In less than fifty yards it takes to the air and begins
to climb rapidly upwards, but how different are the conditions
to the calm morning of yesterday! If the air were
visible it would be seen to be acting in the most extraordinary
manner; crazily swirling, lifting and dropping, gusts viciously
colliding--a mad phantasmagoria of forces!
Wickedly it seizes and shakes the Aeroplane; then tries
to turn it over sideways; then instantly changes its mind
and in a second drops it into a hole a hundred feet deep,
and if it were not for his safety belt the Pilot might find
his seat sinking away from beneath him.
Gusts strike the front of the craft like so many slaps in
the face; and others, with the motion of mountainous waves,
sometimes lift it hundreds of feet in a few seconds, hoping
to see it plunge over the summit in a death-dive--and so it
goes on, but the Pilot, perfectly at one with his mount and
instantly alert to its slightest motion, is skilfully and naturally
making perhaps fifty movements a minute of hand and feet;
the former lightly grasping the ``joy-stick'' which controls
the Elevator hinged to the tail, and also the Ailerons or little
wings hinged to the wing-tips; and the latter moving the
Rudder control-bar.
A strain on the Pilot? Not a bit of it, for this is his
Work which he loves and excels in; and given a cool head,
alert eye, and a sensitive touch for the controls, what
sport can compare with these ever-changing battles of
the air?
The Aeroplane has all this time been climbing in great
wide circles, and is now some three thousand feet above
the Aerodrome which from such height looks absurdly
small.
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