Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-19

dangerous expedient. and at the end of
each rise found myself little higher
than I had been before, and, best of all,
I found that was able to hold the adj
vantage thus gained.
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cannot explain adequately just what
q tremendous impression was made upon
me by these aerial hurdles. On the down.
ward slope seemed to be hurting mad
ly into eternity, catapulted toward the
earth and attended by all the shriekins
fiends Of the air. The wind screeched
past my ears. Maddening shreds seemed
to whip into my eyes with knife edges
that sometimes seemed as though they
were cutting into the flesh. Every square
inch of my body felt as though IT were
being gripped by unseen hands that were
literally lifting me froaa my seat. so
great was the pressure of the air as /
rushed through it. l had to hol0 my
breath and shut my eyes, for 1t was I'M
possible to inhale in the terrific rush OF
the wind past my mouth. and to have
'courted blindness. temporary at least.
Every wire on the machine hummed in
a higher, shriller key as 1t tautened with
the added strain. until 1t seemed that the
ing. Every one has heard violinist
tighten his strings and has been impress
ed with that sense Of a limit beyond
which the string will not go. So it was
with the wires on my Bleriot; higher and
higher and shriller and more shrill grew
the note Of the wind as 1t vibrated, and 1t
was this increasing pitch that several
times made me turn upward for fear that
the wire would not stand any greater
little short of suicidal. Had anything
failed, it would have been impossible for
me to get the machine on an even keel
and head her downward: there would
have been no alternative hut a backward
drop to inevitable and awful destruction.
+ r
For about twelve minutes, as shown by
the Paragraph record. continued this
desperate means OF attaining my goal
Finally looked at my Paragraph and
saw. as 1 thought, that the needle had
reached the ten-thousand mark. l
thought of nothing then but of ending
the strain and getting to earth again as
quickly as possible. So l headed her
downward and dropped at such terrific
speed that the indelibie ink in the pen
point could not flow. fast enough to make
q mark, and my Paragraph record shows
no trace whatever of my descent. 1t Is
for this reason that I doubt whether any
human being ever lived through such a
ldils LOT ! KNOW OF no Otnef DafOEr0Dh
record on which the same conditions can
be found.
In my calmer moments since that fight
] shudder when l think of the chances
took i'll humping the bumps to attain
that last thousand feet. have said that
the first part of the upward climb was
smooth and easy with one exception.
That exception. which illustrates another
phase of rough riding in the air-of bump
ing the aerial bumps-came as / burst
through the clouds and into the sunlight
above.
Here We always expect to find gusty
winds. The clouds seem to have the eff
feet Of breaking up air currents, just as
hills and valleys will do on the earth,
and the change of temperature from the
cool moisture Of the mist to the dry
heat Of the direct sunlight has a tendency
to create whirlpools and worthless that are
mighty nasty things to fight in an aero
plane. In sailing on the water one can
see these disturbances over the bow of
the boat or in whatever direction they
are coming from. for they cause teIltaIe
ripples on the surface that give the mari
ner enough warning to enable him to pre-
pare for them.
In the air, however. We have no such