3 i6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



should think if you wrote and told . . . about this he would have somebody's 

 blood— as it is the second time our beauties at the War Office have lost a brand 

 new machine in the same way — as when the B.E.2E. had just come out, the 

 fourth or fifth machine we sent over to France, was also flown over by a chap who 

 had only just got his wings, and who also did not know the way ; and he landed 

 right on the Lille aerodrome and handed the machine to the Huns. To say it is 

 nobody's fault is rot." 



The pilot, Lieutenant Littlewood, was only gazetted a flying officer on June 9, 

 eight days after this incident occurred. He is said to have been considered a 

 capable pilot, and there is no ground for the least suspicion of his loyalty. It was 

 clearly an error of judgment on his part, but the real fault would seem to lie with 

 those responsible for sending him over. The pilot, now a prisoner in Germany, has 

 since complained in a letter to his father of " having rotten maps," and has also 

 stated that he descended near Lille thinking that it was St. Omer. There is some 

 excuse for this, as there is a similarity owing to the fact that a canal leads to each 

 place. Lieutenant Littlewood having never flown in France before, was ignorant 

 of the geography of the Front. The full details of the incident have not been 

 really explained so far, and probably will never be explained so far as the public is 

 concerned. 



As regards the weather, the day in question seems to have been one with a 

 slight east wind and comparatively good visibility. 



The observer, Captain Grant, was not a member of the Royal Flying Corps, 

 and was apparently merely getting a passage back for some reason unknown. 

 Whether his flight was authorised or not has not yet been stated. He had no 

 knowledge of flying, is said never to have been in an aeroplane before, and to 

 have asked the pilot before he started not to indulge in any tricks or to do any 

 spiralling— a name given to the spiral descents practised by pilots as the quickest 

 way of descending to a giving spot. 



In the Navy, in the case of the loss of a ship an inquiry or court-martial is 

 always held. In the Army similar procedure is the rule when there has been a 

 serious incident of any kind. But so far there is no information of any special 

 inquiry or court-martial having been made into the loss of this valuable and novel 

 machine. Neither, according to the evidence given before the Judicial Committee 

 sitting under the chairmanship of Judge Baillache, was there any inquiry into 

 another former case— namely, the loss of seventeen out of twenty-nine De Havil- 

 land Scouts fitted with Monosoupape Gnome engines which were damaged or 

 " crashed " at the beginning of March while flying between Gosport and another 

 aerodrome and various places on the Flanders Front. 



At the moment of writing (July 15) it is pleasant, however, to be able to put on 

 record that the position of our pilots at the Front has greatly improved owing to 

 better machines arriving in considerable numbers to take the place of the now 

 out-of-date B.E.2C.'s with 90 h.p. R.A.F. engines, which, though good machines 

 eighteen months ago, have long been out of date compared with the aeroplanes of 

 the Germany Army. 



Open-Air Sleeping (Sir William Lever, Bart.) 



(This is a question of considerable interest to every one. Those who have ever 

 lived in the tropics know how pleasant and beneficial it is to sleep in the open air 

 during the warm weather— under mosquito nets of course ; and many have also 

 had much experience of sleeping in tents— which is almost the same thing owing 



