THE STAGES OF TUITION

Flying schools those which really can be described as such have been in operation now for seven years; and during this time, with thousands of pupils going through their period of tuition, many very valuable lessons have naturally been learned. To-day, at a well-managed school, each stage in a pupil’s instruction, mapped out as a result of experience, is arranged methodically and with care; the idea being that the novice should pass from one stage to another by a smoothly-graduated scale, facilitating his progress and reducing elements of risk.

It is in the early morning, and again in the evening, that the flying schools are most busy as a rule. At such times morning and evening the wind blows with least violence; and it is very necessary that a pupil, when he is handling craft for the first time, should have weather conditions which are favourable. Summer and winter, as soon as it is light, and granted conditions appear suitable, mechanics wheel the aeroplanes from the sheds, and the instructors begin their work. Should there be any doubt as to the weather, or as to the existence, say, of difficult air currents, an instructor will fly first, circling above the aerodrome at various heights, and satisfying himself, by the behaviour of his machine, whether it will be safe for the novices to ascend. If he pronounces “all well,” school work begins in earnest, and continues provided the weather remains favourable until all the pupils have had a spell of instruction. Towards the middle of the day, and in the afternoon, it is quite likely the wind may blow and school work be suspended. But in the evening again, when there is usually a lull, a second period of instruction will be carried out. In well-equipped schools, to meet such conditions as these, it is customary to provide two complete and distinct staffs, both of instructors and mechanics. One staff takes the morning spell of work, while the second is held in readiness for the evening. This ensures that, both morning and evening, there shall be available for instruction a fresh, alert, and unfatigued staff.

A pupil will find that, as the first stage of his tuition, he is given the task of familiarising himself with the controls of a school biplane. The system we have described already, and a pupil should find no difficulty in mastering it. Placing himself in the driving-seat of the machine, while it is at rest on the ground, the pupil takes the upright lever in his right hand, and rests his feet on the rudder-bar, making the various movements of control, again and again, until he finds he is growing accustomed to them, and can place his levers in a position for an ascent or descent, or for a turn, without having to wait while he thinks what it is necessary to do.

In the next stage, a more interesting one, the pupil, occupying a seat immediately behind his instructor, is taken for a series of passenger flights. These accustom him to the sensation of being in the air, and also train his eye in judging heights and distances. A minor point the pupil should bear in mind, though his instructor will be quick to remind him, is not to wear any cap or scarf that may blow free in the rush of wind and become entangled with the propeller. Scarves need to be tightly wrapped; while it is usual, with a cap, to turn it with the peak to the back, and so prevent it from having a tendency to lift from the head. Many pupils provide themselves with a helmet designed to protect the head in case of an accident, and these are held firmly in position. Should a passenger’s cap blow off, and come in contact with the propeller, it may be the cause of an accident. How carelessness may lead to trouble, in this regard, will be gathered from the following incident.

Some slight repairs had been made one day to the lower plane of a machine while it stood out on the aerodrome, and one of the workmen, through inadvertence, had left lying on the plane, near its centre, a roll of tape. The pilot decided to make another flight, and the motor was started and the machine rose. Suddenly the aviator was startled by a sound like a loud report, which seemed to come from the rear of his machine. The craft trembled for a moment, and he feared a structural collapse. Nothing worse happened, however, and he was able to pilot his machine in safety to the aerodrome. What had happened, it was then ascertained, was that the roll of tape, sucked back in the rush of wind, had been drawn into the revolving propeller and had broken a piece out of it. Luckily the impact had not been heavy enough to damage the propeller seriously, or cause it to fly to pieces.

A problem with which the pupil will be faced in his first flights, particularly if he is learning in winter, will be that of keeping himself warm. The speed at which an aeroplane travels, combined with the fact that it is at an elevation above the ground, renders the “bite” of the cold air all the more keen, and makes it difficult very frequently, even when one is warmly clad, to maintain a sufficient warmth in the body, and particularly in the hands and feet. The question of cold hands is, from a pilot’s point of view, often a serious one. There is a case on record of an aviator who, his hands being so numbed that his fingers refused to move, found he could not switch off his motor when the time came to descend; and so he had to fly round above the aerodrome, several times, while he worked his numb fingers to and fro, and beat some life into them against his body. At last, having restored their circulation to some extent, he was able to operate the switch and make a landing. While on active service in winter, after flying several hours at high altitudes, and in bitter cold, the occupants of a machine have descended in such a numbed condition, despite their heavy garments, that it has been found necessary to lift them out of their seats. But a pupil need not face such hardships as these. He will be flying for short periods only, and at low altitudes; so if he makes a few wise purchases from among the selection of flying gear now available, and particularly if he equips himself with some good gloves, he should be able to keep sufficiently warm in the air, even if he is going through his training in winter.

A pupil will feel curious, naturally, as to his sensations in the first flights he makes with his instructor. Of the exact moment when the machine leaves ground he will be unaware probably, save for the cessation of any jolting or vibration, such as may be caused by the contact of the running wheels with the surface of the aerodrome. His first clearly-marked sensation, when in actual flight, will occur most likely when the pilot rises a little sharply, so as to gain altitude. Then the pupil will have a feeling one might liken to the ascent, in a motor-car, of a steep and suddenly-encountered hill; though in this case the hill is invisible, and there is no earth contact to be felt. This sensation of climbing is exhilarating; and when the pilot makes a reverse movement, descending towards the ground, the feeling is pleasant enough also, provided the dive is not too steep.

The pupil’s chief sensation, probably, will be that of the rush of wind which beats against him. Some people feel this much more than others. There is sometimes a feeling it is no more than temporary of inconvenience and of shock. The pupil feels as though his breathing was being interfered with seriously; as though the pressure was so great he could not expel air from his lungs. But this sensation, even when it is experienced, is short-lived. In a second flight, quite often, the novice finds that this oppression diminishes very perceptibly; and soon he does not notice it at all. Motoring experience proves useful here, particularly high-speed driving on a track.

Some confusion is felt by the pupil, as a rule, and this is only natural, in regard to the pace at which the aeroplane travels through the air, and at the way in which the ground seems to be tearing away below. Occasionally, in a first flight, this impression of speed, and of height, produce in the pupil a sensation of physical discomfort; but it is one again which, in the majority of cases, is quickly overcome. A few balloon trips are a useful preliminary to flights in an aeroplane. They familiarise one in a pleasant way with the sensation of height, and accustom the eye also to the look of the ground, as it passes away below.

While he is making his first flights with the instructor, and apart from analysing his sensations, the pupil will observe the lever movements made by the pilot in controlling the machine; and the fact that will impress itself upon him, as he watches these movements, is that they are not made roughly or spasmodically, but are almost invariably gentle. During these flights as a passenger, and after he has accustomed himself to the novelty of being in the air, the pupil will be allowed by the instructor to lean forward and place his hand on the control lever; and in this way, by actually following and feeling for himself the control actions the pilot makes, he will gain an idea of just the extent to which the lever must be moved, to gain any specific result in the flight of the machine.

The next stage of tuition is that in which a pupil is allowed to handle a biplane alone, not in flight though but only in “rolling” practice on the ground driving the machine to and fro across the aerodrome. The motor is adjusted so that, while it gives sufficient power to drive the machine on the ground and render the control surfaces effective, it will not permit the craft to rise into the air. This stage, a very necessary one, teaches the pupil, from his own unaided experience just what movements he must make with his levers to influence the control surface of the machine, and to maintain it, say, on a straight path while it runs across the ground. One of the discoveries he will make is that the biplane, if left to itself, shows a tendency to swerve a little to the left the way the propeller is turning; but this inclination may be corrected, easily, by a movement of the rudder.

The pupil learns also to accustom himself, while in this stage, to the engine controls which have been explained already; and he is not likely to be guilty of the error of one excitable novice who, while driving his machine back on the ground towards the sheds at an aerodrome, after his first experience in “rolling” became so confused, as he saw the buildings looming before him, that he lost his head completely and forgot to switch off his motor. The result was that the aeroplane, unchecked in its course, crashed into some railings in front of the sheds and stood on its head. Not much damage was done however, and the novice was unhurt. He seemed as surprised as anyone at what had happened, and confessed that, for the moment, his mind had been an utter blank.

A pupil continues his practice in “rolling” till he can drive his machine to and fro across the aerodrome on a straight course, and with its tail raised off the ground; the latter action being obtained by the pupil by means of a suitable movement of the vertical lever which operates his elevating planes.

Now comes the time when a pupil, taking the pilot’s seat, and with the instructor sitting behind him so as to be ready, if necessary, to correct any error the novice may make begins his first short flights across the aerodrome. He rises only a few feet to begin with, and flies on a straight course, alighting each time before he turns, and running his machine round on the ground. He repeats this test until his instructor feels he is sufficiently expert to take the machine into the air alone. When this stage is reached, the instructor leaves his position behind the pupil, and the latter goes on with his practice till he can fly the length of the aerodrome alone, landing neatly and bringing his machine round on the ground, and then flying back again to his starting point.

In the early days of flying schools, before a pupil went through any regular system of instruction, there were remarkable incidents in regard to these first flights. In one case a pupil, having bought his own aeroplane from the proprietors of a school, insisted on having installed in it a motor of exceptional power. When the time came for him to make his first flight alone, and he opened the throttle of this engine and it began to give its full power, the aeroplane ran only a short distance across the ground, and then leapt into the air. The engine was in charge of the machine, in fact, and not the pupil. Away above the aerodrome, and beyond its limits, in a strange, erratic flight, the biplane made its way. As the pupil struggled valiantly with his engine switch, which appeared to have become jammed, he made unconscious and jerky movements of his control levers. One moment the machine would ascend a little, the next it would approach nearer the ground; then it would swing either right or left. Those watching from the aerodrome held their breath. But with the luck of the beginner, a luck which is proverbial and sometimes amazing, the pupil managed at length to stop his motor and land without accident though by no means gracefully in an abrupt gliding descent.

Another story concerns one of those temperamentally reckless, happy-go-lucky men who, though providence seems to watch over them, are an anxiety nevertheless to their instructors. This pupil, breaking the rules of a school, flew out on one of his first flights beyond the limits of the aerodrome, disappearing indeed from the view of those near the sheds. Not far from the aerodrome lay a main road, with tramway-lines along it. A tram, with passengers on top, happened to be passing down the road; and it was to the astonishment of these passengers, and to their perturbation as well, that they observed an aeroplane in full flight, moving very low across a neighbouring field, and bearing down straight towards them. The machine passed, indeed, unpleasantly close above their heads, and then vanished as dramatically as it had appeared. Its pilot, as may be guessed, was the pupil who had disobeyed orders, and was now on a wild and erratic flight. Presently, after swerves and wanderings over the surrounding country, he was discerned making his way back towards the aerodrome, still flying unreasonably low. Some trees bordered one end of the aerodrome; and towards these, as though he meant to finish his exploit by charging into them, the novice was seen to be steering an undeviating course. Nearer he came to them, and still he did not turn either right or left. The instructor, and those gathered with him, made up their minds that nothing could avert an accident. But it happened that there was, between two of the trees, a space only large enough for an aeroplane to pass through. A skilled pilot, a man of experience, would not have cared to risk his machine in an endeavour to creep between those trees. But this pupil, a complete novice, steered boldly towards the opening and slipped through it with a precision that would have aroused the envy of an accomplished pilot. Then he landed on the aerodrome and climbed in leisurely fashion from his machine “not having turned a hair,” as the saying goes. The remarks of the instructor when he neared the machine, and began to unburden himself, do not appear to be on record, and no doubt this is as well.

Having shown his ability to make a succession of straight flights, taking his machine into the air with precision and landing without awkwardness, the pupil finds himself faced next with the problem of turning while in the air. On this stage, however, he is not allowed to embark alone. The instructor takes his place again in the passenger’s seat, so as to be ready to help the novice should he become confused, or find himself in any difficulty. Turns to the left are attempted first; and the reason is that, the propeller of the aeroplane revolving to the left and the motor too if it is a rotary one the machine has a tendency which is natural to turn in this direction. Half turns only are tried at first, the pupil landing before he has completed the movement. In making these first turns a pupil finds that, apart from his action with the rudder-bar, it is necessary to employ the ailerons slightly, so as to prevent the biplane from tilting sideways. The outer plane-ends of the machine have indeed, when a turn is being made, a natural tendency to “bank” as it is called, or tilt upward; the reason being that, as the machine swings round, these outer plane-ends, moving faster for the moment than the wing-tips on the inside of the turn, exercise a greater lift, and have an inclination to rise. An experienced aviator, having learned what is a safe “banking” angle, makes a deliberate use of this tendency when he is turning, and may on occasion even exaggerate it, to facilitate the swing of his machine on a very rapid turn, and to prevent it skidding outwards. But with the novice, engrossed completely as he is with the mere problem of getting his machine round in the air, “banking” is an art that must be deferred for awhile. It is perilously easy, for a beginner, to overstep the danger-line between a safe “bank” and a side-slip.

It is not long before the pupil can make a full left-hand turn; and then he goes on to perfect himself in this movement, flying alone now, and repeating the turn till he feels he can make it with confidence, and at a fair height.

And now he comes to his final evolutions. Having mastered the left-hand turn, he proceeds to make one to the right. It used to be the contention a contention that is now disputed that in this movement, if the pupil employed his rudder-bar only, he would find the biplane showed an inclination to rise; a tendency due to the gyroscopic influence of the engine and propeller which assuming a rotary engine is used are now revolving in the opposite direction to that on which the machine is turned. What the pupil was recommended to do, in order to counteract this rising movement, was to tilt down his elevator a little, as he would in making a descent.

When right-hand turns can be made with the same facility as those to the left, the pupil begins to combine the two without descending, making left turns and right turns, and so achieving in the air a series of figures of eight. He learns also to fly a little higher, thus preparing himself for one of his certificate tests.

There are now certain very important rules which, in the navigation of his craft, he must accustom himself to bear constantly in mind. Should the engine of his machine, for example, betray any signs of failing, he must tilt down his elevator very promptly, and place his craft in a position for a descent. If he does not do this, and should the motor stop before he has his biplane at an angle for descent, the machine may lose speed so quickly, and its tail-planes show such a tendency to droop owing to the lessening of pressure on their surfaces, consequent upon the failure of the motor that there is a risk of the craft coming to a standstill in the air and then either falling tail-first, or beginning a side-slip that may bring it crashing to the ground.

The pupil must learn also, and this again is important, not to force his machine round on a turn while it is climbing. If he does so the power absorbed in the ascent, combined with the resistance of the turn, may so reduce the speed of the machine that it threatens to become “stalled,” or reach a standstill in the air, with the result that it either side-slips or falls tail-first. The procedure the pupil is taught to follow is this: when he leaves the ground he climbs a little, then he allows his machine to move straight ahead; then he proceeds to ascend again for a spell, repeating afterwards the horizontal flight. In this way he ascends by a series of steps, like climbing a succession of hills in a car; and his turns should be made only during the spells when he is flying horizontally.

In this stage of his tuition, the pupil must learn also to make a vol-plane, or descent with his engine stopped. The essential point to be borne in mind, here, is that an aeroplane will continue in flight, and remain under control, even when it is no longer propelled by its engine. But what the aviator must do, should his engine stop through a breakdown, or should he himself switch it off, is to bring the force of gravity to his aid, and maintain the flying speed of his craft by directing it in a glide towards the ground. Provided he does this, and keeps his machine at such an inclination that it is moving at a sufficient speed through the air, he will find that the craft maintains its stability and that he has full command over its control surfaces, being able to turn, say, right or left, or either increase or slightly decrease the steepness of his descent. But all the time, of course, seeing that it is gravity alone which is giving him his flying speed, he is obliged to plane downward.

A vital point to remember, when a pupil is handling a “pusher” type of biplane, is to incline the machine well downward, by a use of the elevator, before switching off the motor. Unless this is done, and if the machine is, say, at its normal horizontal angle when the engine is stopped, the sudden removal of pressure from the tail-planes of the craft, brought about by the absence of the wind-draught from the propeller, may cause the tail so to droop as to render inoperative any subsequent action of the elevator. When the tail droops, the main-planes are set at a steep angle to the air, and this has a slowing-up influence on the whole machine. It threatens therefore to stand still in the air; its controls become useless; and the pupil is faced probably with the danger of a side-slip.

A story will illustrate this point; and it is one that has a special significance, seeing that the error which might have cost him his life was made by an aviator of experience. He had learned to fly on a monoplane, and had devoted his subsequent flying, for many months, to this one type of machine. Then he found himself associated with an enterprise in which a number of “pusher” biplanes were employed, and he decided that it would be useful for him to become accustomed to this type of machine. His flying experience of course helped him, and he soon found himself passing to and fro above the aerodrome, the biplane well in hand. Then he thought he would make a vol-plane, with his motor stopped, as he had been in the habit of doing in a monoplane. He switched off his engine without further thought, and moved his elevator to a position for the descent. But it was here that he made the mistake. In a monoplane, which has the weight of the engine and other gear well forward in the machine, the bow has a natural tendency to tilt down when the motor is cut off particularly as the propeller-draught ceases to sweep under the sustaining planes. Therefore one can, in such a machine, switch off safely without first shifting the elevator, and getting the bow down as a preliminary. What the pilot had forgotten, for the moment, was the essential difference between monoplane and biplane. When he had switched off the engine in the biplane, and moved his elevator as he was accustomed to do, he found to his dismay that the machine failed to respond. Instead of pointing its bow down, indeed, it began to tilt rearward. Also, and this fact was noted by the airman with even more dismay, the craft lost forward speed so rapidly that it became uncontrollable. The next moment, the pilot helpless in his seat, the machine began a side-slip towards the ground. One sweep it made sideways, falling till it was not far short of the surface of the aerodrome. It paused an instant, then began a side-slip in the opposite direction. But here good fortune came to the pilot’s aid. In this second swing, the machine being near the ground, it came in contact with the surface of the aerodrome before the “slip” had time to develop any high rate of speed. The biplane took the ground sideways, breaking its landing-chassis and damaging the plane-ends which came first in contact with the earth. But the pilot emerged from the wreckage unhurt. The accident was a lesson to him, though, as it was to others, and as it should be to all pupils. A machine must be in a gliding position before the engine is switched off.

The art of the accomplished pilot, granted there is no reason for him to reach earth quickly, is to glide at as fine an angle as is possible, consistent of course with maintaining the speed of the machine through the air, and so preserving his command over its controls. A beautifully-timed, fine glide, the machine stealing down gracefully, and touching the aerodrome light as a feather, at a precise spot the airman has decided on even when he was several thousand feet high, is a delightful spectacle for the onlooker, and a keen pleasure also from the point of view of his manipulative skill to the aviator himself. But a pupil, at any rate in his first attempts, must not concern himself too much with any idea of a fine or graceful glide. It is his business to get to the ground safely, and not trouble too much whether his method is accomplished, or merely effective. Once with the bow of his machine down, and his motor switched off, it must be his concern to maintain the forward speed of his machine, which can be done only by holding it well on its dive. For the novice, if he attempts any fine or fancy gliding, there is the very real danger that, in his inexperience, he may lose forward speed to such an extent that his controls become inoperative, and his machine threatens to side-slip. One’s ear should, apart from the inclination of the machine, and the sensation of the descent, help one materially in judging the speed of a glide. There is a “swish” that comes to the ear, now the engine is no longer making its clamour, which gives a guide to the pace of one’s downward movement. Aviators who are skilled, and have done a large amount of flying, are able to judge with accuracy, by the ear alone and without the aid of a mechanical indicator, what their speed is as they pass through the air.

Having held his machine firmly on its glide, till it is quite near the surface of the aerodrome, the pupil has next to think of making a neat contact with the ground. The art here is, at a moment which must be gauged accurately, to check the descent of the machine by a movement of the elevator to “flatten out,” as the expression goes. If the movement is made neatly the craft should, when only a few feet from the ground, change from a descent into horizontal flight, and continue on this horizontal flight for a short distance, losing speed naturally each moment seeing that there is no driving power behind it and so losing altitude also through its decrease in speed, until its wheels come lightly in contact with the ground, and it runs forward and then stands still. What the novice may do, if he is not careful, is to “flatten out” when he is too high above the ground. The result is that the machine slows up till it stands still in the air, robbed of its speed, and then makes what is called a “pancake” landing: it descends vertically, that is to say, instead of making contact with the ground at a fine angle and with its planes still supporting it; and the effect of such a “pancake,” if the machine comes down with any force, may be that the landing-chassis is damaged, or perhaps wrecked. But as a rule, remembering that he has careful instruction to guide him before he attempts a gliding descent, the pupil masters the art of landing without difficulty, and without mishap.

Now, after repeating perhaps certain of his evolutions, at the discretion of his instructor, in order to make sure that he can accomplish them with ease, the pupil is ready for the tests which will give him his certificate of proficiency.