 Section 18 of Warflying Viapilot. Warflying Viapilot by Lesil Finer-Hutchen. Section 18. Book 2. Unactive Service. Chapter 3. Part 3. Justiculation in mid-air. Having 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 realizing 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, air we met a hedge. We reached the aerodrome all right a couple thousand feet up and spiraled down. Just as I was coming into land, another machine caught in ahead of me, but as I had no engine I couldn't wait like peg, but just perched behind him and dodged him. So all ended well, for I made a perfect landing. I've 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. I was up to 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. Today has been some day. It started raining in the early hours and is still going strong. We're going to have floats fitted to the machines, so as to take off the lakes. A fireworks display. It is much as I was out all yesterday afternoon trying to get my hair cut. I was unable to write to you, sorry. I was up at 245 a.m., and of course it was pitch dark. I left the ground shortly afterwards by flares, and had hardly got up a thousand feet when my engine began to misfire, go chug chug, and lose its revs. I signaled that I was descending, and came down trying not to come in too low as I was afraid my engine might not pick up. Result? I came in too high, not having had time to get used to the dark, and had to open up my engine and crawl round again at a couple of hundred feet. Again I essayed to land, but failed, and by this time I was absolutely furious with myself. I gave a glance at the rev counter and saw that the engine had found its revs again, and appeared to be running smoothly. So feeling that fate had willed me to stay up, I sent down engine okay now, and went off to the lines. Just after I left the aerodrome, clouds came up, and the seal would not let the next pilot go. I found my way quite well, in a blue funk though, lest my engine should let me down, crossed the lines, picked up the road I was to follow, and finally reached the place I was to bomb. Here I ran into clouds, and had to come down between one thousand and two thousand feet. I dropped my bombs all right, and saw them explode, as good as a Brock's Firework display. Moreover, I heard the banks from them, and felt the machine bumped by the rush of air caused by the explosions. Flying back by compass, I soon picked out some flares, which I headed for. Realizing that I was over the wrong aerodrome, I looked round, spotted ours, got there, did a good landing, reported, and went to bed again. My flight commander has gone home, after being out nearly eleven months. We are all sorry to lose him. I'm sure there is no better flight commander in all France. I have just come down from a long and rather boring job with E, which took us from one-thirty p.m. to five p.m. in the upper regions. I had trouble with my engine yesterday, and had a forced landing, managing to get into the aerodrome and land in a crosswind. I had a repetition of the stunt today when testing it. We have now solved the trouble. A semi-choked petrol pipe. I am booked for tennis shortly, so we'll write more another time. End of section 18, recording by John Brandon. Section 19 of War Flying by a Pilot. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. War Flying by a Pilot by Letzel Finer Hutchin. Section 19. Book II, Unactive Service, Chapter III, Part IV. A mixed grill. Well, I have a little news for you this time. To let you down lightly, I will first tell you that I am having several new walking sticks made, and with your usual Sherlock Holmes intelligence, you will deduce quite accurately that I have carefully and conscientiously reduced a BE2C to its molecular constituents. In other words, crashed it. Now, don't worry, as I am perfectly all right and thoroughly enjoying life. To sum up my work for the last twenty-four hours, I've had three forced landings, four hours odd flying, and one night flight, and a crash. Not bad, eh? The three forced landings within that short space of time constitute almost a record. It was with my own machine, and each time some trouble with the engine broke out when I had got up five hundred feet. Each time that we thought that we had discovered the trouble, and I took her up again, she cut out just the same. By great good luck, I managed to get back into the aerodrome. On one occasion, I had bombs on, too. Now the machine is being practically pulled to pieces and altered by almost raving mechanics. I had, as I wrote you yesterday, a three-and-a-half hours nonstop flight, and later was down for night bombing. I was all on my own, and several people said they thought it was too misty. However, the CO asked me if I would like to try, and I said I was quite willing, and got ready. I went up all right, though from the time I passed the last flare I saw absolutely nothing. There was a horrible ground mist, worse than it looked from the ground, and with no moon everything was black as ink. I could not tell whether I was flying upside down or anyway, and the machine was an old one and not very stable. I looked round at the flares, and found I was flying all on the skew, left wing down, and I put that right. But not being able to see even a white road directly below me, I knew it was hopeless trying to leave the vicinity of the drone and signal that I was coming down. So down I came. I had been told to land downwind, owing to trees being at the other end of the drone. Well, there wasn't much wind, but what little there was I had pushing me on, instead of holding me back. Likewise, I lit a flare at the end of my wing, and although that enabled me to see the ground directly below me, I couldn't tell my height. I expected to touch ground by the first flare. But owing to these things, and the fact that I was flying a strange machine, the engine of which ticked over rather fast, I did not touch ground at the first flare, but at the last. The landing was all right, but I plunged merrily on into the pitch darkness, until I came to a nice new road and a ditch, which pulled up ye machine with a crunch. It had once began to take up peculiar attitudes, similar to those of a stage contortionist, and endeavored to mix up its tail and rudder with the propeller. At any rate, this is how the machine looked a second afterwards. The flare on the wingtip was still burning, and I had hardly time to get over my surprise that the bombs not bursting, when it occurred to me that there might be a lot of petrol knocking about. This is no place for me, my boy, I thought, and I did my safety belt double quick and slid down one of the wings to the ground. Meanwhile, some dozens of breathless mechanics and officers arrived at the double and made kind inquiries as to my health. I am absolutely certain they were infinitely more scared than I was, and they all seemed relieved when I told them I was all right. I then lit a cigarette, as being the correct thing to do, observing with satisfaction that my hand was quite steady, and walked up to the CO and apologized. Oh, that's all right, as long as you are all right. Jay just ring up the wing and tell them our machine has landed. Everybody was blocked that it got out all right. One of our pilots said he didn't know how I managed to land it all, and thinks I was jolly lucky. At any rate, it is experience, and it didn't hurt me in the least, so I have nothing to grumble about. By the way, I don't expect to get my next leave much before Christmas at any rate, as there is none going here just now. I had a good game of tennis yesterday, and took off my machine to test it again. This time the engine ran perfectly, and I did some splendid stunts coming down. When I had landed, an officer was visiting the aerodrome, came up and thanked me for my beautiful exhibition. I felt inclined to pass the hat round. I have just come down now and have been taking photos. Archie was scarce, owing to clouds. But the clouds made it harder for me to photo. Made a topping landing. Just came down from a chute. Gee was up with me, but I did the chute. We got some pretty good archie at us, and as the artillery did not shoot well, I dropped a couple of bombs on the target. I must get tea, and then to tennis. I have not much news today, except that I have had a splendid game of tennis, and a rather pleasant bombing raid. We went a long way over past a hon aerodrome, and got hardly any archie at all owing to the clouds. I got a beautiful shot with one of my bombs on a railway station, my objective. On the way back, I did a spiral on the other side of the hon lines, and one of our chaps, thinking I was a hon going down, fired a drum of ammunition at me. I told him he must be a rotten shot, and had better have some practice on the range with me. Altogether, it was quite a jolly flight. End of Section 19, Recording by John Brandon Section 20 of War Flying by a Pilot. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. Book 2 on Active Service. Chapter 3 Part 5 Stalling I was testing my machine round the drone this morning when it occurred to me to indulge in a few stunts. I obtained the sanction of my passenger, and we proceeded to do vertical banks, stalls, and tail slides, much to the enjoyment of a group of officers who I heard afterwards were watching. I found it most enjoyable. Perhaps you don't know what stalling is. You're flying level, so then you pull the nose of the machine up. Till it lasts, it becomes far particular, so when of course it gradually slows down and stops dead in the air, sticks there a moment, and then falls so, and plunges on until it regains sufficient speed to bring it under control again and level. The feeling after the machine has stuck at the top, and then falls down, is the left your stomach up there, tube lift feeling. Only more so. He and I have been on a cross-country flight. The exhaust pipe blew off, and as the hot exhaust then became directed on the petrol tank, we decided to land. And came down in a nice little field, pulling up six inches from a plowed field and conveniently near a hospital. However, we didn't need the hospital, and soon got the machine to rights, but are stuck here owing to rain. We are, however, near a town, and are going to a flicker show tonight to see Charlie Chaplin. We have fallen among friends here, but there was an officer's mess within a hundred yards of where we landed, and we are being splendidly treated. Altogether, an ideal place for a forced landing. My adventures of the past two days remind me of the great motorcycle ride R and I had from Devon to London. Let me see. It was the day before yesterday, I think, that I last wrote you and told you about our forced landing. Well, E and I and two others went to the cinema and saw Charlie in the evening and stopped the night in a hotel. The next day we made a few purchases, and when the rain stopped, I went up alone from the field to dry the machine and examine the weather. I had hardly left the ground before I went slap into the clouds at fifty feet. I turned quickly and crawled back, just above the ground, missing a factory chimney by a few yards, and plunged down again into a bigger field close by the other, pulling up a couple of yards from a hole in the ground. Later in the day when I cleared up, we started again, and we were only a few miles away when the blessed exhaust pipe popped off. The petrol tank started getting hot again, so we had to come down, and it took us an awful time to find a decent field. There were all humps and bunkers and hazards where, if we had landed, we should have gone head over heels. At last I found a good place and perched, pulling up the wingtip, touching a bundle of hay. We stopped a car, and E went on it to the aerodrome for help. However, I got a spare bolt from the car, and while they were gone, repaired the damage myself. Got two farm laborers to hold the machine while I swung the propeller, and started the engine myself. Then I clambered into the machine, and went off alone, getting to the aerodrome, just as my helpers were leaving. The weather is pretty dud. You remember the two games of patience I used to play, the four aces and the idle year? They have caught on here tremendously. Everyone from flight commanders down is playing them. I am thinking of sending to Cox's for my passbook. Four of us played pitch and toss yesterday with pennies for two hours, and I lost seven pence. The gambling fever has gripped. I took up a scotch sergeant a couple of days ago. He was a perfect scream. Can you tell me where am te pit ma fit, and where am no te pit them? He quite enjoyed the flight, though. I looked round once with a huge grin and said, Bon. By the way, I saw a very curious sight the other day, and a very rare one. I saw two of our shells pass in the air while I was flying. They were not near me, but I just got an impression of them as they went down. You can, I believe, see them if you are standing behind the guns. But he is the only one in our flight who has seen them from the air. I think the idea of dividing RFC squadrons up by public schools is splendid. But alas, impossible. End of section 20. Recording by John Brandon. Section 21 of War Flying by a Pilot. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. War Flying by a Pilot by Lessel Finer Hutchin. Book 2 on Active Service. Chapter 3, Part 6. An Air Flight. Yesterday, G and I were doing a big shoot, some four miles or so over the lines. And as it was a bit misty, we went up to about 6,000 feet and sat right over our target for about a quarter of an hour. There was a hun patrol of three machines buzzing around that neighborhood. And when they got within a few hundred yards, I thought it was about time to draw G's attention to the matter. He sat up with a jerk, gave a quick glance round, never noticed him, and glued himself on his target again. All right, I said to myself, you'll wake up with a jump in a minute. To my surprise, two of the huns took no notice of us, and went on, while the third circled about, very differently watching us. Once he passed right over about 200 feet above us, and at that moment, G looked up. You could see the black iron crosses painted on the background of silver on the wings. And at that G moved, and damn quickly too. I was busy watching the hun and didn't feel a bit excited or nervous. I watched and waited. And then suddenly the hun stuffed his nose down and swooped behind us, and we heard his machine gun pop popping away like mad. I waited till he was about a hundred yards away, and then did a vertically banked about turn, and went slap for him. And let him have about 40 rounds rapid at about 70 yards range. G had his gun ready to fire when the hun turned and made for home. We chased him a short way just for a moral effect, and then went back to our target and on with our job. We were awfully surprised when he didn't come back. I suppose we scared him or something. This little chat took place about 7,000 feet up and five miles on their side of the lines. Was up smorning, jolly cold. The guns are going like rock Mononov's prelude. Before I stop, I want to say this. If my adventures and amusements are going to cause you loss of sleep when they are over, you ain't going to hear no more. Please don't let them disturb you. I have generally forgotten all about them by the time your return letter arrives. End. End of section 21. Recording by John Brandon. End of War Flying by a pilot by Lessle Finer Hutchin.