Gesticulation in Mid-Air
Have just had a forced landing. M. was up with me, and I yelled to him to work the throttle from his compartment. He smiled benignly on me, not understanding or taking much heed. Finally I stood up, waved my arms at him, and shouted. He turned round, and, thinking that I had a mad fit on, put his thumb to his nose and extended his fingers. Finally, realising what I wanted, he tried the throttle, but did not succeed in working it, and in his turn waved his arms. We must have been a comical sight up there, wildly waving our arms at each other. As we couldn’t use the engine and were descending, I warned M. that we were going to have a forced landing. He tumbled to that all right and removed the gun from behind his head and put it on the front mounting, just in case—er—we met a hedge! We reached the aerodrome all right a couple of thousand feet up, and spiralled down. Just as I was coming in to land, another machine cut in ahead of me, but as I had no engine I couldn’t “wai-at” (like Peg), but just perched behind him and dodged him. So all ended well, for I made a perfect landing.
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Have just been up with E. We spotted a storm coming up and ran for home. I came down to land, and found myself going too fast, so had to go round again. Great loss of dignity! I came in again, this time right at the end of the aerodrome, and closed the throttle, but the blessed machine went on flying, and I switched off just in time to prevent running out of the aerodrome. The throttle had become incorrectly set and the engine continued to run at half speed, although the throttle was entirely closed. We just got in before the rain came down.
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I was up 8,000 feet this morning, but the whole sky was clouded over and one could not see the ground. Flying just above the clouds it was gorgeous; one felt like leaning out and grasping a handful of snow and making snowballs, the clouds were so fluffy and white. I had a splendid game of tennis yesterday, and was in topping form. Lightning services. Swish!
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To-day has been “some” day. It started raining in the early hours and is still going strong. We are going to have floats fitted to the machines so as to take off the lakes!
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A Firework Display.