The Washington times., 1917-01-26

EVERY CITY IN U.
II you take a map of the United
States and go up and down the Amer
lean lines in France, you will frd
no city, great or small, which has
not sent flying man, a bomber, an
artilleryman. sniper. or a dispatch
rider to help destroy Prussian des-
pottsm. In the United States YOU
have probably heard more of the
spectacular part of the American
work-that which enthraIls the whole
world-the new art of fighting in
the skies.
confess, indeed, that, although 1
have spent many weeks at war, the
spectacle of winged fighters high in
the sunlight is one that holds my
attention as nothing in the world
ever has in peace times. When one
was younger one has been thrilled
by close baseball or football match
but when sheltered. perhaps in 4
trench, one sees two specks approach
Ing each other and with a pair CT
strong glasses gradually realizes tnat
one of the specks is an American, who
has given up everything-home,p prog
pOrity. and often life-to throw him.
self into a foreign army, and that
the other is a brave German, doing
what he conceives to be his duty
one realizes that here are two conf
batants worth watching.
Race Between Air Fighters.
Very rarely do the Germans venture
: over our lines and one has to be very
far forward nowadays to get a good
view. of a fight between the allies and
the enemy in the air. have had that
good fortune several times.
The air lighting Of 1914 bears as
much semblance 20 the air fighting
of 1917 as an old steam automobile to
the six-cylinder of today. Theres is
a perpetual match In speeding up be-
tween the enemy and the allies. Four
or hve miles an h-Gr extra pace
means everything. It's not an in
crease of engine power to over 200
horsepower that brought about the
change SO much as the wonderful
progress in the art OF flying itself, and
IT is just here that the Anglo-Saxon
and the Frenchman beat the slower
minded German. 1t is just this rea-
son why German soldiers letters are
now so full of complaint about over
cautious German aviatoFs.
Falls 5000 Feet and Lives.
When Pegoud invented looping the
loop the people asked why? What's
the use of it? Pegoud was a very
considerable inventor as well as a
flyer, Is the answer. Looping-the-
loop Is a useful maneuver, and it has
been succeeded by that extraordi-
nary development, the nose dive"
in which an airman seems to fail
like a stone for / 900 feet till the
spectators hair rises frem his head |
in horror; then suddenly the machine
hattens out and scoots away. and
you find it only a trick after all.
! talked with one of our wounded
boys-he was just nineteen-who had
fallen 5000 feet, owing TO his rud-
der wire connection being shot
through. BY a miracle, his machine
Strengthened itself out automatically
within 100 yards OF the ground, sni
the boy is alive and will fly again.
] asked him his sensations. He prob
ably is the first man in the world
who has fallen 5000 feet, more than
ten times the height of the Wool
worth building.
He said that for q long time-what
seemed like hours-he knew he was
falling at q tremendous speed, and |
dream, he found himself being picked |
up out of the wreck OF his machine |
by people who thought he was dead. |
Maneuver For Position.
At the beginning OF an air fight
there is maneuvering for positions and |
feinting as in boxing. There are. as
q rule, two men in each machine, a
pilot and an observer, except in the
smaller types, in which the wings
are clipped down to nothing to get
extra speed and climbing power.
knowledge Of the engine and plane
power, Quickness OF decision and ac-
curacy of shooting with the Lewis
gun are essential to the pilot. His OBJ
server Is provided with some form OF
q pistol and often with bombs.
Rival planes, like giant hawks how
or around above or below each other
till one more expert or more daring
than the other maneuvers his oppon-
ent into a position from which he
has either got to fight or flee. The
knockout blow Is usually a sudden
descent on the emmy, accompanied by
accurate machine-gun fire. Sometimes
II becomes a duel with Browning pis-