These flights as specified to-day, though they present no difficulty to the pupil who has been well trained, are more stringent than they were in the first scheme of tests as prescribed by the Club, and as enforced for several years. In those early rules the distances were the same as they are to-day, but in the altitude flight the height required was only 50 metres (164 feet)—just half the height specified to-day. It was not laid down, either, in the first rules, that the engine should be stopped in this altitude flight when at the maximum height, and that the descent should be made in a complete vol-plané, without once re-starting the motor. As originally framed, indeed, the rule as to the control of the engine in this altitude test was the same as in regard to the distance flights—i.e., that it should be stopped "at or before the moment of touching the ground." What the present rule means, in this respect, is that the pupil must be really proficient at making a vol-plané, without any aid at all from his engine, before he can hope to pass the test; and such a proved skill—say in the making of his first cross-country flight, should his engine fail suddenly—may spell the difference between a safe or a dangerous landing.
The test flights for the certificate, undertaken only in such weather conditions as the pupil's instructor may think suitable, are watched by official observers appointed by the Royal Aero Club. It is the business of these observers, when the prescribed flights have been made, to send in a written report concerning them to the Club; and acting on this report, after it has been considered and shown to be in order, the Club issues to the pupil his numbered certificate. With the successful passing of his tests the pupil's tuition is at an end. He is regarded no longer as a novice, but as a qualified pilot.
CHAPTER VII
PERILS OF THE AIR
There are people, very many people, who still regard flying as an undertaking of an unreasonable peril, essayed mainly by those who are in quest of money, notoriety, or sensation at any price. Such people—still to be met with—have one mental picture, and one only, of the flight of an aeroplane. They imagine a man in the air—and this mere idea of altitude makes them shudder; and they picture this man in a frail apparatus of wood and wire, capable of breaking to pieces at any moment; or even if it does not break, needing an incessant movement of levers to maintain it in a safe equilibrium; while they reckon also that, should the engine of the machine suffer any breakdown, the craft will drop to earth like a stone. Prejudice dies hard; harder no doubt in England than in other countries. There are still people, not few of them but many, who would be ready to declare, offhand, that one aeroplane flight in six ends in a disaster.
It is a truism, but one that has a peculiar truth in aviation, to say that history repeats itself. To-day we find large numbers of people who still cherish the opinion that—save perhaps when on service in war—it is nothing less than criminal foolishness for men to ascend in aeroplanes. That attitude of mind persists; the growing safety of flight has not affected it to any appreciable degree. But those eager for the progress of aviation need not despair, or imagine that their particular industry is being treated with any exceptional disapprobation. They have only to look back a little in our history, no great distance, and read of the receptions that were accorded the first pioneers of our railways. Public meetings of protest have not been held to condemn aviation; yet they were frequent in the days when the first railways were projected. Vast indignation was indeed aroused; it was declared to be against all reason, and a matter of appalling risk, that people should be asked to travel from place to place in such "engines of destruction." But the railways managed to survive this storm. They were placed here and there about the country; they were improved rapidly; and it would be hard, to-day, to find a safer place than the compartment of a railway train.
Motor-cars, when their turn came, had to go through a similar ordeal. There was the same indignation, the same chorus of protest; and when the first of the pioneers, greatly daring, began actually to drive their cars on the public highway, there were people who believed, and who declared forcibly, that to permit such machines on our roads was the crime of the century. Had not these pioneers struggled valiantly, sparing neither time nor money, it is possible that the motor-car might have been driven from the highway. But here again progress, though it was retarded, could not be checked. The motor-car triumphed. It grew rapidly more reliable, more silent, more pleasing to the eye; and to-day it glides in thousands along our roads, a pleasure to those who occupy it, a nuisance neither to pedestrians nor to other wheeled traffic; more under control when it is well driven, and more ready to stop quickly when required, than any horsed vehicle which it may have replaced. At one time the papers were full of such headlines as: "Another Motor-car Accident." Each small mishap received prominent attention: and to the majority of people it seemed the wildest folly to travel in such vehicles. Yet to-day—such is progress—these same people ride in a motor-car, or a motor-cab, quite as a matter of course and without a thought of risk.
When one discusses flying and its dangers, it is essential to maintain an accurate sense of proportion. In the very earliest days, for instance, it must be realised that the few men who then flew—they could be numbered on the fingers of one hand—exercised the greatest caution. They did not fly in high winds; they treated the air, realising its unknown perils, with a very great and a very commendable respect. Thus it was that thousands of miles were flown, even with the crudest of these early machines, and with motors that were constantly giving trouble, without serious accident. But after this, and very quickly, the number of airmen grew. New aviators appeared every day; contests were organised extensively; there were large sums of money to be won, provided that one pilot could excel another. And the spirit of caution was abandoned. Even while they were still using purely experimental machines—craft of which neither the stability nor the structural strength had been tested adequately—there grew a tendency among airmen to fly in higher winds, to subject their machines to greater strains, and to attempt dangerous manœuvres so as to please the crowds who paid to see them fly.
It was not surprising, therefore, that flying entered upon an era of accidents. Such disasters were inevitable—inevitable, that is to say, in view of the tendencies that then prevailed; though it is a melancholy reflection that, had men been content to go ahead with the same slow sureness of the pioneers, many of those lives which were lost could have been saved.