"That's the wireless navigator," explained Pank. "He's on shore, but he keeps in touch with us all the way across. He gives us our latitude and longitude, the course to steer and the air speed to fly at. Simple, isn't it?"
All this time I had a dissolving view, a wild impressionistic sketch, of a sea snatched up in front of us and hurled behind. In six minutes, having travelled south, we were off Start Point, and the numbers on the wireless navigator, giving the course to steer, changed.
With a magnificent sweep of several miles and banking over slightly, the Quartermaster brought the Swift round on the new course and steadied. I noticed that he steered by a large gyro compass.
"No spill-all turns for us," laughed Pank. "No spins, or loops, or rolls."
At the height of six hundred feet our tremendous speed was apparent. The sea appeared to be working on a roller, pulled up over the horizon and passed back under us. Surface ships were in front, and then behind. In nine minutes we had the Eddystone abeam and in another ten minutes we passed the Lizard.
Every eighteen seconds, as steady as clockwork, a minute was added to the longitude on the wireless navigator, showing we had gone westward one mile. Every ninety seconds a minute was taken off the latitude, showing we had made a mile of southing.
Pank glanced at the figures.
"There's a beam wind of about twenty knots from the north," he said. "We are headed a bit north of our course to allow for the drift. It doesn't alter our speed though. The wireless navigator ashore has all the weather reports and adjusts our speed accordingly. With a following wind he usually slows us down to save oil, and speeds us up when we run into a head wind later on. Sometimes he shoves us through a region of high head wind at top speed. What we lose on the swings we pick up on the roundabout, and manage to get in on time."
"She's a bit nose heavy, sir," said the Quartermaster.
"Fireman, shift oil in forward tanks one and two," ordered Pank.