Planning a Flight. It is easy to lose one's way in the air. For that reason it is best to follow the Wright idea of starting out with a definite plan, and of landing in some predetermined spot, as aimless wandering about may prove disastrous to the inexperienced aviator, he may forget which way the wind was blowing, or how much fuel he had, or the character of the ground beneath him. Should the motor stop, he may make an all too hasty decision in landing. It is an easy matter to lose one's bearings in the air, not only because the vehicle is completely immersed in the medium in which it is traveling, but also because the earth assumes a new aspect from the seat of an aeroplane. Cecil Grace was one of those who lost his bearings and, as a consequence, his life. Ordinary winds blowing over a level country can be negotiated with comparative safety. Not so the puffy wind. To cope with that, constant vigilance is required, particularly in turning. In a circular flight in a steady wind, the only apparent effect is that the earth is swept over faster in one direction than in the other. Before a cross-country flight is attempted, the starting field should be circled over at a great height, as not until then may the long distance flight be started in safety. Cross-country flying is, of course, fascinating, and it is a sore temptation, at an altitude of a few hundred feet, to throw off all caution and fly off over that strange country below, which is, indeed, a new land as viewed from aloft. To quote a professional aviator: "Here the greatest self-restraint must be exercised. Not until the necessary practice has been acquired, not until the right kind of confidence has been gained, may one of these trips be attempted, and then only after it has been properly planned."
Training the Professional Aviator. Look back over the achievements in the air during the comparatively short time that man has actually been flying, and it will be noted that the beginners, burning up with the enthusiasm of the novice, have performed the most spectacular feats and flown with the greatest fearlessness. Curtiss was comparatively new at aviation when he won the Gordon-Bennett at Rheims in 1909. John B. Moisant, the sixth time he ever went up in an aeroplane, flew from Paris to London with a 187-pound passenger and 302 pounds of fuel, oil, and spare parts. Hamilton made his successful flight from New York to Philadelphia and return when he was hardly more than a novice, while Atwood's great flights from St. Louis to New York and Boston to Washington were made before his name had become known, and Beachey had been flying only a few months when he broke the world's altitude record at Chicago, while more recent achievements, notably Dixon's flight across the Rockies, have emphasized the work of the beginner. All of this substantiates the belief held at every aviation headquarters in the country—namely, that the older men already in aviation may improve the art by executive ability and scientific experiments, but most of them will degenerate as flyers. Beyond a certain point, frequency of flight does not necessarily create a feeling of confidence and safety; rather it brings a fuller appreciation of the dangers, and the men who best know how to fly are most content to stay upon the ground.
Professional aviators are drawn from every walk of life, but trick bicycle performers, acrobats, parachute jumpers, and racing automobile drivers make the most promising applicants. By a kind of sixth sense, both the Wrights and Curtiss weed out the promising ones after a brief examination. They select men who have an almost intuitive sense of balance. Most of these, provided they have nerve, have in them the stuff of which aviators are made, even though they may have had no experience in any line akin to aviation. Neither Curtiss nor the Wrights will accept women under any condition. The Moisant school does not share this discrimination and trained three women for pilot's licenses during 1911.
Curtiss and the Wrights are keen in their realization that recklessness is pulling a wing feather from aviation every time a man is killed, and they are doing their utmost to promote conservatism. Curtiss said in an interview:
I do not encourage and never have encouraged fancy flying. I regard the spectacular gyrations of several aviators I know as foolhardy and unnecessary. I do not believe that fancy or trick flying demonstrates anything except an unlimited amount of a certain kind of nerve and perhaps the possibilities of what is valueless—aerial acrobatics. Some aviators develop the sense of balance very rapidly, while others acquire it only after long practice. It may be developed to a large extent by going up as a passenger with an experienced man. Therefore, in teaching a beginner, I make it a point to have him make as many trips as possible with someone else operating the machine. In this way the pupil gains confidence, becomes accustomed to the sensation of flying, and is soon ready for a flight on his own hook. This is the method used in training army and navy officers to fly. I have never seen novices more cautious and yet more eager to fly than these young officers. They have always learned every detail of their machines before going aloft, and largely because of this they have developed into great flyers. Perhaps it is due to the military bent of their minds; at any rate, they have made good almost without exception.
ACCIDENTS AND THEIR LESSONS
Press Reports. Whenever an industry, profession, or what not, is prominently before the public, every event connected with it is regarded as "good copy" by the daily press. Happenings of so insignificant a nature that in any commonplace calling would not be considered worthy of mention at all, are "played up." This is particularly the case with fatalities, and the eagerness to cater to the morbid streak in human nature has been responsible for the unusual amount of attention devoted to any or all accidents to flying machines, and more especially where they have a fatal ending. In fact, this has led to the chronicling of many deaths in the field of aviation that have not happened—some of them where there was not even an accident of any kind. For instance, in many of the casualty lists published abroad from time to time, such flyers as Hamilton, Brookins, and others have figured among those who have been killed, ever since the date of mishaps that they had months ago.
It will be recalled that five years ago, when the automobile began to assume a very prominent position, every fatality for which it was responsible was heralded broadcast where deaths caused by other vehicles would not be accorded more than local notice. To a large extent, this is still true and will probably continue to be the case until the automobile assumes a role in our daily existence as commonplace as the horse-drawn wagon and trolley car. There is undoubtedly ample justification for this and particularly for the editorial comment always accompanying it, where the number of lives sacrificed to what can be regarded only as criminal recklessness is concerned. Still, the fact that in a city like New York the truck and the trolley car are responsible for an annual death roll more than twice as large as that caused by the automobile, does not call for any particular mention. Horses and wagons, we have always had with us, and the trolley car long since became too commonplace an institution around which to build a sensation.
As the most novel and recent of man's accomplishments, the conquest of the air and everything pertaining to it is a subject on which the public is exceedingly keen for news and nothing appears to be of too trivial import to merit space. Where an aviator of any prominence is injured, or succumbs to an accident, the event is accorded an amount of attention little short of that given the death of some one prominent in official life. During the four years that aviation has been to the fore, about 104 men and one woman have been killed, not including the deaths of three or four spectators resulting from accidents to aeroplanes, during this period—i.e., from the beginning of 1908 to the end of 1911. In view of the lack of corroboration in some cases, the figures are made thus indefinite. Naturally most of these deaths have occurred in 1910 and 1911—in fact, 50 per cent took place from 1908 to the end of 1910, and the remainder during 1911, since these years were responsible for a far greater development, and particularly for a greater increase in the number engaged, than ever before. More was accomplished in these two years than in the entire period intervening between that day in December, 1903, when the Wright Brothers first succeeded in leaving the ground in a power-driven machine, and the beginning of 1910.
Fatal Accidents. Conceding that the maximum number mentioned, 105, were killed during the four years in question, throughout the world, it will doubtless come as a surprise to many to learn that this is probably not quite twice the number who have succumbed to football accidents during the same time in the United States alone. Authentic statistics place the number thus killed at 13 during 1908, 23 in 1909, 14 during 1910, and 17 in 1911, or a total of 67. But we have been playing football for a couple of centuries or more and this is regarded as a matter of course. The death of a football player occurring in some small, out-of-the-way place would not receive more than local attention, unless there were other reasons for giving it prominence, so that, in all probability, the statistics in question fall far short of the truth, rather than otherwise.