Learning To Fly Part 5

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 a.n.a.lyse his feelings as the country pa.s.ses 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. Alt.i.tude 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 alt.i.tude, 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 alt.i.tude.

Then, a.s.suming 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 alt.i.tude, 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 ma.s.s of small details, is very necessary when it is remembered that the aviator, pa.s.sing 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 compa.s.s 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 compa.s.s plays a subsidiary part. But it may happen that, while he is on a long flight and at a considerable alt.i.tude, 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 compa.s.s, holding his machine on its compa.s.s course, and noting carefully the needle of his height-recorder, so that he is sure of maintaining alt.i.tude. 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 compa.s.s 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 a.s.sume gradually some abnormal angle, without his own sensations telling him what is taking place. The craft may, for the sake of ill.u.s.tration, 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 a.s.sumes, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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.

CHAPTER XI

AVIATION AS A PROFESSION

Young men, and parents on their behalf, are seeking always some profession which will yield an adequate return for the enthusiasm which youth lavishes upon it. Too often, though, at any rate in the past, this search for a man's work in life has been narrowed into ruts; conducted on certain set lines which, though they have found employment for the beginner, have given him no scope for that enthusiasm with which he will attack the first tasks presented him.

Aviation, till the coming of the war, was looked at askance by parents who had sons on their hands. Apart from the risks of flying, which appeared to them ceaseless and terrible, the actual industry of building aeroplanes, regarded as an industry, seemed so haphazard and objectless an affair--so much like playing at work--that they discouraged any wish that a youth might show to enter it. Many people, these people of intelligence, regarded the building and flying of aeroplanes as being no more than a pa.s.sing phase, and a regrettable one, which it was hoped men would soon abandon, and turn their attention to tasks more serious and profitable. But that was before aircraft had proved their value as instruments of war. Now it is known that aeroplanes have the power, granted they are supplied in sufficient numbers, of altering the tenor of a great campaign, both by land and sea; and that in any future war of nations, should one come, a battle between the hostile flying fleets, fought to determine the command of the air, will determine also, to a very large extent, the fortunes of armies on the land and navies on the sea. It is clear indeed that, for any great nation that strives to maintain its place, a powerful air fleet has become a necessity; while for Britain, an island no longer from the military point of view, seeing that we must face seriously the question of invasions by air, there is a vital need to strive for command of the air, as we now hold command of the sea.

The building up of our air fleet will be an arduous task, needing men, money, and time; but without it we cannot be secure. Therefore the work must be faced, the men and the money forthcoming. Aviation, as an industry, must prepare for years of strenuous work. A great air service must be created. Machines must be designed and built in thousands instead of hundreds, and men trained to fly them. Nor is this all. The aeroplane, though it has such significance as a weapon of war, is destined primarily and eventually to be an instrument of peace; a machine for the transport by air of pa.s.sengers, mails, and goods, at speeds greater than will be feasible by land or water; and a craft also for the use of travellers and tourists, enabling them to make such journeys, with ease and pleasure, as will again prove impossible by land or sea. So aviation has two immense tasks ahead of it, instead of one. Not only must it create, by years of patient and determined effort, a flying service which will command the air, but craft must be designed and built also for the mail, goods, and pa.s.senger-carrying services, and to meet the needs of the aerial tourist.

This new task that has been given to men, that of designing, building, and piloting aircraft, is still on the eve of its expansion. The opportunities it offers to young men--to men whose minds are quick to grasp a new idea and who have the powers of initiative and decision--are almost boundless. Flying will, as it develops, revolutionise the world's system of transport; while the developments even of the immediate future promise to be so great, and so important, that it is not easy to visualise them. But this at least is clear: now is the time for newcomers to enter the world of flight. Aviation needs men, is calling aloud for men; and they are needed for many kinds of work. First, of course, should be placed the flying services, naval and military, to join which during the war men have come forward so admirably. But it will need, in the expansion that must follow this campaign, a steady and a ceaseless growth in numbers, not only of the men who handle machines in flight, but of those who serve the squadrons by their work on land, and who build up the organisation which is vital to success.

For skilled aviators, other than those who join the services, there is scope for remunerative work. A constant demand exists for men who will test and fly in their trials the new machines that are built by manufacturers; for men who will fly, in public exhibitions, the craft that are used at the various aerodromes; and for men who will qualify as instructors, and join the flying schools which are already in existence, or in process of formation. In countries oversea, too, there is the definite promise that aircraft will be needed, not only for survey work over wide tracts of land, and for maintaining communication and bearing mails over districts where land travel is difficult, but also for exploration; and this again means that pilots will be required. New aerodromes must come into existence also; not only to act as alighting points for touring craft, but to provide grounds for the training of pupils; and at these aerodromes pilots will be needed.

Of other opportunities, apart from the piloting of aircraft, there are many--though it is desirable for a man to learn to fly, and obtain his certificate of proficiency, even if afterwards he does not intend continuing as a pilot. The practical experience he gains, while learning actually to handle an aircraft in flight, will prove extremely useful to him subsequently, even though the task he undertakes is one that keeps him on the ground. He may qualify, for instance, for a post in a aeroplane factory as a designer or draughtsman; or he may specialise in aero-motors, and seek a post in the engine-shops. At the aerodromes, too, there are openings which present themselves; as, for example, in the management of a flying school.

It has been shown that the public will go in thousands to see sporting contests with aeroplanes, and here is another field for organisation and effort; while there is a constant demand for men of ability in the executive departments of firms which are established already in the industry, and are expanding steadily, or in those which are now being formed, or are joining aviation from day to day.

The industry is at last on a footing that is practical and sound. It presents a new field for effort, and one that is unexploited; while for the man who enters it--and this should be the attraction for youth--there are occupations as fascinating as one's imagination could depict. But one thing must be understood clearly. Flying is, of exact sciences, surely the most exact. The man who is only half-trained, who is more or less slovenly in his work, who will not bend his whole energies to his task, will find no place in this new industry. A young man is wasting his time, if, after deciding to enter aviation, he acquires knowledge that is no more than haphazard. He who contemplates aviation as a profession must set himself the task of learning all there is to be learned, and in the right way.

Individual opportunities and circ.u.mstances will, necessarily, play so large a part in the steps taken by a young man--or by his parents on his behalf--to launch him on a career in aviation that it is impossible, here, to do more than generalise. Certainly, as we have said, it is an excellent preliminary to learn to fly; and it may be stated also that it is now possible to place, with aviation companies of repute, premium pupils who will undergo instruction extending over a period of three years. A youth may, also, gain his knowledge of the industry by becoming an indentured apprentice.

One may say, as a conclusion to this chapter, that a great, new, and potential industry is springing up in our midst, one which will prove to be equally if not more important and far-reaching than the British shipbuilding industry, and one which will employ thousands of skilled engineers and artisans. Ships are limited to one element, the water, which has very definite boundaries. Aircraft, too, are limited to one element, the air; but this element has no boundaries so far as the earth is concerned, and aircraft will be navigable to any and every part of the globe.

CHAPTER XII

THE FUTURE OF FLIGHT

It is a hopeful augury, to those concerned with aviation, that public interest in flying should not only be keen, but should be growing. In the early days, even when aeroplanes were so great a novelty, it was difficult to induce people in any numbers to witness a flying display.

The first meetings, though they were organised with enthusiasm, ended as a rule with a heavy financial loss; and this fact of course, when it became known, had a discouraging influence on those who might, had these early meetings proved a success, have been willing to finance aerodromes and the building of machines. But as it was, business men, who are quick to form conclusions, said that people would never be induced to pay to see aeroplanes fly. But here they failed to reckon with the fact that, though public interest in flying has been of very slow growth, yet at the same time it has been a steady and continuous growth. From month to month, and from year to year, as aeroplane constructors and pilots have continued at their tasks, overcoming technical difficulties and personal risks, the interest of ordinary people has grown perceptibly. Even before the war--which has done so much to focus attention on flying--the att.i.tude of scepticism and apathy had been greatly changed. When the London Aerodrome at Hendon was established, there were shrewd men in the city, men who are ordinarily very sound in their conclusions, who declared the public would never go there in appreciable numbers. How wrong they were, how little they gauged the change that was taking place in the public mind, is shown by the fact that, on a popular day at this aerodrome, as many as 60,000 people have paid for admission.

In the immediate future, as in the immediate past, aviation will be concerned largely with the building of naval and military craft. This will, so to say, be the foundation of its development in other directions. War for instance, notably in the fitting of craft with duplicate power-plants, will provide data that is invaluable in the building of commercial craft, and in machines also for the use of the tourist. In aerial touring there lies an important field for the development of aircraft--one which may serve to bridge the gap between a relatively small, purely pleasure-type machine, and a craft which has utility in the fields of commerce. The motor-car provides an enjoyable means of travelling from place to place; but in the aeroplane, once it is airworthy, reliable, and comfortable, the tourist has a vehicle which is distinctly more pleasurable and exhilarating. The day was dawning before the war, and will now be hastened, when, garaging his aircraft at the London Aerodrome as a convenient starting-point, an aerial traveller will tour regularly by air, using his flying machine as he would a motor. Already, dotted about England, are aerodromes he may use as halting-points on his flight, and at which he can house his machine and secure the attention of mechanics; and the number of these grounds should grow rapidly in the future.

In the aeroplane for the tourist, for the man who buys a machine and flies for his own pleasure, it is necessary to combine comfort and safety. As regards comfort, though much remains to be done in the perfection of detail, the occupants of a machine are now more studied than they were in the pioneer days. Then a pilot sat out on a crude seat, exposed fully to the rush of wind as a machine moved through the air. Now he is placed within a covered-in hull, a screen to protect him from the wind. From this stage, as was the case with the motor-car, rapid progress should be made in a provision of comfort.

When touring by air under favourable conditions, there should be no more risk with an aircraft than with a motor-car. One of the most frequent causes of accident, as we have shown, has been the structural weakness of a machine. Now, with the experience of the war on which to draw, and with many clever brains focussed on the development of the industry, this risk may be regarded as almost non-existent; as negligible a factor as it is possible to make it, remembering that aircraft, like other mechanism, have to be built by human hands.

Another risk, that of engine failure, may, as we have explained, be eliminated by the use of more than one motor. In the application of such systems there is still much to be learned; but the obstacles are not insuperable. One advantage that can be offered the aerial tourist, reckoning him as a pilot of no more than average skill, who needs all the aid that science can give him, is that he can obtain a machine which, owing to its automatic stability, requires merely to be taken into the air and brought to earth again, and which will practically fly itself, once it is aloft.

One of the needs with a touring machine, to which makers must devote their attention, is that it should be able to leave the ground quickly in its ascent, and so permit its pilot to rise even from a small starting ground. And it is equally necessary that, on occasion, a machine should be able to alight safely, and at a slow speed, in quite a small field. An aviator who had given up aviation temporarily, after a long spell of cross-country flying, was asked one day when he was going to fly again. "I shan't do so," he said, "till I can buy a machine with which I can alight in my own garden."

Already there are craft which, provided high speeds are not expected of them, and they are given ample plane-surface, will alight at quite a moderate pace; but in the future, by the use of machines which have the power of increasing or reducing their wing-surfaces while in flight, it should be possible to descend in a s.p.a.ce no larger, say, than a garden. In the construction of variable-surface machines, technical problems need to be faced which are unusually difficult. The theory with such craft is that their sustaining planes, either by a telescopic system, or by some process of reefing, are built so that they can be expanded or contracted at the will of the pilot. Thus in rising, when a machine is required to ascend with a minimum run forward across the ground, a large area of lifting surface would be exposed; and at the moment of alighting, also, when it was desired that a machine should make its contact with the ground at the slowest possible speed, a maximum of plane surface would be employed. But when aloft, and in full flight, the pilot would be able if he so desired to reduce the area of his lifting surface, and so increase materially his speed. With a machine of this type, when perfected, it should be possible to rise quickly, and descend slowly, and yet at the same time, when well aloft, attain a high speed with moderate engine-power.

The commercial possibilities of aviation are vast and far-reaching: not for nothing, after centuries of striving, have men conquered the air. The aeroplane is destined, by the facilities it offers for communication between nations, to play a vital part in the growth of civilisation. The construction and perfection of a commercial aeroplane, a machine which can be used for the transport of pa.s.sengers, mails, and goods, represents largely a question of time and of money.

Technical problems still need to be solved. But none of them are insurmountable. All should be overcome by an expenditure of money and in the process of time--granted of course that research is directed upon the right lines. A sufficient amount of money for experimental work, which in aviation is very costly, was one of the prime difficulties before the war. Capitalists were chary of aviation; they had no faith in it. Now, after the work aircraft have done in war, and with the need to provide the world with air fleets, the industry need live no longer from hand to mouth. There should be funds available for experiments with commercial-type aeroplanes.

As to the factor of time, this depends largely on the facilities that are obtained by the industry--apart from its work on naval and military craft--for test work with other machines. But in five years' time, granted progress continues on the lines now promised, we should have a service of pa.s.senger aeroplanes, each carrying fifty or more people, flying daily between London, the Midlands, and the North; while in ten years' time it should be possible to cross the Atlantic, from London to New York, by means of a regular service of aerial craft.

The commercial aeroplane, even when perfected, would not be likely to compete successfully with other means of transit unless it could offer the advantages of a greater speed. Here, indeed, in the speeds they will attain, lies the future of aircraft. The air will be our highway because, in the air, speeds will be reached that are impossible on land or sea. As civilisation extends--this is of course a truism--there grows with it a need for speedier travel; and we have seen land and sea transit striving to meet this demand. But both have reached, or are rapidly reaching, a limit of speed--a limit imposed by the need to carry their pa.s.sengers and goods on a remunerative basis.

On the sea, by burning excessive quant.i.ties of coal, it is possible to add a few knots to the speed of a great liner. But then the problem becomes one of profit and loss; while with trains--so nearly under existing conditions have they reached a limit of speed--that a difficulty is experienced, even on long runs, and under favourable circ.u.mstances, in saving a minute here and there. It is not of course to be a.s.sumed, when the spur of a greater necessity comes, that land and sea transit will fail altogether to increase their existing speeds. There is the mono-rail system of land traction, electrically propelled, which has yet to be tested in a practical way; while on the sea, perhaps, under pressure of compet.i.tion, and with an increasing demand for greater speeds, it may be possible to adapt with advantage, even on large craft, some principle of the hydroplane.

But by way of the air, granted even a speeding-up on land and sea, should go the high-speed traffic of the future. By a greater efficiency in lifting surfaces and by reductions in the resistance a craft offers to its own pa.s.sage through the air; by the provision of systems which will permit a pilot to reduce plane-area when his machine has gained alt.i.tude and he desires a maximum speed; by the equipping of craft with motors developing thousands of horse-power for a very low weight--by such means, and by a general improvement in design, it should be possible, eventually, to attain flying speeds of 150, 200, and even 250 miles an hour. From London to New York by air liner, in less than twenty hours; such, for instance, should be an attainment of the future.

It seems probable, in the development of the commercial aeroplane, we shall have machines for touring and for pleasure flights--craft not of large size but in which efforts are made to obtain a greater reliability and comfort. Then it appears likely that aircraft may reach a practical use as carriers of mails and of light express goods; first of all in localities, and under conditions, which favour specially an aerial transit. And from this phase we should move to the pa.s.senger-carrying craft; to the days when we shall be able to spend a week-end in New York, as readily as it has been the habit to do in Paris; when we shall be able to reach any part of the world in a journey by air lasting, say, a week or ten days. Then, as a recompense for the lives that have been lost, and for a conquest that has been so dearly won, the world will enter upon an age of aerial transit--the age when frontiers and seas will act as barriers no longer, when journeys that now last weeks will be reduced to days, and those of days to hours; when first of all Europe, and then the world, will be linked by airway.

THE END.