The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-10-17
French Aviator Makes a Peril
GUS War Flight.
Dispatch Bearer Tells of Air Trip
From Paris With Orders for Gen.
eral In the North-Brought
to Earth by Shot

London.-Le Petit Journal pub
fishes a description of the experience
of a passenger on board an aeroplane
in time of war. The start took place
one gray dawn. Rian, the pilot, a
famous civilian aviator, clothed in
the leather armor of his craft, re-
ceived the following orders from his
captain:
you will convey a passenger and
dispatches straight north to -.
Your orders are simply to get them
there. You must take no risks en-
route. If the enemy brings you down,
destroy both the dispatches and the
aeroplane. If you get through to -,
go at once to the general with your
passenger, who will give him a YER
bal message. Good luck and quick
Is the word"
The passengers story continues:
while the pilot was looking over
his machine, / took my place with
the dispatches between my legs and a
carbine slung along the framework on
either side. The machine ran jolting
along the ground and rose percep-
tibly in front of me. The pilot, dashed
to his seat, sat motionless and atten-
tive, regulating the course with little
movements of the levers.
1--WE started directly north, tossed
a little by an east wind, which caught
us under one wing.
Suddenly the pilot cut off the mo-
tor, and nothing was audible except
the whistling of the wind through
the rigging of the %aeroplane. He
turned to me, pointed out some little
black smoke puffs far below us, and
signed to me to listen. But l could
hear nothing except the wind. Then
the motor started again, and the
steady hum covered everything.
THE smoke puffs grew nearer and
more numerous. We tried to rise still
higher, when a great wind came and
threw us to n side. The ever ready
pilot righed us but another and more
terrible shock hurled us vertically
upwards.
f. Then we began to fall. The smoke
and flashes were now quite neal us,
and we we're thrown this way and that
by great blasts of air. Still we forged
ahead at full speed, clinging to the
framework.
81 awaited the inevitable end, in
capable of thinking. Then suddenly
calm was restored. We had passed
the danger zone and beneath us
stretched a great forest, cut here and
there with ravines.
Hardly had we recovered a sense
of security than the danger reap
peared in all its horror. AS we left
the zone of danger our aeFoplane be-
gan to list over. The pilot, having
done his utmost to right us, cut off
the motor and, half turning his head,
gazed towards u left wing, where a
strip of torn canvas was streaming
in the wind.
"At once our headlong descent be-
gan, ending with an abrupt landing In
q narrow glade. No one but that pilot
could have attempted so desperate a
e with success.
calm, though WIFI lace urdWu
with anxiety, he jumped to the earth,
shouting, Take your carbine while l
repair the damage and he set to
work to fasten a patch over the torn
wing. Quick he added, quick; If the
"Boches" (Germans) come fire at
them. Then / will set the machine on
Hre and we will make a run for it,
Soon we we're in u places ready
to so. The propeller was started and
we ruza, but three horsemen at the
edge OF the glade came towards us
at a Iaad pace and their height
seemed to grow as we approached.
1T seemed we never would rise
above them, but suddenly with a
bound that carried us up almost YER
tically we passed above them, and
then agar. we were looking down on
a sea OF troops at the edge of the for
est. Smoke and CUR flashes reap