Learning to Fly: A Practical Manual for Beginners

by Claude Grahame-White; Harry Harper

While he is making his first flights with the instructor, and apart from analysing his sensations, the pupil will observe the lever movements made by the pilot in controlling the machine; and the fact that will impress itself upon him, as he watches these movements, is that they are not made roughly or spasmodically, but are almost invariably gentle. During these flights as a passenger, and after he has accustomed himself to the novelty of being in the air, the pupil will be allowed by the instructor to lean forward and place his hand on the control lever; and in this way, by actually following and feeling for himself the control actions the pilot makes, he will gain an idea of just the extent to which the lever must be moved, to gain any specific result in the flight of the machine.

MOTOR AND OTHER GEAR—ANOTHER VIEW.
Photo by Topical Press Agency.
This shows the constructional unit that is formed, on a suitably strong framework of wood, by the engine, propeller, and fuel tank, and also by the seats for the pilot and passenger.

The next stage of tuition is that in which a pupil is allowed to handle a biplane alone, not in flight though but only in "rolling" practice on the ground—driving the machine to and fro across the aerodrome. The motor is adjusted so that, while it gives sufficient power to drive the machine on the ground and render the control surfaces effective, it will not permit the craft to rise into the air. This stage, a very necessary one, teaches the pupil, from his own unaided experience just what movements he must make with his levers to influence the control surface of the machine, and to maintain it, say, on a straight path while it runs across the ground. One of the discoveries he will make is that the biplane, if left to itself, shows a tendency to swerve a little to the left—the way the propeller is turning; but this inclination may be corrected, easily, by a movement of the rudder.

The pupil learns also to accustom himself, while in this stage, to the engine controls which have been explained already; and he is not likely to be guilty of the error of one excitable novice who, while driving his machine back on the ground towards the sheds at an aerodrome, after his first experience in "rolling" became so confused, as he saw the buildings looming before him, that he lost his head completely and forgot to switch off his motor. The result was that the aeroplane, unchecked in its course, crashed into some railings in front of the sheds and stood on its head. Not much damage was done however, and the novice was unhurt. He seemed as surprised as anyone at what had happened, and confessed that, for the moment, his mind had been an utter blank.

A pupil continues his practice in "rolling" till he can drive his machine to and fro across the aerodrome on a straight course, and with its tail raised off the ground; the latter action being obtained by the pupil by means of a suitable movement of the vertical lever which operates his elevating planes.

Now comes the time when a pupil, taking the pilot's seat, and with the instructor sitting behind him—so as to be ready, if necessary, to correct any error the novice may make—begins his first short flights across the aerodrome. He rises only a few feet to begin with, and flies on a straight course, alighting each time before he turns, and running his machine round on the ground. He repeats this test until his instructor feels he is sufficiently expert to take the machine into the air alone. When this stage is reached, the instructor leaves his position behind the pupil, and the latter goes on with his practice till he can fly the length of the aerodrome alone, landing neatly and bringing his machine round on the ground, and then flying back again to his starting point.

In the early days of flying schools, before a pupil went through any regular system of instruction, there were remarkable incidents in regard to these first flights. In one case a pupil, having bought his own aeroplane from the proprietors of a school, insisted on having installed in it a motor of exceptional power. When the time came for him to make his first flight alone, and he opened the throttle of this engine and it began to give its full power, the aeroplane ran only a short distance across the ground, and then leapt into the air. The engine was in charge of the machine, in fact, and not the pupil. Away above the aerodrome, and beyond its limits, in a strange, erratic flight, the biplane made its way. As the pupil struggled valiantly with his engine switch, which appeared to have become jammed, he made unconscious and jerky movements of his control levers. One moment the machine would ascend a little, the next it would approach nearer the ground; then it would swing either right or left. Those watching from the aerodrome held their breath. But with the luck of the beginner, a luck which is proverbial and sometimes amazing, the pupil managed at length to stop his motor and land without accident—though by no means gracefully—in an abrupt gliding descent.