It is by means of flights such as these, carried out regularly, and without ostentation, that the French air-corps obtains the efficiency which is the admiration of those who are in a position to realise what complete organisation means.
As regards England, it should be mentioned that the few officer-airmen who have, so far, been permitted by the authorities to study military flying, have done their utmost to perfect themselves in the art. They are making experimental flights, whenever possible, and are becoming thoroughly competent.
They have proved indeed, beyond question, that England has the right material. All that is wanted, as has been pointed out again and again, is practical encouragement. As a matter of fact, both in "dash" and judgment when flying, British pilots have shown that they need fear no foreign competition.
The cool nerve which is possessed by the English officer-airman was revealed, in a most striking way, by an experience, while flying, which befell Lieutenants Reynolds and Barrington-Kennett—two of the most ardent officers of our Air Battalion.
The adventure occurred while the two airmen were reconnoitring in Cambridgeshire during the autumn of 1911; and it possesses a unique interest, inasmuch as it affords an example of the most remarkable escape from death yet chronicled in connection with the aeroplane.
The two pilots, flying separate machines, were reconnoitring from a temporary aviation camp during the evening, and were passing across country at an altitude of a little less than 2000 feet. The weather was oppressive—a thunderstorm threatening.
Suddenly a violent wind, the forerunner of the storm, began to sweep across country. So powerful was this wind that it tore roofs off sheds. Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, flying a little lower than Lieutenant Reynolds, felt the force of the wind first; his biplane tossed and rolled ominously.
Pointing his machine earthwards, and keeping his engine running at its full power, he began to descend as rapidly as possible. But the wind increased in violence, to a remarkable extent. The biplane gave a sudden leap into the air. Then it dropped sheer for many feet. The airman was flung upwards from his driving-seat, and came into abrupt contact with the lower part of his upper main-plane. Then he was jerked back again, coming down half in, and half out of his seat, and smashing the side of it. Fortunately, however, he was able to grip the lever actuating the elevating-plane and "ailerons," and so maintained control of his machine until he made a hurried landing in a field.
Lieutenant Reynolds had an experience far more alarming. Apart from the fact that he was flying higher than his companion, the machine he was piloting was a military biplane fitted with weight-carrying extensions, which made it more difficult than an ordinary machine to control in a wind.
When the first gusts struck him. Lieutenant Reynolds sought to follow the other pilot’s example, and make a descent. He had actually come down from 2000 feet to about 1500 feet, when a sudden and overwhelmingly powerful rush of wind caught the biplane, and turned it completely upside-down.