FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA BY AEROPLANE 



243 



ing, I determined to climb above the 

 cloud-mass and, once above it, set a com- 

 pass course for Lyons. 



Aerial navigation is similar to naviga- 

 tion at sea, excepting that the indispen- 

 sable sextant is of little use in the air, 

 owing to the high speed of travel and the 

 consequent rapid change from place to 

 place and for other technical reasons. 

 Allowances have also to be made for the 

 drift of the machine when side winds are 

 blowing — an extremely difficult factor to 

 determine accurately. 



As the medium on which the machine 

 travels is air, any active motion of that 

 medium must necessarily have a direct 

 influence on the machine. If, for in- 

 stance, the medium on which we are trav- 

 eling is a wind of 40 miles per hour, 

 blowing directly toward our destination, 

 and the velocity of the machine is 80 

 miles per hour, then the speed which the 

 machine will travel in relation to the 

 ground would be 120 miles per hour. If 

 we had to forge directly ahead into the 

 same wind, then our speed would obvi- 

 ously be only 40 miles per hour. 



To determine the speed of a machine 

 in relation to the ground, an instrument 

 is fitted, called, a ground-speed indicator. 

 In side winds the machine makes leeway 

 in addition to its forward movement, and 

 it is the ratio of the one to the other that 

 provides the greatest problem of aerial 

 navigation, especially when flying above 

 clouds or when land features are ob- 

 scured. 



On this particular occasion the Air 

 Ministry had furnished us with charts 

 indicating the trend of the winds and 

 their approximate force at various alti- 

 tudes, and so we knew, roughly, what 

 allowances to make in our dead reckon- 

 ing if we lost sight of the ground. 



INTO CEOUDEAND 



So we climbed steadily in a wide, as- 

 cending spiral, until we reached an alti- 

 tude of 9,000 feet, and were then just 

 above the clouds. Below us the snow- 

 storm raged, but we had entered another 

 world — a strange world, all our own, 

 with bright, dazzling sunshine. 



It might have been a vision of the polar 

 regions ; it undoubtedly felt like it. The 



scudding resembled a polar landscape 

 covered with snow. The rounded cloud 

 contours might have been the domes of 

 snow-merged summits. It was hard to 

 conceive that that amorphous expanse 

 was not actual, solid. Here and there 

 flocculent towers and ramps heaved up, 

 piled like mighty snow dumps, toppling 

 and crushing into one another. Every- 

 thing was so tremendous, so vast, that 

 one's sense of proportion swayed uncon- 

 trolled. 



Then there were tiny wisps, more deli- 

 cate and frail than feathers. Chasms 

 thousands of feet deep, sheer columns, 

 and banks extended almost beyond eye- 

 reach. Between us and the sun stretched 

 isolated towers of cumulus, thrown up as 

 if erupted from the chaos below. The 

 sunlight, filtering through their shapeless 

 bulk, was scattered into every conceivable 

 gradation and shade in monotone. Round 

 the margins the sun's rays played, out- 

 lining all with edgings of silver. 



A BEWIEDERING SCENE 



The scene was one of utter bewilder- 

 ment and extravagance. Below, the 

 shadow of our machine pursued us, skip- 

 ping from crest to crest, jumping gulfs 

 and ridges like a bewitched phantom. 

 Around the shadow circled a gorgeous 

 halo, a complete flat rainbow. I have 

 never seen anything in all my life so un- 

 real as the solitudes of this upper world 

 through which my companions and I 

 were now fleeting. 



My brother worked out our course, and 

 I headed the machine on to the compass 

 bearing for Lyons ; and so away we went, 

 riding the silver-edged sea and chased by 

 our dancing shadow. For three hours we 

 had no glimpse of the earth, so we navi- 

 gated solely by our compass, hoping even- 

 tually to run into clear weather, or at 

 least a break in the cloud, so that we 

 might check our position from the world 

 below. My brother marked our assumed 

 position off on the chart, by dead reckon- 

 ing, every fifteen minutes. 



The cold grew more intense. Our 

 hands and feet lost all feeling and our 

 bodies became well-nigh frozen. The icy 

 wind penetrated our thick clothing and it 

 was with greatest difficulty that I could 



icrhtv cloud ocean over which we were work the machine. Our breaths con- 



