CHAPTER VIIITHE COMPLETE AIRMAN
The British Air Service is now a great army, 80 per cent. of whom, before the war, had never even seen an aeroplane, much less been up in one,—bank clerks, young merchants, undergrads, doctors, lawyers, journalists, all endowed with two sterling qualities required by the pilot of the air, courage and level-headedness. And how has this great miracle been accomplished? August 1914, found us lamentably short of bothpersonneland material, but what little there was of the very best. The already experienced pilots set to work with a will upon the more than generous quantity of raw material that came to hand. Within a few months their influence made itself felt. They taught the “quirk”—the airman’s pet name for the novice—in their own simple and undemonstrative manner, that the air is to be respected, but never feared, the aeroplane treated as a being of life and animation, with quaint humors peculiarly its own, and not as a lifeless mass of metal and woodwork. Within six months the number offully trained British pilots had trebled itself; within one year the number had grown beyond all proportion, and still it goes on.
The usual method of training a new hand is to get him used to the air, which, though apparently harmless and void, is as tricky and treacherous as the sea. The beginner is taken up for several flights as a passenger. In the initial flight the pilot will perform the most daring maneuvers and precipitate turns, watching his passenger closely the whole time for any signs of nervousness or fear. It is a most trying ordeal that first trip up aloft, and the bravest hearts have been known to quail.
Recently there was a case at a large school of a Major of marines, concerning whose courage there could be not the slightest doubt, and who possessed, among other decorations, the much coveted D.S.O. After a first trip above, the Major remained in his seat of the landed aeroplane for fully a quarter of an hour, ashen of countenance, and too terrified to speak. It was not cowardice, but simply that he was temperamentally unsuited. At length, when he had composed himself sufficiently to clamber out, he vowed that never again would he go up in an aeroplane.
Following the first flights there are numerous trips in dual-control machines, that is to say, with the ordinary pilot’s control-stick and steering-bar duplicated, and both couples working under the same control. Thus, gradually, the “quirk” becomes used to the handling of the craft and accustomed to the sudden drop in an air bank, or to an outward slip in a gust of wind, until eventually, without his knowledge, the instructor allows him to fly the machine himself.
Sufficient progress made, he is allowed to make flights alone, and when he has learnt to bank left and right, and land the machine in a safe and seemly manner, permission is given him to attempt the Royal Aero Club’s certificate; for which an altitude flight, a distance flight, and a landing on a given spot are the only tests that are necessary. This, let it be said, is but the starting-point of the flying education. Flying fast machines, wireless operating, machine-gun firing, bomb-dropping, navigation and map-reading are still to be mastered. Only one who has been in the air and seen that queer panorama of jumbled green, gray and blue, stretching away for miles on either hand behind him, can appreciate the difficulties of an air pilot endeavoring to make a true course from a mist-bound earth; or when one’s hands are frozen to the bone, and the ice-cold wind whistles by one’s ears, the extreme difficulty of maneuvering the control-stickand working the machine-gun at one and the same time.
This much for daylight flying, but what of the night when sky and earth are alike indistinguishable? Truly night flying is a science unto itself which needs more than the average amount of courage. However, nightwork is given to only the most experienced pilots.
With active service flying again, we enter into a new phase of which reconnaissance work occupies at least eighty per cent. of the time. Simply put, reconnaissance means flying over the other fellow’s lines to see what he is about, if he is massing troops at a certain point, or digging in new gun emplacements, or if there is any unusual activity on the highways and railways immediately behind his firing line. It is a difficult matter to differentiate between infantry and cavalry on the march; to distinguish a cleverly hidden gun emplacement, or to tell the difference between an ammunition and a supply depot.
Bomb-dropping is a practice that requires the patience of a Job, good judgment, and a calm day—that is, if it is required to attain any degree of accuracy. Last, but not least, there is the matter of aerial combat, which, however, coverstoo wide a field for discussion in this short chapter.
Thus, in the complete air-pilot, we have a blend of gunner, wireless expert, map-reader, amateur detective, and aviator.