfishnesses,
and the focusing of the highest scientific ability in a struggle which
might mean the life or death of the nation, had brought as a
by-product a development beyond our wildest fancies.
Aerial operations in any future war, however, will have at once a
problem which has only recently and in very much smaller degree
confronted the navy, namely, the assurance of attack not only on the
front, in the rear, and on both flanks, but from above and below as
well. Recently the navy has had to face that problem--submarines
operating below and airplanes above; but the problem of attack upon a
ship is not so serious as upon an airplane.
Already, in order to meet this danger of attack from every possible
direction, a most complete strategy and system of formations have been
worked out. In this way the various types of planes operate in
different air strata according to their missions, the upper planes
echelon somewhat behind those below on the order of a flight of steps
facing the enemy. This system provides a quick method of reception of
an attack and the assurance of quick support, no matter where the
attack may come. Obviously there would be nothing in all of warfare on
either land or sea comparable to a collision between two such aerial
fleets. The speed of the lighter planes, quick, life-taking duels in
several different strata at once, would provide a clash of action,
speed, and skill far more beautiful and yet in many ways far more
terrible than anything ever recorded in the history of war.
Fleets of the skies--who shall attempt at this day of the infancy of
the science to limit their scope? Aerial battle-planes of colossal
size and power are as certain to come in time, and in not a very long
time, as the dreadnought of to-day was certain to follow the first
armored ship of only a half-century ago. Never yet has man opened up a
new avenue of war that he has not pursued it relentlessly to its final
conclusion. It is certain that he will not fail to push aerial
development with all the energy with which he has devoted himself to
the science of destruction.
The avenue of the seas has been up to now the world's greatest
civilizer. Very shortly, without doubt, it will be replaced by the
avenue of the skies. If we are to strive for freedom of the seas, what
shall we say about freedom of this new element? The laws of aerial
travel and aerial warfare open an unlimited field of speculation.
II
THE TRANSITION TO PEACE
Developments during the war, despite their startling sensational
character, had, however, been so overshadowed by human suffering and
desperation that but few minds were awake to the changes that were to
influence man's future. Amid the disasters, battles, and unprecedented
movements in the politics of nations, the achievements of flight could
command but a passing notice. People looked and wondered, but were
distracted from following their thoughts through to the logical
conclusion by the roar of a seventy-mile gun, the collapse of a
nation, or the shock of battle on a one-hundred-mile front.
Let us, however, weave together a few things that were done in those
days of sensation, which may have a particular effect on the future of
the science. Most conspicuous, perhaps, was the obliteration of
distance and of all the customary limitations of travel. German
airplanes in squadrons penetrated into snug little England when the
German fleet stood locked in its harbor. The Italian poet D'Annunzio
dropped leaflets over Vienna when his armies were held at bay at the
Alps. French, British, and finally American planes brought the war
home to cities of the Rhine which never even saw the Allied troops
till Germany had surrendered.
None of the conventional barriers stood in the way of these long
trips. A new route of travel had been opened up along which men flew
at will. The boundary-lines of states below, which look so formidable
on the map, were passed over with the greatest ease, as well as such
natural obstacles as the Alps and the English Channel.
Tremendous saving in time was constantly being effected. Men were able
to dart back and forth from the front to the rear and from England to
France with a speed never dreamed of by other means of travel. To be
sure, the front-line demands for planes were too severe to allow a
very wide use in this way, but nevertheless the possibilities were
there and were constantly availed of.[1]
Indeed, the British early established a communication squadron for
this specific purpose. In the last three months of the war 279
cross-country passenger flights were made to such places as Paris,
Nancy, Dunkirk, and Manchester, all of them without a single accident!
Moreover, a Channel ferry service was created which in seventy-one
days of flying weather made 227 crossings, covered over 8,000 miles,
and carried 1,843 passengers.
With trains seldom going above 60 miles an hour, the slowest airplane
went 80 and the average daylight plane on the front probably equaled
110. The fast fighters went up to 120, 130, and even 140 miles an
hour, over twice as fast as any method of travel previously known.
Just as the curtain closed on the war, there had been developed in the
United States a plane credited with 162-2/3 miles an hour, and no one
for a moment believed that the limit had been reached.
Altitude likewise had been obliterated. The customary height for
two-seated observation and bombing planes was between one and two
miles, and of single-seated scouts between two and four miles. These
altitudes were not the freakish heights occasionally obtained by
adventurous fliers; on the contrary they were the customary levels at
which the different kinds of duties were carried out. Many men, of
course, went far higher. Since then an American, Roland Rohlfs, flying
a Curtiss "Wasp" set the unofficial altitude record at 34,610
feet--higher than the world's highest mountain.
Life at these altitudes was not possible, of course, under ordinary
conditions. The temperature fell far below zero and the air became so
thin that neither man nor engine could function unaided. As a result
the fliers were kept from freezing by electrically heated clothing and
from unconsciousness from lack of air by artificially supplied oxygen.
Similarly the oil, water, and gasolene of the engine were kept working
by special methods.
The armistice threw the different nations into a dilemma as to their
aviation plans. Obviously the huge war planes which were still in the
building in all the belligerent countries were no longer necessary.
Almost immediately, therefore, the placing of new contracts was halted
by the various governments, enlistments stopped, and plans set in
motion for the new requirements.
Within a very short time the United States canceled several hundred
million dollars' worth of contracts on which little actual
expenditure had been made by the manufacturers. Shipments of men and
planes overseas were of course brought to an end and at the same time
arrangements were made for bringing back from France the great aerial
equipment mobilized there. Indeed, the air service units were among
the first to be returned, especially the labor and construction troops
in England.
Nevertheless, military aviation of the future was definitely
safeguarded. A bill was presented to Congress for an aerial force of
4,000 officers and 22,000 men, a fitting contrast to the force of 65
officers and 1,120 men with which the country had entered the war.
Certain flying fields and schools which had shown the greatest value
in the past and promised most for the future were definitely
designated for permanent use, and especial effort was made to keep in
the service the best of the technical experts and designers who had
helped to solve America's problems of the air.
Abroad demobilization was less rapid, as it was in all other lines.
The British, who had given particular thought to after-war aviation,
immediately turned to converting all their valuable war material and
experience into a national force which should assure England of the
supremacy of the air as well as strength in her supremacy of the seas.
France, the custodian of Germany's great aerial force, found more than
enough work for all her men in taking care of the hundreds of
surrendered machines. Both nations at the same time took long steps
toward building up the civil machinery necessary for private,
non-military flying.
For several months, of course, there was a hiatus. Thought had been so
concentrated on military aviation that the conversion to peace work
proved slow. Only the most general plans had been made in any of the
countries, and those by ardent supporters of aviation, who were forced
to make the most earnest efforts to obtain consideration of the
subject in the midst of all the vital problems of peace and
reconstruction. Greatest of all the difficulties was that, as private
flying had been prohibited during the war, there were, with the coming
of peace, no rules and regulations ready for it. Also many great
projects for international flights had to be postponed because of
complete lack of international rules in this respect.
Nevertheless, most spectacular and convincing flights followed one
another in rapid succession. The most outstanding of these flights
was, of course, the first crossing of the Atlantic by seaplane--a
triumph of organized effort by the navy. At the same time all over the
world flights took place with astounding frequency which illustrated,
as little else could, the certain future of aviation. Seas, mountains,
deserts, places otherwise almost impassable were traversed with ease
and speed.
Army fliers flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific within a few months
of the signing of the armistice. It required but fifty hours of
flying-time, just a fraction over two days. At that time no attempt
was made to obtain speed, as the purpose of the trip had been to
locate landing-fields and make aerial maps for future transcontinental
flights.
The four planes that made this trip might be considered as the
pioneers of vast flocks of airplanes which within a short time will be
winging their way from coast to coast. If, with machines built
specifically for war purposes and with no special landing-fields or
routes laid out, aviators could successfully travel from one coast to
the other in fifty hours of flying-time, how much more rapidly will
future trips be made when special touring-planes have been developed,
routes and landing-fields are laid out, repair-shops are built, and
the trip becomes a matter of routine rather than aerial experiments.
The effect that this new method of travel will have on American life
and development is staggering to the imagination. San Francisco and
New York will be almost neighbors, while Chicago and New Orleans will
be but a pleasant day's trip apart. The business man, the statesman,
and even the courier can be transported from one end of the country to
the other, independent of steel rails and other devices, in record
time.
Such experiments have already proved successful in Europe. The British
Foreign Office in London, anxious to keep in close touch with the
Peace Conference at Paris, turned to the airplane to assure quick
transportation of men and documents. The slow train trip with the
irksome transfer to and from the Channel steamer and the more irksome
voyage across the Channel itself, were avoided by a special service
through the air. Thus two great capitals were brought within a few
hours' time of each other, which greatly facilitated the vital
negotiations under way.
Civilians were finally granted the right to make the trip under
military supervision. Fourteen passengers were transported from Paris
to London in two hours and forty minutes as against six hours and
forty minutes, the fastest time ever made by any other means of
travel. Each of them had twenty pounds of luggage, and luncheon of
cold ham and champagne was served on board over the Channel, followed
by a game of cards. It was easily demonstrated by the return trip that
men could leave either capital after breakfast, have several hours in
the other, and return home for dinner.
Then a French flier with six passengers made the flight from Paris to
Brussels. The time consumed between the two capitals was but two hours
as against over five by the ordinary train travel. As an instance of
some of the problems which this particular flight brought about, it
was observed that a Belgian policeman approached the plane as it was
about to leave and inquired for passports and papers. Everybody made
excuses for not having them. The policeman refused to allow the
airplane to leave. Finally the pilot, losing his patience and temper,
started the motor and flew off before the angered official knew what
had happened.
Two other French aviators about the same time crossed the
Mediterranean from France to Algiers and back in the same day. Though
unequipped with seaplane devices, they started out with full
confidence that their motors would carry them over the water. With
only their navigating instruments and an occasional vessel to guide
them, they reached their destination after a perfect trip and created
a great sensation among the natives who came down to see the airplanes
alight.
Far more spectacular, however, was the flight made from London to
Delhi. A Handley-Page machine, which had flown from London to Cairo
during the war and taken part in the final military operations against
the Turks, left Cairo, on November 30th, shortly after the armistice.
Five and three-quarter hours later the airplane with five passengers
reached Damascus, a trip practically impossible except through the air
because of the ravages of the war. At 7.40 the next morning they set
out again, flew northeast along the Jebel esh Shekh Range to Palmyra,
then east to the Euphrates, down that river to Ramadi, and thence
across to Bagdad, a flight of 510 miles made in six hours and fifty
minutes without a single stop, part of it over country untrod even by
the most primitive travelers. Thence they went on _via_ Bushire,
Bander Abbas, Tcharbar, and Karachi to Delhi, where they received a
tremendous ovation as the first fliers to arrive from the home
country. From Delhi they continued on without mishap to Calcutta. This
distance from Cairo to Karachi, 2,548 miles, was made in thirty-six
hours' flying-time; from Karachi to Delhi the distance is 704 miles,
and from Delhi to Calcutta 300, a total of 4,052 miles from the main
city of Egypt to the greatest commercial port of India. No route had
been surveyed, no landing-places obtained, no facilities provided.
Territory inaccessible to ordinary travel, land where the white man is
almost a stranger, was crossed. Yet it was all done as part of the
day's work, in no sense as a record-breaking or spectacular trip.
The certainty of flight from London to India was demonstrated. A
bi-weekly service for both passengers and mails was at once planned.
Almost immediately preparations for the route were worked out,
twenty-five airdromes and landing-fields were designated, of which the
main ones would be at Cairo and Basra on the Tigris, with subsidiary
fields at Marseilles, Pisa, or Rome, Taranto, Sollum, Bushire,
Damascus, Bagdad, Bander Abbas, Karachi, Hyderabad, and Jodhpur. It
is estimated that the flight of 6,000 miles, at stages of about 350
each, would take seven or eight days as against the present train and
steamer time of five or six weeks. At the same time another route far
shorter than that which would be necessary by following the sea route
lies over Germany, Russia, and the ideal flying-land along the Caspian
Sea, Krasnovodsk, Askabad, Herat, Kandahar, and Multan.
As with Asia Minor and Asia so with Africa, the British at once made
plans for aerial routes. Only a few weeks after the armistice
announcement was made of plans for an "All Red Air Route" from Cairo
across the desert and the jungle to the Cape. This could all be done
over British territory, with the part over Lakes Victoria Nyanza and
Tanganyika covered by hydroplanes. The moment men were released from
the war, surveying of this route was begun and tentative plans made
for landing-fields every 200 miles over the 5,700-mile trip.
The air is ours to do whatever we can with it. There must be developed
a large interest in this country in the business of flying. We must
make the air our third, fastest, and most reliable means of
communication between points in a way to compete with transportation
on land and sea. The airplane, instead of being the unusual thing,
must become a customary sight over our cities and villages. The first
step in the development is the training of airplane pilots and
mechanics.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some of the British statesmen flew to and from the Peace
Conference in Paris.
III
TRAINING AN AIRPLANE PILOT
Any ordinary, active man can fly. That is to say, any man with nerve
enough to take a cold bath or drive an automobile down Fifth Avenue
can maintain himself in the air with an airplane, and turn into a good
pilot with practice. In other words, the regular man who rides in the
Subway, who puts on a straw hat on May 15th or 20th, as the case may
be, has not only the right to be in the air, but owes it to himself to
learn to fly.
Any one with a reasonable amount of intelligence can be made a good
pilot. He need not hold a college degree, or even a high-school
diploma, tucked away in some forgotten place. If he has the sense of
touch of the normal man, the sense of balance of a normal man, can
skate, or ride a bicycle, he should be in the air, flying. There is a
difference between the war or army pilot and the peace-time flier yet
to be developed.
War flying calls for highly trained men, a man who has proved himself
fit for combat under all conditions, a man who can shoot straight,
think quickly, and turn immediately. He must possess a little more
than the average nerve, perhaps, or he must be trained to the point
where shooting and maneuvering are the natural reactions to certain
circumstances. He must be able to stand altitudes of 20,000 feet; he
must be quick with his machine-gun, have a knowledge of artillery, and
know, in fact, a little about everything on the front he is trying to
cover. This requires training and aptitude.
The day is coming for the man who wants to make a short pleasure
flight, or go from town to town, touring by air. He need know nothing
of machine-guns or warfare. He may never want to do anything more
hazardous in the way of maneuver than a gentle turn. His maximum
altitude would be perhaps 8,000 feet. He would in all probability be
flying a machine whose "ceiling" was 10,000 feet, and he might never
care to tour at a height higher than 2,000 feet. There is no reason
why he should go high. One can have all the thrills in the world at
2,000 feet, follow the ground more easily, without wasting time or
gasolene in attempts to fly high enough so that the earth looks like
another planet below.
Let us illustrate a bit from the Royal Air Force of Canada, which is
as good as any other example. The experience of the flying service of
one country has been essentially that of another country, and we
Americans may yet learn of the air from the English. In England the
air is just another medium of travel, as much a medium as the ground
and water--but that is, of course, another story.
In 1917 the Royal Flying Corps, later incorporated into the Royal Air
Force, came to Canada to take up the instruction of Canadian boys for
flying in France. Americans enlisted with the pick of the Canadian
youth, and droves were sent overseas. Very soon the cream had been
skimmed off and there came a time when material was scarce. Meanwhile
the war raged, and there was no option but to take drafted men from
all sections, Montreal in particular. Many could not speak
intelligible English, and few had enjoyed any educational advantages.
The men who came as cadets to be trained as pilots in 1918 graded much
lower in personal and physical qualifications than the type of the
previous year. And yet these same drafted men, who had withstood for
three and a half years the call of their country, had more control
over their machines at the end of their course than the men of the
year before.
At the end of four, five, or six hours' solo these men could do all
the high maneuvers, commonly thought dangerous, such as the barrel
roll, the loop, the stall turn, the Immelmann turn. An astounding
showing compared to the boys of 1917, who were forbidden to stunt and
who rarely disobeyed the orders. In our American service we had
specially selected men. They were college men, tested, qualified, and
picked. But our men--and it's no reflection on them--seldom did their
higher maneuvers with less than fifty hours of solo flying.
There is just one answer--it is a matter entirely of training.
It might be said that the Canadian casualties on the Texas
flying-fields near Fort Worth during the winter of 1917-18, when the
Royal Air Force occupied two airdromes, were the cause of comment all
over the country. There were fifty fatalities in twenty weeks of
flying, and machine after machine came down in a fatal spinning-nose
dive, or tail spin, as the Americans speak of the spin.
Shortly after the Royal Air Force returned to its airdromes in Canada
in the middle of April the Gosport system of flying training, which
had been used successfully in England, was begun on the Curtiss J.N.
4B-type training-plane. The result was an immediate and material
decrease in fatal accidents. In July, 1918, there was one fatality for
every 1,760 hours of flying, and by October fatalities had been
reduced to one in every 5,300 hours of flying. That is a remarkable
achievement, as official data from other centers of training show one
death in a flying accident for every 1,170 hours.
Briefly, the Gosport system is a graduated method of flying
instruction. The cadet is led by easy steps through the earlier part
of the training, and only after he has passed aerial tests in the
simpler methods of control is he allowed to continue with the rest of
his course and "go solo." The scheme provides that before he goes solo
he must have spun, and shown that he can take his instructor out of a
spin. Only then is he considered fit to go on his own.
"Dangerous" and "Safe" as terms to describe flying technique gave way
to wrong and right. There was built up under sound instruction one of
the best schools of flying in North America, the School of Special
Flying, at Armour Heights, Ontario. There is no reason why there
should not be established in this country a number of such schools,
under men who have had army experience, to train great numbers of
civilian fliers within the next few years. There is going to be a
strong demand for the best flying instruction that can be given. It
should be noted that only the most perfect system of flying
instruction should be used, for the best is safest, and the safest, no
matter how expensive, is comparatively cheap.
There is no reason why there should be an extended period of ground
instruction for the non-military pilot of the future. He should be
taught the elementary principles of the theory of flight, should know
something about the engine with which he is going to fly, and
understand some things about the rigging of his airplane. The details
could come to him in constant association with the airplane before,
during, and after each flight. No time need be spent on such subjects
as artillery observation, machine-gunnery, wireless, bombing,
photography, patrol work, and other subjects of a purely military
nature, on which so much stress has been laid in training army
pilots.
"What is an airplane?" Before going ahead with the method of Gosport
instruction every pupil is given a lecture on the ground in which he
is asked that question. One definition which was passed out to us in
Canada was, "An airplane is a machine...." At this point the flight
sergeant in charge of rigging would look dreamily into the distance.
"An airplane is a machine...." he would begin again with an air of
utter despondency. That was certainly no news to cadets. They had an
idea that it might be a machine, and wanted to know more about it.
"An airplane is a machine with lift-generating surfaces attached to a
frame which carries an engine, fuel, aviator, and devices by which he
steers, balances, and controls his craft," the mournful flight
sergeant was finally able to convince them.
Lift-generating surfaces--these are the bases of all flying. Every one
knows, for instance, that a paper dart, instead of falling directly to
the floor, sails in a gliding angle for some distance before crashing.
Lift is generated under those plane surfaces moving through the
air--and the lift keeps that paper dart gliding. Little eddies of air
are compressed under its tiny wings. Imagine an engine in the dart,
propelling it at some speed. Instead of having to nose down to get
enough speed to generate lift under its wings, the dart would be able
to fly on the level, or even climb a bit.
Just so with an airplane. A gliding airplane about to land with power
shut off is that paper dart on a large scale. The airplane flying is
the dart with power. To make the airplane safe to fly, to give control
to the pilot so that he may steer it where he wants to, there is a
rudder, moved by a rudder-bar under the foot of the pilot. It is
impossible to turn a swiftly moving airplane in the air by the rudder
alone. It must be banked to prevent skidding, even as a race-track is
banked high on the turns. On its side an airplane will cushion its own
bank of proper degree by the use of ailerons. These ailerons are
sections of the wing-tips which may be moved either up or down. They
are counterbalanced so that movement of the left down gives you the
right aileron up. With left aileron down, the lift of the left wing is
increased, and it tips up; at the same time the lift of the right wing
is decreased, and it sags down. In that way the airplane is tipped up
for a bank. These ailerons, wing sections, really, are controlled by
a device known as the joy-stick in the cockpit.
We have seen how an airplane is made to tip and turn. Before a machine
is under control we must be able to climb, or come down to the ground
for a landing. Vertical control of an airplane is attained by the use
of elevators, flaps on the tail plane acting as horizontal rudders. A
pull-back on the joy-stick lifts the flaps, raises the nose of the
machine, and causes it to gain height. Push the joy-stick forward, the
elevators are turned down, and the machine goes into a dive for the
ground. In making many maneuvers all three controls, rudder, ailerons,
and elevators, are used at once and the pilot feels his way with the
machine, guiding it with the stick and the rudder-bar.
After the explanation of the use of these controls, and their
demonstration on the machine as it awaits its turn in the air, the
pupil is taken up for his first ride--strictly a joy ride, and not
always joyous for those who take every chance to be seasick. After he
has a glimpse of what the ground looks like from the air, and has
recovered from his first breathless sweep off the ground, the pupil is
given a lesson in the demonstration of controls. The instructor
explains through a speaking-tube attached to his helmet the very
simple principles. Forward with the stick to nose down, back to lift
it up, left stick tilts the machine over on its left wing, and right
stick banks it to the right. Right stick and right rudder, in proper
proportions, turn the machine to the right, left stick and left rudder
to take the machine out of the turn and fly it straight again.
Then the wonderful moment when the instructor calls through the tube,
"All right, now you take the stick." You clutch it as though it were
the one straw in a great ocean. "Not so hard," comes the voice. "Now
put your feet gently on the rudder-bar. Not so rough; easier, man,
easier on that stick!" For a glorious moment she is yours, you hold
her nose up, and you are flying an airplane tearing over the
checkerboard country far below.
Then, like the voice of doom: "Now, do a gentle turn to the left.
Don't forget to give her rudder and stick at the same time. That's
right. Begin the motion with your feet and hands at the same time."
The world swings furiously, and down below that left wing-tip a little
farm sways gently.
"Now you are in a gentle turn--feel that breeze on your cheek? We are
side-slipping; give her a touch more of left rudder. Not so much. Now
your nose is dropping; pull back on the stick. Back! Not _forward_!
_Back!_ Now your nose is too _high_; take us out, and don't forget
that _opposite_ stick and rudder.
"Now fly straight for a few minutes. Your right wing is low--bring it
up. Your nose is too high. Now it is too low. Keep it so that the
radiator cap is above the horizon. That's right."
So goes the business of instruction through the lessons on straight
flying, gentle turns, misuse of controls, side-slipping, and approach,
take-off, and landing. The trips should average thirty-five or forty
minutes, long enough to teach the lesson, but not long enough to weary
the pupil. Here at take-off and landing the pupil finds himself up
against the most difficult part of his training. He has the problem of
stopping a large machine weighing a ton or more, traveling at a
landing speed of forty to fifty miles an hour, with the center of
gravity just balanced over the under-carriage. An error in judgment
will pile the machine up on its nose with a crashed propeller, and
perhaps two broken wings and damaged under-carriage. Not a dangerous
accident for the pilot, but very humiliating.
Army practice has shown that a pupil should have about sixty practice
landings dual, that is to say, coached and helped by his instructor.
By this time he has a total flying time of six to twelve hours. At
this point, before he goes solo, the Gosport system provides that he
shall be taken to a reasonably safe height for the practice of high
maneuvers. At a height of say two thousand five hundred feet the
instructor shows him how a stalled machine falls into a spin. The
question of teaching higher maneuvers to civilian pilots is open to
argument.
As soon as the instructor shuts off the engine the machine rapidly
loses flying speed. It reaches a point where there is not enough air
passing over the wing surfaces to support the plane in the air. Her
nose begins to drop, and he pulls the stick back. The stick is full
back, she stalls, topples over on her side, and plunges nose first.
The instructor kicks on full rudder, and the world whirls below like a
top, and the air whistles, swish, swish, swish, in the wires at every
turn. Stick forward, opposite rudder, and she comes out so fast that
your head swims. That is the spin.
"Now you try it," says the instructor. For there is nothing to a spin
unless a machine does not come out of it--a rare thing if the plane
is properly handled. The pupil is now ready to go solo, and for the
first couple of hours' solo flying he does nothing but make circuits
around the field, landing and taking off. Then his instructor takes
him dual for forced-landing practice, business of getting down into a
field within gliding range by gliding turns. Then the pupil tries it
solo, throttling down for the practice, a most valuable experience
which increases the confidence of the pilot. He learns to use his own
judgment and to gauge height and ground distance as it appears from
the air.
After three or four hours of solo time the pupil is scheduled for
another demonstration of higher maneuvers, spinning and the stall
turn. For the stall turn the pilot noses the machine down to get an
air speed of seventy-five miles an hour. A little bank, stick back,
she rears into the air with her nose to the sky and propeller roaring.
Full rudder and throttle off. In silence she drops over on her side
into the empty air; blue sky and green fields flash by in a whirl. She
hangs on her back while the passengers strain against the safety
belts, and then her nose plunges. The air shrieks in the wires as the
ground comes up at terrific speed.
It is time for the pupil to go up for his solo spin under the plan
adopted for army purposes. Up, up, up the pupil flies, three thousand
feet, and the ground below looks soft and green. Would it be soft to
hit in a spin from that height? It would not. Have people ever spun
that far? he wonders. They have. Have machines ever failed to come out
of a spin and killed the pilot? The answer is too obvious. With faith
in nothing in particular, and with his mind made up that one can die
but once in a spin, he stalls and spins her--and comes out. He is so
surprised and exhilarated that he tries it again before he loses his
nerve. Yet again. The pupil is a pilot, the air has no terrors, and he
has learned the oldest truth of flying, that there is nothing to a
spin unless you don't come out.
The natural result of training a pupil along those lines is that he
graduates rapidly into a good stunting pilot. He realizes that he
cannot tempt the devil at three hundred feet and hope to live, but he
takes a good altitude, throws his machine upside down, and knows that,
given enough air, he must come out. He does come out unless he loses
complete control of his mind and body. With fifteen hours of solo
flying the pupil has really become a pilot. He is beginning to show
that he can control his machine. From then on it is a question of the
polishing of the nice points, making his forced landings perfect, not
side-slipping a foot on his vertical banks, and coming out of spin so
that he always faces the airdrome--all of which distinguish the good
pilot from the poor pilot.
IV
SAFETY IN FLYING
The fatalities on the training-fields of every country during the
period of training in war, and before and after the war, testify only
too surely that flying cannot be absolutely safe. It is no reflection
on the future of flying to realize that it has not been safe, and that
it can never, perhaps, be made fool-proof. One or two things must be
remembered before we become despondent over the future safety of
flying.