The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots Read Online Free

spiral glide, how to deal with the ever-mysterious “spinning” and so on. It was rumoured that this pilot had frequently looped, and had even looped a B.E.2c! We listened attentively, trying to pick up what crumbs we might from his learned conversation.
    There had been talk of the test-pilot staying the night at Shoreham; he had landed because of the bad weather. But during the afternoon it cleared up considerably and the wind, although still strong, showed signs of abating. He decided to leave. We hurried down to the aerodrome to watch him go.
    The beautiful machine was wheeled forward, her engine started, warmed up. The test-pilot and his civilian passenger donned much leather flying clothing, climbed into their seats. The engine having been run up and found satisfactory, the wooden chocks were removed, the machine turned and taxied out to the far side of the aerodrome. A short pause, and the pilot gave the engine full throttle, taking off obliquely towards the sheds.
    Against the wind the machine rose at once and began to climb steeply. The pilot waved farewell as he passed us by, about fifty feet up, heading west into the sunlight. Against the bright sky the machine was silhouetted, hard to see beyond the end of the sheds. But, as we watched, shading our eyes, there came to us suddenly the spluttering of a starved engine. The steady roar of the exhaust died down, the nose of the machine dropped. And now this too expert pilot made his great mistake.
    In the course of the short flight, he had attained a height of about one hundred and fifty feet and had crossed the boundary of the aerodrome. A road, a line of telegraph wires were beneath him, ahead a series of small meadows intersected by ditches. Rough ground, but possible in an emergency, especially as the strong wind against him would make the run on landing exceptionally short. There was, strictly speaking, no alternative for a safe, a wise pilot. But this pilot was exceedingly clever, and he wanted to save his beautiful new machine from damage. Not that it would have suffered anything worse than a broken under-carriage, possibly a smashed propeller, from the forced landing; he wished to avoid even that much. And so he tried something which, in this instance, he had not one chance in a thousand of bringing off. He turned back to the aerodrome.
    In the very few seconds that followed I remember feeling, in spite of my utter ignorance of piloting, an intense admiration for the brilliant way in which he handled the machine. Without a moment’s hesitation he turned down wind as quickly and as flatly as possible so as not to lose the little height he had gained, held a straight course for an instant, then over the sheds began another sharp turn that, when completed, would bring him into wind with a space of fifty or sixty yards of smooth ground on which to land. Actually it was just possible of achievement, although as I see it now he was taking a terrible risk; but the whole performance was cut too fine. He failed by much more than inches.
    As he came towards the sheds his speed down wind seemed terrific, yet in trying to maintain his height he had in fact lost the essential flying-speed. He was stalling even as he banked over the sheds. The nose went down with a jerk in the first turn of a spin. He missed the roof by a miracle, but within a second of the machine’s disappearance behind the shed we were horrified to hear an appalling crash.
    Naturally we rushed forward in spite of the first-shouted order that all pupils should stand back – the sight of a probably fatal crash, it was rightly thought, might upset some of us – we had to see; we ran for it. Beyond the shed the new aeroplane lay flat on the ground, a mass of wreckage. Both men sat in their smashed cockpits motionless. Unconscious or dead? We were not long in doubt for worse was to follow. As we came nearer the wreck from which mechanics were already trying to extricate pilot and passenger, there was a