The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (3 page)

“Of course we didn’t get high!” he answered, and there was a rebuke in his tone, “We could hardly get off the ground. No lift in the air.”

He seemed very wise as I watched him stroll away. Here, thought I, was another complexity added to the puzzling business of aviation. One had to study the air. The wind must be of a certain strength, the clouds at a given height and of known density. In addition there was something of which I as yet knew nothing. I must learn to sniff the air like an old hound, a flying hound; to judge the quality of the atmosphere from the wind upon my cheek; to feel its nature between finger and thumb. Otherwise I might some day embark upon a flight only to find that there was “no lift in the air” – whatever that might mean.

iv

“In aviation,” a friend of mine was wont to say, “there is as much art as science.” And there is more in this remark than is at first apparent. Pursuits there are and professions that demand science and nothing else; for instance one may suppose that splitting the atom or solving the square root of minus one calls for very little art. On the other hand certain arts have scant need of science to bring them to fruition. A poet is not necessarily a scientist, not even as much of a chemist as Keats; and that other who “shot an arrow in the air” can scarcely have been an accurate observer or he would have calculated the exact spot at which “it fell to earth” – but then perhaps he was not a very good poet. And with aeronautics, in its earlier stages, art often seemed to be marching ahead of a science that was in its infancy and waiting for the pilots whose progressive discoveries, be it said, were frequently the result of accident.

I began to glean information concerning my new calling.

To be successful, I gathered, a pilot must learn to steer a steady course between the Charybdis of “spinning,” the
remedy for which was not yet known, and the Scylla of diving into the hard, hard ground. “Stalling” – that was a word I heard on everyone’s lips: to lose flying-speed and, in consequence, all control of the machine. There were other minor difficulties to be reckoned with, mainly those connected with the strength – or rather the weakness – of the aeroplanes of those days. At all points one encountered either the unknown, or else more or less certain structural dangers. It was, they told me, courting death to dive the majority of machines at any appreciable angle, the speed and increased strain would pull the wings off. To bank too steeply might involve a sideslip or loss of flying-speed, either of which might quickly develop into the irremediable spin. “Looping” had, of course, been done and overdone before the war, but only on machines strong enough to stand the strain. Had anyone attempted to loop a Longhorn, the poor old lady would have tied herself into knots. And since looping was of no value by itself it was neither taught nor encouraged on any type of machine.

Before coming to Shoreham I had been taken up as a passenger several times, so that I had a rudimentary knowledge of flying. But now I perceived what innumerable lessons there were to be learned, anxiously, attentively, before one could hope to become an artist worthy of the name of Air Pilot. The whole business was unpleasantly suggestive of tight-rope walking, the margins of safety were so narrow. A Longhorn – and a good many other machines for that matter – would leave the ground at under forty miles an hour, and I doubt if her top speed ever exceeded forty-six or seven whatever may have been calculated on paper. This gave one a variation of some ten miles an hour; if you went too fast something fell off or snapped; if any slower you stalled, spun, dived, slipped one way or another and ended for a certainty by breaking your neck. And then there was the question of the engine. At full power it was just enough to get one safely off the ground and to climb high enough for turning, but if you drove along at too great a speed the engine would overheat,
and at the slightest loss of power the nose of the machine had to be pushed well down to maintain flying-speed. A tricky business!

In the Mess we talked a great deal of shop.

v

Eighteen is an impressionable age, especially for a budding pilot, so that it is not surprising that the first real lessons – roughly, horribly taught – should have been driven into me with such force that I never afterwards forgot them. It happened on a Sunday, my very first Sunday at Shoreham.

The day of the week did not make much difference to the routine of a Flying Corps squadron. If it were fine and there were machines available and pupils to be taught, instruction took place as usual, save that early flying was cancelled, we got up later and spent more time over breakfast. On this particular Sunday, however, the weather was not suitable. A stiff breeze came off the sea and the large masses of damp cloud everywhere would have made it far too bumpy for Longhorn work. But we strolled down to the sheds because we were all young enough to enjoy stroking our cows in the byre, even if we could not have them brought out for exercise.

At the aerodrome a treat was in store for us. A brand-new aeroplane of the most modern type had just arrived on a visit. It was being flown around the country upon a series of test flights by a well-known pilot from the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, accompanied by a civilian expert. We gathered about it in silent wonder, mindful of the pilot’s request that we should not touch anything.

It was sheer joy to examine such a machine at close quarters. Those of us who had flown as passengers before coming to Shoreham had seen a good many sorts of ancient aircraft; all the greater now was our interest and admiration. The engine of this biplane was in front (like
some German machines I had seen before the war), whereas most of those we knew by sight had it astern – “pushers” – and the body was long, narrow, neatly shaped. The wings were thicker than those of Maurice Farman machines; they looked solid, strong. The bracing wires were no longer cable or piano, they were of a new design: “streamline.” In the pilot’s cockpit was a neat dashboard with instruments. The controls were operated by a straight “stick,” not “handlebars” as in the Longhorn; there was a rudder bar instead of pedals. The tanks were said to contain fuel for nearly four hours’ flying, and it was evident that in addition to the passenger this aeroplane would be capable of carrying a machine-gun or bombs. An improvement upon older models of the same type, it was believed to attain no less than seventy-six miles an hour at full speed. It was known as the B.E.2c.
¹
, its engine was the 90 horse-power “R.A.F.” – the letters standing for Royal Aircraft Factory, the home of those expert minds whose latest and most immaculate conception this aeroplane was.

I gazed at the pilot with envy while my imagination soared faster than the swiftest biplane. Some day I too would wear Flying Corps “Wings” upon the left breast of my tunic, I too would steer a wonderful B.E.2c. and learn to manœuvre it with graceful ease. I would fly such a machine in France; my wings would darken the skies above the expectant battle-front, the enemy’s secrets would be disclosed to me. At my approach Zeppelins would hurry home, their huge sheds leap up in flames beneath my deadly rain of bombs, Berlin would pass sleepless nights. And at the end I would make a perfect landing before the assembled heads of the Flying Corps. . . .

So much for the colourful imagination of extreme youth.

At lunch in the Mess that day we were very quiet, listening in awed silence to the instructors and the pilot from Farnborough, discussing technicalities almost entirely over our heads. It was thrilling to hear the names of famous airmen bandied familiarly about, to hear of all the different types of aeroplanes with exaggerated speeds which we might hope to fly, and particularly to hear this so experienced pilot (a test-pilot!) give his views on how to do this and that, how to turn quickly and with almost vertical banking, how to do a spiral glide, how to deal with the ever-mysterious “spinning” and so on. It was rumoured that this pilot had frequently looped, and had even looped a B.E.2c! We listened attentively, trying to pick up what crumbs we might from his learned conversation.

There had been talk of the test-pilot staying the night at Shoreham; he had landed because of the bad weather. But during the afternoon it cleared up considerably and the wind, although still strong, showed signs of abating. He decided to leave. We hurried down to the aerodrome to watch him go.

The beautiful machine was wheeled forward, her engine started, warmed up. The test-pilot and his civilian passenger donned much leather flying clothing, climbed into their seats. The engine having been run up and found satisfactory, the wooden chocks were removed, the machine turned and taxied out to the far side of the aerodrome. A short pause, and the pilot gave the engine full throttle, taking off obliquely towards the sheds.

Against the wind the machine rose at once and began to climb steeply. The pilot waved farewell as he passed us by, about fifty feet up, heading west into the sunlight. Against the bright sky the machine was silhouetted, hard to see beyond the end of the sheds. But, as we watched, shading our eyes, there came to us suddenly the spluttering of a starved engine. The steady roar of the exhaust died down, the nose of the machine dropped. And now this too expert pilot made his great mistake.

In the course of the short flight, he had attained a height of about one hundred and fifty feet and had crossed the boundary of the aerodrome. A road, a line of telegraph wires were beneath him, ahead a series of small meadows intersected by ditches. Rough ground, but possible in an emergency, especially as the strong wind against him would make the run on landing exceptionally short. There was, strictly speaking, no alternative for a safe, a wise pilot. But this pilot was exceedingly clever, and he wanted to save his beautiful new machine from damage. Not that it would have suffered anything worse than a broken under-carriage, possibly a smashed propeller, from the forced landing; he wished to avoid even that much. And so he tried something which, in this instance, he had not one chance in a thousand of bringing off. He turned back to the aerodrome.

In the very few seconds that followed I remember feeling, in spite of my utter ignorance of piloting, an intense admiration for the brilliant way in which he handled the machine. Without a moment’s hesitation he turned down wind as quickly and as flatly as possible so as not to lose the little height he had gained, held a straight course for an instant, then over the sheds began another sharp turn that, when completed, would bring him into wind with a space of fifty or sixty yards of smooth ground on which to land. Actually it was just possible of achievement, although as I see it now he was taking a terrible risk; but the whole performance was cut too fine. He failed by much more than inches.

As he came towards the sheds his speed down wind seemed terrific, yet in trying to maintain his height he had in fact lost the essential flying-speed. He was stalling even as he banked over the sheds. The nose went down with a jerk in the first turn of a spin. He missed the roof by a miracle, but within a second of the machine’s disappearance behind the shed we were horrified to hear an appalling crash.

Naturally we rushed forward in spite of the first-shouted order that all pupils should stand back – the sight of a probably fatal crash, it was rightly thought, might upset some of us – we
had
to see; we ran for it. Beyond the shed the new aeroplane lay flat on the ground, a mass of wreckage. Both men sat in their smashed cockpits motionless. Unconscious or dead? We were not long in doubt for worse was to follow. As we came nearer the wreck from which mechanics were already trying to extricate pilot and passenger, there was a flicker of flame from beneath the fuselage. And all at once the mechanics sprang back as with a roar a great flame shot up from the burst petrol tank. It swept back over the passenger; when it reached the pilot he moved uneasily, seemed to shake himself, fumbled with his safety belt, then jumped out just in time, his clothing on fire.

There were cries for extinguishers, for axes to hack through the broken wings, for help to pull away the wreckage, for the ambulance – for anything and everything to save the passenger. He was still in the machine and still alive. Mercifully he did not recover consciousness – afterwards it was found that his skull had been fractured in the crash – but he kept on moving. And we were powerless. The extinguishers had no effect upon thirty gallons of blazing petrol. The strong wind blew the flames into his face. Before our very eyes he was burnt to death, roasted. It took a long time; it was ghastly. . . .

The fire died down, smouldered awhile, went out. The wind dropped; the sun set and the sky glowed with rare beauty. But we pupils walked back to the Mess in glum silence.

vi

Upon the following morning all officers were summoned to the squadron office. We expected the summons, although I do not quite know what we expected to hear. I suppose that, amongst other things, we thought to be given news of the pilot in hospital, but possibly to be
complimented upon the vain efforts we had made to penetrate the barrier of fire, and upon the sang-froid we had shown afterwards. Perhaps more than anything we hoped to hear that the fire had not been so intense as our eyes had led us to believe, that the unfortunate victim had in some way been protected – by his goggles, by his flying helmet or by his leather clothing – from the devouring fury of the flames, so that there might be a chance of his recovery. Or did we hope to be told that something mysterious had gone wrong with this new aeroplane, something very startling and unusual which could not occur again, that flying was not like this, horrible, cruel?

The Squadron-commander strode into the office, flung his cap upon the table, drew a cane chair forward. Placing one foot upon the chair, he rested an elbow on his knee.

“With regard to this unfortunate and unnecessary happening,” he began harshly, “the first and only thing to do is to find out the causes of the accident, to see where the pilot was to blame so as to learn what lessons we may. Now in this particularly stupid case . . .”