CHAPTER III

HOW IT FEELS TO FLY (By Augustus Post.)

There is no one question that people ask more often than: "How does it feel to fly!" Perhaps a passenger feels more keenly the sensations of flight than an aviator because his mind is not taken up with the operation of the controls.

As for the passenger, he climbs into the flying machine, takes his seat beside the operator, and becomes at once the centre of interest to all the people standing by. If he is himself an aviator it is another matter, but if it is his first experience in the air, he is usually the object of a certain shuddering admiration, not unmixed with envy.

The motor is started, making a terrific noise that almost deafens him, and quite drowns the parting speeches and the efforts of the funny men present to improve the occasion. With perfect calm, without the least excitement, the aviator listens to the noise of the motor; he hears it run and carefully notes the regularity of the explosions. When all is ready, he waves his hand the signal for the man holding the machine to let go. The machine runs along the ground, gathering speed, bounces a little, so that one hardly knows when it leaves the ground; the front control is raised, and the machine is in the air.

You feel the rushing of the wind, and things below seem dancing about down there. The machine keeps its exquisite poise in the air, sensitive to the slightest movement of the control. As it rises, the forward plane is turned a little down, and as the machine varies in its elevation, the plane is turned to bring it back to the level; it tips a little to one side and the aviator moves, as it were instinctively, to correct the balance. The rush of the wind by your face becomes more violent, and the machine pitches and balances as if it were suspended by a string or by some unseen force which holds it up in the air.

[Illustration: (A) AUGUSTUS POST FLYING AT THE FIRST HARVARD-BOSTON MEET]

(B) AN AEROPLANE PACKED FOR SHIPMENT–POST DRIVING

[Illustration: CURTISS' PUPILS]

(A) J A D McCurdy racing against automobile, Daytona Beach. (B) Lieutenant T. G. Ellyson, U. S. N. (C) Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Atwater, pupils at San Diego.

When the flight nears its end and the machine flies low over the aviation field, the fences and trees there seem in a moment to be rushing to meet one. The planes are pointed downwards, the machine descends, is caught up again by the control, and glides along level with the ground, skimming just above the grass. The wind moves it a little side wise, perhaps, but the pilot, with the rudder, straightens the machine around until it points right into the wind's eye and the wheels are parallel with the direction of the machine over the ground. The control now causes the machine to come lower until the wheels strike the ground it rolls along bounces a little over the rough field the brake is set, and the machine comes to a stop.

The aviator jumps down, the passenger climbs out with somewhat less agility, perhaps, and expresses his very hearty thanks, the plane is turned around, the propeller started, and the machine flies off again, leaving the passenger to tramp slowly through the grass, contemplating the insignificance of the human creature who is forced to walk humbly along the ground. You may remember that the first time you descended from an automobile and began to walk, you seemed to yourself to be only marking time.

This new experience, though of the same nature as that, is far more impressive; not alone the difference in speed, but the whole character of the motion the altitude, the rushing wind, the sense of something long awaited and now realised sets the sensation of flight apart from any other, and makes him who once experiences it resolved to repeat the experience as soon and as often as possible.

The passenger is at once the object of eager inquiries as to how he felt, and he usually makes it his business to express his satisfaction whenever asked and sometimes without being asked, so there is little wonder that aviators are besieged by applicants for rides. A few months ago a lady who had been a passenger in an aeroplane was certain to get her picture in the papers; now there are so many that it would be difficult even to keep a record of them.

Now that we are coming to regard the aeroplane seriously, more from the practical and less from the grandstand side, it may be noted without fear of loss to gate receipts, that its dangers have been greatly exaggerated. Rational flight is hardly any more hazardous than motor speeding, steeple chasing, and many other sports, not to mention football! Engines stop and planes split, but steering gear breaks and horses stumble. Danger lurks everywhere, but we disregard it because the chances are long in our favour.

The real danger in aviation lies in the chances men take as desire lays hold upon them; chances the dangers of which they fully realise, but disregard for various causes. There are so-called "holes in the air," but they are hardly more numerous than gullies in the road. High wind is dangerous, but the aviator can often avoid its perils if he will. Briefly, aviation confined to its now well-defined limitations, is a thoroughly rational sport.

The "queer" sensation of flight comes in a quick rise, dip or short turn, and you can experience the same sensation in the elevator of a New York sky-scraper, Ferris wheel, shoot-the-chutes or even the back yard swing, for that matter! Dizziness from height is not experienced, for one sees the landscape spread out from high up and afar off, as if from a sheltered balcony; the tendency is not to look down but away.

While the rush of air is tremendous, it is not disagreeable, and one even forgets the deafening, unmuffled motor in the indescribable joys, mainly because of the wondrous charm and variety of the landscape which we have known only in detail, ignorant of its beauty as a mass. Apprehension, shuddering, gruesome, childish apprehension perhaps, at the starting, replaced by profound security as mastery, perfect mastery, is apparent; a sense of joyous freedom following as the marvellous world below is revealed. Like an exquisite monotone in low relief it is, each note of colour with its value and in perfect harmony with the whole; ever subtly changing, always some new surprise, some unexpected revelation, lifting one on the wings of exaltation.

The popular literary vehicle of to-day, rivalling the "fairy coach of Cinderella," is without question the alluring aeroplane, fitted with all the latest improvements: tachometer, inclinometer, animometer, barograph, aneroid, compass with map holders, lights, and all the modern conveniences and aviation equipment, including a wire-less telegraph outfit, having shock absorbers for landing and an enclosed limousine cabin with mica or celluloid windows, in which not only can our spirits be wafted about, but in which we may enjoy all the material comforts of speedy travel, free from present annoyances and inconveniences, and without requiring the inflated rubber suits which Mr. Rudyard Kipling so kindly provided for his passengers on board the now famous "Night Mail." Vehicles of this description already exist and an "aero-bus" has carried as many as thirteen passengers besides its driver. It is confidently predicted that twenty passengers will soon be carried in an aeroplane at one time.

There is no doubt but that in flying the higher faculties are called into play. No such elaborate preparation is necessary for learning to drive an automobile, but some instruction is usually found necessary when learning how to balance a bicycle for the first time and until confidence is secured, as is also the case in learning to swim. A good chauffeur does not necessarily make a good aviator even though he have exceptional ability as a driver of racing automobiles, although I think that an aviator might make a good driver of a racing automobile. This seems to indicate clearly to my mind that there is some additional quality required in flying. I know of one case where a successful automobile builder and driver killed himself on account of desperation over the fact that he could not master flying.

Actors and men with a keen sense of feeling seem to do well in the air. They seem to get the "feel of the air," or to have the delicate sense of touch which is required to handle an aeroplane among the illusive vagaries of the atmosphere, and to be able to sense its rapid action and feel its ever-changing conditions almost before they take effect. One must be absolutely en rapport with his machine, as an expert horseman is part of his horse or his horse is part of him; such a rider stands out from all the rest, a beautiful sight to see and an expression of the poetry of motion; such also is the manner of the master at the piano, whose very soul is in tune and vibrating with every subtle and rich harmony of the instrument, feeling at the same time the ever-changing mood of his audience as he sways them or is swayed by them in turn, keeping in close sympathy with their thoughts as well as suggesting to their minds the trend that they shall take.

AVIATING AND BALLOONING

The sensations which an aviator has during great flights of both duration and altitude are somewhat comparable to those of the balloon pilot[9] who sails in the sky far above the earth, feeling a peculiar realisation of the immediate presence of the Supreme Being, overwhelmed with the magnitude of the universe, with a sense of being a part of it, untrammelled, unaffected by ordinary things, surrounded with extraordinary conditions, supersensitive and yet keenly realising, now, matters of vast importance; now, minutely weighing his life in his hands as if it were something far removed from himself; breathing an air full of vigour and inspiration, with a sense of exaltation pervading every cell of the body is it a wonder that men enjoy such delights and really live only when they can cast off mere existence and rise either to the contemplation of such experiences by reading and thinking about them or to a full realisation of these experiences by actually trying them out personally? Such moments, rapidly passing moments each going to make up our individual life are usually but too few.

Is it then a wonder, that, after actual days of such vivid living, upon descending to earth or coming back among people, one should look at those who gather around about one as some kind of lower order of animal, that it should take a few moments to feel their presence gradually dawning upon him, and to bring his faculties slowly back where they can begin to understand what these bystanders are thinking and talking about?

This seems but a dream, but is in reality an actual experience of a return to earth after two days spent in the air and a visit to regions over four miles above its surface, much of the time out of sight of this dear old sphere, when ears had become unaccustomed to sound, and so impaired by the change of pressure due to the high altitude that we could not, for some time after landing, hear when spoken to. Our own voices rang hollow and stuck in our throats, and our thought had become unattuned to those expressed by the gaping, wondering crowd, struck dumb at the sight of our arrival, and standing like cows in the pasture when you walk among them.

Such is the state of mind in store for the airman, the artist, the thinker, the person desiring to become isolated for a while to feel as Adam felt in all reality, when he stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, monarch of all he surveyed. This appeals strangely to the imagination but when it becomes a reality by virtue of actual experience, it also becomes a sensation most difficult to express; for so few people understand what you are talking about, few having had the sensations of being removed from this world and coming back again to it.

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