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THRILLING MOMENTS IN MIDAIR There may have been a more thrilling air ad ¬ venture than the following but if so it lias not been recorded A British airman was on May 10 1915 up alone in a singleseater machine machineSighting Sighting a German aeroplane he went in pur ¬ suit Then the unexpected happened While trying to reload his machine gun he lost control of his steering gear His aeroplane taking the bit in its teeth as it were turned upside down The belt around the airmans waist happened to be loose and the jerk of the machine when it turned com ¬ pletely over almost threw the pilot out He only saved himself by clutching the rear center stnit His belt had by then slipped down round his legs legsThus Thus he hung head downward as the aeroplane whirled down spinning round the while like a fall ¬ ing leaf from a height of 8000 feet to about 2500 feet Making frantic efforts to free his legs from the belt the pilot at last managed to disengage himself and reach the control lever with his feet By a miracle lie succeeded in righting the machine which turned over with dreadful slowness com ¬ pletely looping the loop whereupon the airman slid back into his seat He had been within a three seconds journey of death deathCan Can any predicament more awful be imagined than for a man flying alone amid the clouds sud ¬ denly realize that the earth may not be beneath his feet feetThis This sometimes happens A British pilot was flying at about 7000 feet enveloped in thick clouds when in a moment of agonized suspense he realized that he had no sense of position With nothing to guide him entangled iu an impenetrable white fog he literally did not know whether tho eartli was below or above him whether iu fact he was flying upside down or with his plane tilted at some perilously acute angle to left or right rightThis This agony of suspense was mercifully brief but it was succeeded by a shock calculated to unnerve any one less up to concert pitch than a fighting airman for suddenly he emerged from the cloud hank and at that moment the world seemed to rise up to him He was hurtling earthward at a ghastly pace So terrific was the pressure on his plane that he only managed to right his machine when within a few feet of the ground groundA A British machine was reconnoitering high over the German lines Suddenly a shell burst near it killing the pilot and severely damaging the aero ¬ plane which nosedived 0000 feet During that terrific fall the observer who was uninjured suc ¬ ceeded in slipping from his seat to that of his comrade He then unclasped the dead pilots hands sat upon his knees and in that appalling po ¬ sition righted the hurtling aeroplane and contrived to turn its plunge to deatli into a safe glide just as it reached to within a few feet of the ground groundA A piece of bursting shrapnel severed one of the control wires of a French bombing aeroplane that was soaring over the Bulgarian lines in the Doiran district one September day in 1910 The machine immediately started to dive to earth in a giddy spiral When within 300 feet of the ground however the observer actually hoisted himself on to the upper plane There lying on the canvas he restored the balance of the machine by moving the plane by hand The motor controls being un ¬ damaged as soon as the machines equilibrium was restored the pilot was able to reach his lines The observer meanwhile remained lurched on the top of the upper plane Tit Bits
