PREFACE
THIS is a story for boys who want to know of the thrills and joys of Aviation. It is written by a war flyer who was a pilot with a squadron at the front and who there learned to know how he and other young men reacted to those dangerous moments when lightning-quick decisions were necessary.He has seen many boys learning to fly, and observed how most of them, after they had learned, acted in a crisis with the utmost coolness whether it was the sing of a bullet or the miss of a motor that brought the warning of danger.He knows that those flyers were wrong in their belief during the war that no flying in peace time could equal the thrill and tingle of the nervous excitement which they were then experiencing.Since the war ended, the design of planes and engines has so far advanced that distances are being spanned now that they never then believed possible.Nature has put dangers in the paths of our modern flyers, as great or greater than that of an enemy, for from the moments of the dangerous take-off with tremendous loads of fuel, until the landing on another Continent, there can be no relaxation.And after watching the planes leave for long ocean flights where no safe landing can be made for many hours, we have come to realize and appreciate the strain these pilots are under.When several of these bidders for long distance honors havefailed to appear at their announced destination and when, after a frantic search has been carried on over land and sea, the world has been forced to admit that no trace—not even a stick of wood or a rag of fabric—can be found, then it is comforting to think, to hope, thatsomewhere, a safe landing has been made.EDITOR.
THIS is a story for boys who want to know of the thrills and joys of Aviation. It is written by a war flyer who was a pilot with a squadron at the front and who there learned to know how he and other young men reacted to those dangerous moments when lightning-quick decisions were necessary.
He has seen many boys learning to fly, and observed how most of them, after they had learned, acted in a crisis with the utmost coolness whether it was the sing of a bullet or the miss of a motor that brought the warning of danger.
He knows that those flyers were wrong in their belief during the war that no flying in peace time could equal the thrill and tingle of the nervous excitement which they were then experiencing.
Since the war ended, the design of planes and engines has so far advanced that distances are being spanned now that they never then believed possible.
Nature has put dangers in the paths of our modern flyers, as great or greater than that of an enemy, for from the moments of the dangerous take-off with tremendous loads of fuel, until the landing on another Continent, there can be no relaxation.
And after watching the planes leave for long ocean flights where no safe landing can be made for many hours, we have come to realize and appreciate the strain these pilots are under.
When several of these bidders for long distance honors havefailed to appear at their announced destination and when, after a frantic search has been carried on over land and sea, the world has been forced to admit that no trace—not even a stick of wood or a rag of fabric—can be found, then it is comforting to think, to hope, thatsomewhere, a safe landing has been made.
EDITOR.