FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA BY AEROPLANE 



313 



France ; but the weather was not so cold, 

 so we felt physically more comfortable. 

 The map showed the range to be about 

 fifty miles wide, and after we had flown 

 for half an hour, still another cloud bar- 

 rier appeared directly ahead. 



Our machine had now reached its 

 "ceiling," so there was no alternative but 

 to plunge ahead into the mist. We were 

 then flying at an altitude of 11,000 feet, 

 and were soon engulfed in a dense 

 blanket of mist. As we had left England 

 hurriedly, there had been no time to fit 

 special cloud-navigating instruments, and 

 the only ones we carried for this purpose 

 were the ordinary compass, air-speed in- 

 dicator, and inclinometer. Any one who 

 has flown through clouds in a big ma- 

 chine, under similar circumstances, will 

 appreciate my feelings at this time. 



Down below us lay jagged mountain 

 peaks buried by cloud. Ahead, around, 

 and behind, the mist enfolded us in an 

 impenetrable screen, and if I once al- 

 lowed the machine to get beyond control, 

 a horrible fate would be waiting for us 

 all below. 



WHAT FLYING IN CLOUDS MEANS 



To those who have not experienced the 

 anxiety of cloud-flying, I will attempt to 

 describe briefly what happens. 



The moment one plunges into heavy 

 cloud there is misty blankness ; all ob- 

 jects are lost to view ; and as time wears 

 on, a helpless feeling grows upon one 

 that all sense of direction is lost. To 

 overcome this predicament, I was pro- 

 vided with the aforementioned instru- 

 ments, and settled down to try to watch 

 all three at once and maintain their read- 

 ings correct. In addition it was neces- 

 sary to glance over the engine and the 

 gauges continually. 



At first all went well ; but, while turn- 

 ing to check over an engine, I apparently 

 and unconsciously, with the natural move- 

 ment of my body, pushed one foot, which 

 was on the rudder bar, slightly forward. 

 This turned the machine off its course, 

 and when next I looked at my compass I 

 was ten degrees off course. I then kicked 

 on the opposite rudder to bring the ma- 

 chine back ; but, as the Vimy is much 

 more sensitive to respond than the com- 

 paratively sluggish compass-needle, I 



found that I had put on too much rudder. 

 The result was that when die compass- 

 needle started to swing it did so through 

 an angle of forty-five degrees. 



In my attempt to correct the course 

 and bring the needle back on to its cor- 

 rect reading, I glanced at the air-speed 

 indicator and found it registering over 

 one hundred miles an hour — twenty-five 

 miles above normal flying speed. This 

 meant that I must have pushed the nose 

 of the machine down. The inclinometer 

 indicated that the machine was not flying 

 laterally correct ; in fact, we were flying 

 at an inclined angle of forty degrees. 



I realized that the machine was slipping 

 sideways, and that if I did not get mat- 

 ters righted at once, the machine would 

 get out of control and go spinning down 

 to earth. 



LONG AND ANXIOUS MOMENTS 



It is useless attempting to describe 

 how I acted. A pilot does things instinc- 

 tively, and presently my instruments told 

 me that we were once more on our course 

 and on an even keel. 



All this took but a few seconds ; but 

 they were anxious moments, as a single 

 mistake or the losing of one's head would 

 have been fatal. This happened several 

 times, and at the end of what seemed 

 hours I glanced at my watch and found 

 we had only been in the clouds for twelve 

 minutes ! Perhaps my nerves were a 

 little ragged, owing to strain and lack of 

 sleep during the past fortnight ; but I felt 

 at last that anything would be better than 

 going on under these tense and nerve- 

 racking conditions. 



It was now an hour since we first 

 started across the clouds, and both Keith 

 and I concluded that we must surely be 

 across the mountain range. So I decided 

 to take the risk and go lower and "feel." 



Shutting off both engines, we glided 

 down, and I held up the machine so that 

 we were going as slowly as possible — 

 only about forty miles an hour. 



The sensation was akin to the captain 

 navigating a vessel in uncharted shoaling 

 seas — expecting every moment to feel a 

 bump. Lower and lower we went — ten, 

 nine, eight thousand feet — and then we 

 both anxiously peered over the sides — 

 straining for a glimpse of hidden peaks. 



