FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA BY AEROPLANE 



241 



part in the war, came under us. Thither 

 the legions of the Empire, in ceaseless 

 tides, had passed to and from the grim 

 red fields of East and West, all ac- 

 claiming thy might, great land of our 

 fathers ! 



It seemed hard to realize that we had 

 at last started out on the long flight for 

 which we had been planning and working 

 so long, and as I glanced over the ma- 

 chine and the instruments, I wondered 

 what the issue of it all might be — if the 

 fates would be so kind as to smile on us 

 ever so little and allow us to reach the 

 goal of our ambitions, Australia, in thirty 

 days. 



The machine was flying stately and 

 steady as a rock. All the bracing wires 

 were tuned to a nicety ; the dope on the 

 huge planes glinted and glistened in the 

 sunlight : I was filled with admiration. 

 The engines, which were throttled down 

 to about three-quarters of their possible 

 speed, had settled down to their task and 

 were purring away in perfect unison and 

 harmony. 



THE JOY OF FLYING 



A small machine is ideal for short 

 flights, joy riding the heavens, or sight- 

 seeing among the clouds ; but there is 

 something more majestic and stable about 

 the big bombers which a pilot begins to 

 love. An exquisite community grows up 

 between machine and pilot ; each, as it 

 were, merges into the other. The ma- 

 chine is rudimentary and the pilot the in- 

 tellectual force. The levers and controls 

 are the nervous system of the machine, 

 through which the will of the pilot may 

 be expressed — and expressed to an in- 

 finitely fine degree. A flying-machine is 

 something entirely apart from and above 

 all other contrivances of man's ingenuity. 



The aeroplane is the nearest thing to 

 animate life that man has created. In the 

 air a machine ceases indeed to be a mere 

 piece of mechanism ; it becomes animate 

 and is capable not only of primary guid- 

 ance and control, but actually of express- 

 ing a pilot's temperament. 



The lungs of the machine, its engines, 

 are again the crux of man's wisdom. 

 Their marvelous reliability and great in- 

 tricacy are almost as awesome as the 

 human anatomy. When both engines are 

 going well and synchronized to the same 



speed, the roar of the exhausts develops 

 into one long - sustained rhythmical 

 boom — boom — boom. It is a song of 

 pleasant harmony to the pilot, a duet of 

 contentment that sings of perfect firing 

 in both engines and says that all is well. 

 This melody of power boomed pleas- 

 antly in my ears, and my mind sought to 

 probe the inscrutable future, as we swept 

 over the coast of England at 90 miles per 

 hour. 



THE WEATHER PROPHET 



And then the sun came out brightly 

 and the channel, all flecked with white 

 tops, spread beneath us. Two torpedo- 

 boats, looking like toys, went northward. 

 And now, midway, how narrow and con- 

 stricted the straits appeared, with the 

 gray-white cliffs of old England growing 

 misty behind, and ahead — Gris Nez — 

 France, growing in detail each moment ! 



The weather was glorious, and I was 

 beginning to think that the official 

 prophet, who had predicted bad condi- 

 tions at our start, was fallible after all. 

 It was not until we reached the coast of 

 France that the oracle justified itself ; for. 

 stretching away as far as we could see. 

 there lay a sea of cloud. Thinking it 

 might be only a local belt, we plunged 

 into the compacted margin, only to dis- 

 cover a dense wall of nimbus cloud, 

 heavily surcharged with snow. 



The machine speedily became deluged 

 by sleet and snow. It clotted up our 

 goggles and the wind screen and covered 

 our faces with a mushy, semi-frozen 

 mask. 



Advance was impossible, and so we 

 turned the machine about and came out 

 into the bright sunshine again. 



We were then flying at 4,000 feet, and 

 the clouds were so densely compacted as 

 to appear like mighty snow cliffs, tower- 

 ing miles into the air. There was no gap 

 or pass anywhere, so I shut off the en- 

 gines and glided down, hoping to fly 

 under them. Below the clouds snow was 

 falling heavily, blotting out all observa- 

 tion beyond a few yards. 



HOW AX AERIAL COURSE IS SET 



Once more we became frozen up, and. 

 as our low elevation made flying ex- 

 tremely hazardous and availed us noth- 



