Lots of Pilots know all about it,
and can spin you wonderful yarns, much better than this
one, if you catch them in a confidential mood--on leave,
for instance, and after a good dinner.
PART IV
'CROSS COUNTRY
The Aeroplane had been designed and built, and tested in
the air, and now stood on the Aerodrome ready for its first
'cross-country flight.
It had run the gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors,
press ``experts,'' and politicians; of manufacturers
keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had
funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of
it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had
gone bankrupt over it, and others it had provided with safe
fat jobs.
Somehow, and despite every conceivable obstacle, it had
managed to muddle through, and now it was ready for its
work. It was not perfect, for there were fifty different
ways in which it might be improved, some of them shamefully
obvious. But it was fairly sound mechanically, had a little
inherent stability, was easily controlled, could climb a thousand
feet a minute, and its speed was a hundred miles an
hour. In short, quite a creditable machine, though of course
the right man had not got the credit.
It is rough, unsettled weather with a thirty mile an
hour wind on the ground, and that means fifty more or
less aloft. Lots of clouds at different altitudes to bother
the Pilot, and the air none to clear for the observation of
landmarks.
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