“I would gladly fly if we could stay very close to the ground,” is a statement that I have heard often in one way or another. As a matter of fact, a plane 100 feet off the earth is in infinitely more danger than one 3600 feet aloft.
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IN LONDON (MISS EARHART)
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“A BIG SMILE, PLEASE!”
Trouble in the air is very rare. It is hitting the ground that causes it. Obviously the higher one happens to be, the more time there is to select a safe landing place in case of difficulty. For a ship doesn’t fall like a plummet, even if the engine goes dead. It assumes a natural gliding angle which sometimes is as great as eight to one. That is, a plane 5000 feet in the air can travel in any direction eight times its altitude (40,000 feet) or practically eight miles. Thus it has a potential landing radius of 16 miles.
Sometimes, a cautious pilot elects to come down at once to make a minor engine adjustment. Something is wrong and he, properly, is unwilling to risk flying further, even though probably able to do so. Just so the automobile driver, instead of limping on with, say, worn distributor points, or a foul spark plug, would do well to stop at once at a garage and get his engine back into efficient working order.
All of which obviously points the necessity of providing frequent landing places along all airways. Few things, I think, would do more to eliminate accidents in the air. With perfected motors the dread of forced landings will be forgotten, and with more fields, at least in the populous areas, “repair” landings would be safe and easy.