The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

by Jon E. Lewis

  “Try the controls,” he said between buzzes.

  I tried them. They seemed all right. Lateral control was by “warping” the wing instead of by aileron; it seemed rather stiff, but I supposed that very little would be necessary for normal bank. The rudder control was much lighter.

  “She needs a bit of left rudder in the air,” the pilot remarked. “And you can leave the throttle control there –” He indicated the position. “– all the time you’re flying, but hold on to it. Cut it down a little when you want to glide, and use your thumb-switch. Understand?”

  I nodded intelligently, thinking it all over and trying to remember some of it for future reference.

  “All right,” he went on, “don’t stay up for more than twenty minutes. Off you go!”

  “Off I go?” I repeated, unable to believe my ears.

  He wagged his head cheerfully and let go of the switch. The machine began to move forward.

  I cried out anxiously, but the engine was making a horrible noise and I had forgotten where the switch was. The pilot did not hear me.

  “Don’t forget,” he shouted as he skipped out of the way of the tail-booms, “don’t forget that she stalls at forty-two!”

  I stared forward helplessly, hopelessly, The machine was bounding over a stretch of uneven ground, swinging wildly from side to side. Which rudder had he told me to use? Left or right? I tried each in turn, gradually discovering how to keep the nose straight while fumbling around with my left hand to find the switch. My fingers encountered the throttle lever, pushed it forward to the position the instructor had indicated. The engine roared with satisfaction. The tail came off the ground, I felt myself being lifted in my seat. Instinctively – already it was becoming an instinct! – I eased back the control stick to prevent the machine from falling on her nose. The bumping and bounding suddenly ceased – merciful heavens, I was off the ground!

  My immediate reaction was one of far greater apprehension than I had experienced upon my first solo. Then, for all my ignorance, I had really been quite comfortable in a Longhorn seat. Now everything was unfamiliar. I could not see ahead; there was a flame-spitting, whirling mass of cylinders and propeller in front of the frail boat in which I squirmed. And wherever I looked there seemed to be struts or wings to obscure the view – except of the departing earth. I held the stick firmly in what I judged to be a neutral position and watched the speed gauge.

  I found the switch at last, but now I deemed it wiser to go on. I had very little spare flying speed. If I tried to land I should come down like a cast-iron pancake, smashing the machine to matchwood. Besides, there was a line of trees ahead – about the only thing I could see – somehow I would have to get over them before finding safety. No use getting upset, I had to make a circuit of the aerodrome if I wanted to live to tell that young instructor what I thought of him. Clutching desperately at the throttle and stick I was borne aloft thinking upon Elijah.

  Compared to a Longhorn this Caudron was speedy and climbed remarkably fast. In no more than ten minutes I had reached a height of one thousand feet. She seemed to be climbing too fast. I peered hastily at the speed gauge. It was very hard to see, for the cockpit was dark and my eyes were half blinded by the sunset (probably my last) over the Solent towards which I was flying – towards which I was being unwillingly carried. At what speed, I wondered, had that awful man told me she would stall? Was it forty-two? Anyway, I was taking no risks. Well above forty-five for me. I pushed the stick farther forward – Trial by Jury, slightly parodied, came into my head in tune with the engine’s beat:

  “She might very well stall at forty-five,

  In the dusk with the light behind her.”

  The light was certainly behind the instruments; I had to guess my speed by the feel of the machine, a lesson it was just as well I should learn then and there. Dusk? Yes, that was coming; unless I hurried the light would be bad for landing, I should bounce like a tennis ball. I tried a turn. It succeeded better than I had hoped. And of a sudden I felt a new confidence coming to me. This was fine, this was real flying, better than Longhorn. I made another turn. The light was on the instruments now, I felt much happier. Height two thousand feet, speed fifty-one, revolutions per minute one thousand and fifty; everything smooth and comfortable. I looked out of the boat and down.

  Fort Grange was directly underneath; the aerodrome a little to my left. Ahead the houses of Gosport; in distant Portsmouth lights were already beginning to twinkle in the streets. I throttled down, buzzing the engine to keep the propeller turning. The machine glided slowly but extraordinarily steeply, I found; it was so nearly a dive that I watched the ground over the top plane. The summer air grew pleasantly warmer as I came lower, and greatly daring I essayed a turn on the glide. It was easier than I had thought, for there was not a bump or a pocket in the air on this quiet August evening.

  Above the sheds, still a good fifty feet up, I straightened out, began calculating my landing point. A sidelong glance at the tarmac showed me the young instructor looking up from among a group of other pilots. He was very tall and therefore known as “Tiny.” I hoped that he was proud of his pupil. I felt angry no more. Rather I wanted to laugh and shake him by the hand. I was glad that he had had confidence enough in my abilities to send me off upon this delightful machine. . . .

  The landing held all my thoughts. Shakily I buzzed the engine as though I were sending out an SOS, drew the stick back gently, gradually, guessing the distance to the ground. The rush of wind died away; the nose came up steadily; the tail sank. I looked at the air-speed: dangerously near to the fatal forty-two mark, then just under. The machine sank a little, slowing down. And but for the rumbling of the wheels and the scratch of the tail-booms over stones beneath the grass, I should not have known that I had landed.

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  There followed a spell of exceptionally fine weather, during which I was sent up two or three times every day for short flights on the Caudron, the Longhorn, or occasionally on one of the Shorthorns. But in spite of my new confidence I was still very cautious in the air, and on the ground I found myself always listening for useful hints that might be dropped by those Winged Heroes, the fully-fledged pilots. There were plenty of minor crashes, but none so ghastly or so close to me as that first one at Shoreham, and I fancy that those of us who had survived the moral effect of that disaster were no longer much disturbed by other people’s misfortunes. And yet some of the mysterious happenings to experienced aviators filled me every now and then with anxiety for the future. There was a limit it seemed to the wisdom of even the best pilots; what on earth – or in the air – could I be expected to do in circumstances with which they themselves did not know how to deal?

  The newly forming squadron at Gosport was being equipped with B.E.2c. Aeroplanes. A pilot whom I knew and liked was sent to bring one from a depot near London. When he landed he became at once the centre of an admiring crowd, for the B.E. with its latest improvements and its 90 horsepower engine was a novelty and highly thought of. The pilot gave a half-humorous account of his flight.

  “It was very bumpy over Winchester,” he announced, “and the dirty beast tried to spin on me!”

  Exclamations of interest were followed by many questions. How had it started? What was it like, how serious had it been, what had he done to correct it? His answers were calmly given, but they were not very clear. I at least could gather little or nothing from them; a spin remained something mysterious and deadly, a danger from which there was no salvation, which attacked one suddenly and for no reason in mid-air. I must watch for signs of that spin as a traveller through unexplored country might watch for a savage ambush.

  The little Caudron, however, was perfectly safe; she had never been known to spin. Providing one did not stall her, she would give no trouble. She was strong, had a low landing-speed, required a comparatively short run for taking off and was more or less fool-proof in the air. Her one weakness was that whirling incinerator of an engine. But in spite of occasiona
l trouble, I developed a great affection for the little machine. In her I made my first long cross-country flights and enjoyed my first two forced landings. I say “enjoyed” retrospectively, because I managed to bring them both off successfully, not because I was at all happy at the time they occurred.

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  It happened one day that, when I was about to leave on a cross-country flight in the Caudron, a letter had to be delivered urgently to a senior officer at that moment inspecting the reserve Squadron at Shoreham. With some formality and many cautions not to tarry on the way, I was entrusted with the despatch.

  To say that I was pleased to revisit in so smart a machine the scene of my first trembling solo would be far short of the truth. It mattered not to me that the despatch was of no real importance and that a copy was being sent by post; at being selected to perform this mission I was as elated as if I had won the Derby Sweep. It was a glorious morning, the engine sang a crackling paean of triumph; I flew via Fareham, Chichester, Arundel and Lancing. After much climbing, the Caudron reached a height of four thousand feet; below me small puffs of cloud drifted slowly astern. I felt rather reckless in thus flying above them, they gave such an impression of altitude; but I was beginning to know the look of the country from the air. I could distinguish between a railway and a river, between forests and factory chimneys.

  Everything went well on the way out and I reached Shoreham in good time, looking down proudly before commencing the glide. Some of the less fortunate pupils of my day were still being taught there. I fancied I could discern one or two of them in the drooping Longhorns slowly circling the aerodrome. I switched off and dived earthwards – dived, because gliding in a Caudron, except that it was delightfully slow, resembled in angle of descent the “Death Dive” of the newspapers. Over the sheds I buzzed the engine a good deal and did one gentle turn of a spiral so as to make sure of having an audience, then straightening out, came lower and – glory be! – made a very decent landing.

  To complete the impression of efficiency I taxied in very fast, and in a Caudron that meant with the tail off the ground to avoid the braking effect of the tail-booms in the grass. More by luck than by good judgment, I switched off in the nick of time, fetching up on the edge of the tarmac, my propeller almost touching a Longhorn’s rudder. A few yards away a group of officers stood watching; I spied my senior officer amongst them. Wishing to complete my performance as smartly as possible, I sprang lightly from the pilot’s seat, forgot the control wires which ran aft to the tail and, tripping over a cable, fell flat on my face. I began to regret that all the pupils were now assembled in front of the sheds; I could see wide grins on several familiar faces. However, picking myself up I limped clear of the Caudron with a barked shin, and hastened to deliver my despatch to the senior officer. He smiled, thanked me warmly; and when he added that I had made a very nice landing and that he hoped I had not hurt myself, I felt as proud as though I were the dying patriot reporting to the Emperor at Ratisbon.

  In the Mess they treated me as if I already had my Wings. Even the No-lift-in-the-air motor salesman (still there) deigned to talk with me. I told him the Caudron was very apt to spin.

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  But upon the return journey I paid for the pride and joy of the morning. I had had a swim and an excellent lunch; had I been my own master I should also have had a short siesta. When at length I soared into the air, watched by a crowd of envious pupils, and set course for Gosport I felt – for the first time in my life in an aeroplane – really happy, almost drowsy. The engine no longer seemed to emit a menacing roar, but rather to hum a regular, slightly monotonous lullaby. The air had all the requisite “lift” in it, there were no bumps, it was warm even at two thousand five hundred feet and the sky was cloudless all the way to Gosport. I leaned back, very nearly at my ease.

  On the way home I followed the seashore to see from the air a coast I had long known on the ground. Ahead, Hayling Island came gradually into my ken. I had done a course in machine-gunnery there before joining the Flying Corps and I thought that I would like to look more closely at so familiar a locality. After passing over it I should, of course, have to turn inland to avoid the prohibited area of Portsmouth; that would involve quite a long detour by Fareham. But there was plenty of time before sunset; the evening was calm, clear, and of such beauty as to make the temptation to stay up a little longer irresistible to a young airman.

  Presently I was above marshes and mudflats and the arms of the quiet sea encircling the island. I began to recognize roads, lanes, cottages, clumps of trees, to see paths down which I had rushed perspiringly with weighty pieces of Vickers or Lewis guns. I smiled contentedly from the superior position to which I had advanced. . . . Perhaps it was over-confidence that did it. I don’t know. At all events there was a sudden change of note in the engine’s steady music, then a slowing down and much vibration. From rhythmical roaring the explosions dwindled until they were like nothing more than a faint crackling of ice in a cocktail-shaker. Then they ceased altogether. The silence seemed immense. And with it came a nasty pain in the pit of my stomach: two thousand feet up, an amateur pilot, and no engine! This must be the end. I fumbled around desperately; wiggled the throttle lever, tried the switch, buried my head in the cockpit to see if the petrol was properly turned on, fumbled some more.

  When I took my head out of the cockpit I found that the noise of wind in the wings and wires had unaccountably died away. The rudder bar and control stick seemed strangely easy to move. And the nose of the machine was dropping heavily, uncontrollably . . . I was stalling – about to spin? Without thinking or hesitating I pushed the stick hard forward. The Caudron gathered speed; and within two seconds I was sighing my relief, wind had come back to the wires, feeling to the controls. I flattened to a more normal glide and began to do some quick thinking.

  What were my lessons? “Keep straight on, don’t lose flying-speed.” Well, after a moment’s panic I was doing that all right. The next step? “Make sure of the direction of the wind.” At Shoreham I had been heading directly into it, how was it here? I gazed earthwards. There was a ripple of air over the cornfields, too erratic to be a sure guide. A herd of cows was obstinately refusing to obey the laws of bovine nature, for not two faced the same way. No sailing craft at sea, no flags on the houses. Ah, smoke from a cottage chimney! I had never seen household smoke so friendly. Country people should always let their chimneys smoke to help poor airmen in distress. I took the wind’s bearing with precision, turned into it at once. Now? “Choose the field in which you intend to land, and choose it as early as you can.” A glance at the altimeter – less than fifteen hundred feet – I hung over the side, goggling at the earth. Choose? Not so easy. There were innumerable fields, but only a few large enough. I examined those few attentively, Marshes! Or else green mud from which the tide had receded. . . . Under a thousand feet now. No time to lose. I had been told that, from long periods of sitting still in the air, an airman’s chief trouble was constipation. In this business of forced landing I fancied I had found a certain cure; I wanted that field for more reasons than one.

  And at last, just in time, I found it. The only smooth bit of pasture, it seemed, for miles, but not so very smooth at that. A sort of paddock, small, enclosed on three sides by trees, with a tall hedge upon my side. “Aim at the hedge on the near side,” I had been taught. I did so and found that I was too high. Another lesson came back to me: “if you think you are going to overshoot make ‘S’-turns so as to lose height. . . .” In the middle of the second turn the engine all at once started again. If it had happened any higher up I might have tried to continue the flight, low down it only served to remind me of one more lesson: “Always switch off before a forced landing, to minimize the risk of fire.” I knocked up the switch immediately, I might crash and crash badly, but I refused to burn. I could remember no more lessons, there was no time to think of anything else. The machine hopped over the hedge; I commenced shakily to flatten out.

  The la
nding was not too bad, although rather fast – a better fault than stalling! – and all would have been well but for a partly filled in drainage ditch concealed by the grass. I was staring ahead, wondering whether I should be able to stop before hitting the trees on the far side of the field, when there came a heavy bump beneath the wheels. The machine swerved, listed to port, came to a sudden stop.

  It took me a few moments to recover from the relaxed tension, the joy of safely landing, the surprising stillness of the summer’s evening here on the ground. It seemed very wrong of me to have thus brusquely disturbed the dignified quiet of this sweet-smelling field. Then I scrambled out to inspect the damage. It was nothing much. A wheel had been broken in the ditch, a steel undercarriage strut twisted. It could all easily be repaired on the spot . . . .

  Solicitous inhabitants crowded round, offering help, advice, congratulations, food and drink, shelter for the night, first-aid or a guard for the machine. I asked for a telephone. This was the first time I had broken anything since starting to fly, and now that the anguish of the descent was past I wondered ruefully whether the breaking of a wheel would not put a black mark against my name. From the nearest house I ‘phoned through to Go-sport.

  The orderly-officer to whom I spoke was non-committal, he told me to stay where I was and that perhaps help would be forthcoming on the morrow. Then he rang off. I passed an uneasy night despite hospitable surroundings. . . .

  But upon the next day, back at Gosport with the repaired Caudron, they said I had not managed so badly for a beginner – although they refused to believe that I had not got a girl hidden away on Hayling Island. No one, they said, would land there for less than that.

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