Part 3 (1/2)
The sport of aviation is controlled throughout the world, and flying tests and events of a compet.i.tive character are governed, by the International Aeronautical Federation. To the deliberations of this central authority are sent delegates from the Aero Clubs of various countries; and to these Aero Clubs, each in its respective country, falls the task of governing flight, according to the rules and decisions of the central authority. In Britain, controlling aviation in the same way that the Jockey Club controls the Turf, we have the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom; and it is this body, acting in its official capacity, which grants to each new aviator, after he has pa.s.sed certain prescribed tests, a certificate which proclaims him a pilot of proved capacity, and without which it is impossible for him to take part in any contests held under the auspices of the Club. The certificate, which is of a convenient size for carrying in the pocket, contains a photograph of the pilot for purposes of identification, and specifies also the rules under which the certificate is issued and held.
The theory of these tests, as imposed by the Club before it grants its certificates, is that the novice should--so far as is possible in one or two flights, made over a restricted area, and in a limited s.p.a.ce of time--be called on to show that he has a full control over a machine in what may be called the normal conditions of flight. He is asked to ascend, for instance, and gain a fair flying alt.i.tude; then to make such evolutions as will demonstrate his command over the control surfaces of the machine; and finally to show that he can, with his motor switched off, descend accurately in a vol-plane, and bring his machine to a halt within a specified distance of a mark. The tests are set forth, officially, as follows:--
_A and B._ Two distance flights, consisting of at least 5 kilometres (3 miles 185 yards) each in a closed circuit, without touching the ground; the distance to be measured as described below.
_C._ One alt.i.tude flight, during which a height of at least 100 metres (328 feet) above the point of departure must be attained; the descent to be made from that height with the motor cut off. The landing must be made in view of the observers, without re-starting the motor.
The rules drafted by the Club to govern these flights are set forth herewith:--
The candidate must be alone in the aircraft during the tests.
The course on which the aviator accomplishes tests A and B must be marked out by two posts situated not more than 500 metres (547 yards) apart.
The turns round the posts must be made alternately to the right and to the left, so that the flights will consist of an uninterrupted series of figures of eight.
The distance flown will be reckoned as if in a straight line between the two posts.
The alighting after the two distance flights in tests A and B shall be made:--
(_a_) By stopping the motor at or before the moment of touching the ground.
(_b_) By bringing the aircraft to rest not more than 50 metres (164 feet) from a point indicated previously to the candidate.
All alightings must be made in a normal manner, and the observers must report any irregularity.
These flights as specified to-day, though they present no difficulty to the pupil who has been well trained, are more stringent than they were in the first scheme of tests as prescribed by the Club, and as enforced for several years. In those early rules the distances were the same as they are to-day, but in the alt.i.tude flight the height required was only 50 metres (164 feet)--just half the height specified to-day. It was not laid down, either, in the first rules, that the engine should be stopped in this alt.i.tude flight when at the maximum height, and that the descent should be made in a complete vol-plane, without once re-starting the motor. As originally framed, indeed, the rule as to the control of the engine in this alt.i.tude test was the same as in regard to the distance flights--_i.e._, that it should be stopped ”at or before the moment of touching the ground.” What the present rule means, in this respect, is that the pupil must be really proficient at making a vol-plane, without any aid at all from his engine, before he can hope to pa.s.s the test; and such a proved skill--say in the making of his first cross-country flight, should his engine fail suddenly--may spell the difference between a safe or a dangerous landing.
The test flights for the certificate, undertaken only in such weather conditions as the pupil's instructor may think suitable, are watched by official observers appointed by the Royal Aero Club. It is the business of these observers, when the prescribed flights have been made, to send in a written report concerning them to the Club; and acting on this report, after it has been considered and shown to be in order, the Club issues to the pupil his numbered certificate. With the successful pa.s.sing of his tests the pupil's tuition is at an end. He is regarded no longer as a novice, but as a qualified pilot.
CHAPTER VII
PERILS OF THE AIR
There are people, very many people, who still regard flying as an undertaking of an unreasonable peril, essayed mainly by those who are in quest of money, notoriety, or sensation at any price. Such people--still to be met with--have one mental picture, and one only, of the flight of an aeroplane. They imagine a man in the air--and this mere idea of alt.i.tude makes them shudder; and they picture this man in a frail apparatus of wood and wire, capable of breaking to pieces at any moment; or even if it does not break, needing an incessant movement of levers to maintain it in a safe equilibrium; while they reckon also that, should the engine of the machine suffer any breakdown, the craft will drop to earth like a stone. Prejudice dies hard; harder no doubt in England than in other countries. There are still people, not few of them but many, who would be ready to declare, offhand, that one aeroplane flight in six ends in a disaster.
It is a truism, but one that has a peculiar truth in aviation, to say that history repeats itself. To-day we find large numbers of people who still cherish the opinion that--save perhaps when on service in war--it is nothing less than criminal foolishness for men to ascend in aeroplanes. That att.i.tude of mind persists; the growing safety of flight has not affected it to any appreciable degree. But those eager for the progress of aviation need not despair, or imagine that their particular industry is being treated with any exceptional disapprobation. They have only to look back a little in our history, no great distance, and read of the receptions that were accorded the first pioneers of our railways. Public meetings of protest have not been held to condemn aviation; yet they were frequent in the days when the first railways were projected. Vast indignation was indeed aroused; it was declared to be against all reason, and a matter of appalling risk, that people should be asked to travel from place to place in such ”engines of destruction.” But the railways managed to survive this storm. They were placed here and there about the country; they were improved rapidly; and it would be hard, to-day, to find a safer place than the compartment of a railway train.
Motor-cars, when their turn came, had to go through a similar ordeal.
There was the same indignation, the same chorus of protest; and when the first of the pioneers, greatly daring, began actually to drive their cars on the public highway, there were people who believed, and who declared forcibly, that to permit such machines on our roads was the crime of the century. Had not these pioneers struggled valiantly, sparing neither time nor money, it is possible that the motor-car might have been driven from the highway. But here again progress, though it was r.e.t.a.r.ded, could not be checked. The motor-car triumphed.
It grew rapidly more reliable, more silent, more pleasing to the eye; and to-day it glides in thousands along our roads, a pleasure to those who occupy it, a nuisance neither to pedestrians nor to other wheeled traffic; more under control when it is well driven, and more ready to stop quickly when required, than any horsed vehicle which it may have replaced. At one time the papers were full of such headlines as: ”Another Motor-car Accident.” Each small mishap received prominent attention: and to the majority of people it seemed the wildest folly to travel in such vehicles. Yet to-day--such is progress--these same people ride in a motor-car, or a motor-cab, quite as a matter of course and without a thought of risk.
When one discusses flying and its dangers, it is essential to maintain an accurate sense of proportion. In the very earliest days, for instance, it must be realised that the few men who then flew--they could be numbered on the fingers of one hand--exercised the greatest caution. They did not fly in high winds; they treated the air, realising its unknown perils, with a very great and a very commendable respect. Thus it was that thousands of miles were flown, even with the crudest of these early machines, and with motors that were constantly giving trouble, without serious accident. But after this, and very quickly, the number of airmen grew. New aviators appeared every day; contests were organised extensively; there were large sums of money to be won, provided that one pilot could excel another. And the spirit of caution was abandoned. Even while they were still using purely experimental machines--craft of which neither the stability nor the structural strength had been tested adequately--there grew a tendency among airmen to fly in higher winds, to subject their machines to greater strains, and to attempt dangerous manoeuvres so as to please the crowds who paid to see them fly.
It was not surprising, therefore, that flying entered upon an era of accidents. Such disasters were inevitable--inevitable, that is to say, in view of the tendencies that then prevailed; though it is a melancholy reflection that, had men been content to go ahead with the same slow sureness of the pioneers, many of those lives which were lost could have been saved.
To the public, not aware exactly of all that was going on, it appeared as though the navigation of the air, instead of growing safer, was becoming more dangerous. There were suggestions, indeed, made quite seriously and in good faith, that these endeavours to fly should cease; that the law should step in, and prevent any more men from risking their lives. What people failed to realise, when they adopted this view, was that instead of one or two men flying there were now hundreds who navigated the air; that flights in large numbers were being made daily; that thousands of miles instead of hundreds were being traversed by air--and often under conditions the pioneers would have considered far too dangerous. These facts, had they been realised, would have shown people what was actually the true state of affairs; that, though accidents seemed numerous, and were indeed more frequent than they had been in the earliest days of flying, they were as a matter of proportion, reckoning the greater number of men who were flying, and the thousands of miles which were flown, growing steadily less frequent.
There was this important fact to be reckoned with also. Each accident that happened taught its lesson, and so made for future safety. A considerable number of those early accidents can, for instance, be traced to some structural weakness in a machine. The need in an aircraft then, as now, was lightness; and in those days designers and builders, owing purely to their inexperience, had not learned the art, as they have to-day, of combining lightness with strength. So it was that, as more powerful motors began to be fitted to aeroplanes, and greater speeds were attained, it happened sometimes, when a machine was being driven fast through a wind, that a plane would collapse, and send the machine cras.h.i.+ng to the ground; or in making a dive, perhaps, either of necessity or to show his skill, a pilot would subject his machine to such a strain that some part of it would break.
From such disasters as a rule, greatly to be regretted though they were, the industry emerged so much the wiser. The strength of machines was increased; the engines which drove them were rendered more reliable; and gradually too, though none too rapidly, the airmen who piloted them grew in knowledge and skill. But all this time, while flying was being made more safe, there were accidents frequently for the papers to report; and this was due entirely to the fact that there were now thousands of men flying, where previously there had been fifties and hundreds. The public could not realise how rapidly the number of airmen had grown; that practically every day, at aerodromes scattered over Europe, flights were so frequent that they were becoming a commonplace. It was in 1912, as one of its many services to aviation that the Aero Club of France was able to show, by means of statistics which could not be questioned, that for every fatality which had occurred in France, during that particular year, a distance of nearly 100,000 miles had been flown in safety.