Another long “taxi” across the water to the side of the seaplane carrier, the creaking crane comes sliding out again, is fixed to the craft, which is hauled aboard, and stowed away until further required.
“X or Y airships participated in the attack on Great Britain last night; Z raiders were brought down.” Hard official words these, that, read in the cold black and white of print, fail entirely to bring to the reader’s mind a true sense of the danger and the nerve-racking conditions under which this novel form of warfare is fought out.
Let us imagine, if we can, the difficulties the aeroplane pilot has to face. It is dark--pitch dark--sky and earth are alike indistinguishable. Flying at the best of times contains a more than comfortable element of danger, and in the darkness this danger is accentuated. The darkness deprives the air pilot of all sense of direction and of locality, greatly hampers him in the maneuvering of his craft, and renders unpleasantly possible a collision with another aeroplane on similar errand bent.
Starting out, there are a hundred and one small details to be attended to, as the testing of the engine, the trying of elevators and ailerons, and the examination of the petrol and oil tanks, in order to ascertain if there is a sufficiency of both to last a two or three hour trip. All this to be performed in the dark, with the engine screeching loud, so that a man may not hear a word, and the attendant mechanics indistinguishable in the gloom.
Fortunately for the pilot, a small dry-cell electric lighting set is installed in the body of every machine, and by this means the pilot is able to distinguish his instruments--a most necessary adjunct to safe flying--the altimeter, which records the height, “revmeter,” which indicates the speed of the engine and the compass, more necessary than any other instrument for night flying.
Getting off from the ground is by no means a pleasant sensation. There are hangars, high roofs, and chimney-stacks waiting to be collided with, patches of thin and rarefied air, which will bump the machine down as much as thirty feet at a time; the ever present danger of engine failure, necessitating a descent to the darkened earth beneath, always so full of death-traps for the airman and his craft.