“What—what’s the matter?” called back her friend, steadying her wobbly nerves with an effort.
“Matter enough. We’re nearly out of gas—running on reserve fuel now. When the rain starts, it’ll be pitch dark in no time.”
“Oh, Dorothy—do try to stay up! We can’t crash and be killed—that’s what it will mean if you try to land here!”
“Betty, be-have, will you? This is my funeral.” The pilot in her anxiety, had struck upon an unhappy choice of words.
“Oh, you must do something—this is terrible—” the frenzied girl in the rear cockpit almost shrieked.
Dorothy ripped off her headphone set. She could no longer allow her attention to be distracted by Betty’s excited whimpering.
The small amphibian, flying low, topped a crag-scarred ridge. At the foot of the cliff she saw a tiny woodland meadow.
Action in the air must be automatic. There is never time to reason. With the speed of legerdemain the young pilot sent her plane into a steep right bank and pushed down hard on the left rudder pedal. The result was a sideslip, the only maneuver by which the amphibian could possibly be piloted into the woodlot. Tilted sideways at an angle that brought a scream from terrified Betty, the heavy mass of wood and metal dropped like a plummet toward the earth.
This was too much for little Miss Mayo. Convinced that her friend had lost control of the plane, she closed her eyes and prayed.
With uncanny accuracy, considering the rainswept gloom, Dorothy recovered just at the proper instant. Hard down rudder brought the longitudinal axis of the plane into coincidence with its actual flight path again. At the same time she brought the up aileron into play, thereby preventing the bank from increasing. Then as the amphibian shot into a normal glide, she leveled the wings laterally by use of ailerons and rudder.