The Oskaloosa herald., 1918-04-11
AIR MEN TRACE
CAUSE Of FALLS
Loss OF CONTROL DUE TO RE-
DucED EFFICIENCY.
LACK OF OXYGEN IS BLAMED
Machines To Be Equipped With Tank
To supply Gas Automatically
To operator-Penetrating the
Upper Strata.

upper otTdtd.
Mineola, l.. l., April 9.-They stood
in compact, little group on the wide
sweep of level ground that marked the
training ground of an aviation field.
Three were United States army Off
GERS, they wore on their left breasts
the silver wings that showed they
were expert bird-men, who had learn
ed to emulate the swallows fight in
machines of mans invention.
The group was watching the tiny
| dragon-iy that was Swimming far
| above Admiration showed on each
countenanco as the fragile thing
climbed to dizzy height, dipped and
dived toward earth with lightning.lil1e
speed, and then Strengthened out.
Now the droning of the motor has
stopped as the pilot has shut off the
engine and begins to volplane from
ja great height. Faster and faster
dashes the. frail thing toward earth
at terrifying speed. He MUST
straghten out soon or meet disaster
Breathlessly the little group watches,
| listens for the hum OF the motor that
will tell that the headlong flight has
ended and the pilot has Strengthened
out to safety but the machine contin-
ues on its perilous course.
Too late. He's too near the ground
now to straighten out They can
see the driver working duly to make
q safe landing. Some stand breath
less, awe-stricken. Others turn from
the sickening sight.
| Crash,
/ With sound of splintering wood
the bi-plane hits the ground with ter
life impact and smoke begins curling
up from the mass of splintered wreck
age. Spurred to the necessity of
immediate action, the men race to
the scene, bare 200 yards away, and
begin to work frantically to release
the poor lad buried beneath that tan
gled mass of wood canvas and wire
Some Other Cause.
There he is" cries one of the of
ficers.
Lying amid the wreckage, his face
and head gashed by splinters of
wood, the pilot lies with eyes closed,
face white and drawn Tenderly
they lift him out and place him in
! the ambulance.
He'll live if nothing inside is in
jured" said the officer who wore the
insignia of the Medical Corps.
High altitude probably caused re.
duced pressure and made him lose
control" unused one of the officers.
That must have been it," affirmed
another, for the motor was ~ K
when he volplaned time before last,
and his controls seem to be all right
Guess he couldn't stand the pressure.
It's funny what high attitudes do to
some people"
In many lands, on many fields, the
same accidents were chrohicled for
the first three years of the European
war. Always either mechanical de-
fects or reduced pressure from high
attitudes was blamed.
/ Finally it occurred to members of
the Army Medical Corps attached to
1 oNiatloh oONtlObS blldb PNihipo
was some other cause that made APP
parently sound men lose control of
their airplanes Tests were made.
Aviators were being manned and
killed through loss of control because
of the diminished percentage of oxy-
gen at higher attitudes. They re-
membered the difficulty in breathing
related by mountain climbers, aero
nauts and others who reached the
rarer atmosphere of unusual heights.
With the entry of the United States
into the struggle, Army Medical Off
GERS at once took up the problem.
Tests were conducted at various fy-
ing fields.
| What Really Happens.
| II was found individual flyers be-
gan to suffer from lack Of oxygen at
varying heights but that the same
individual began breaking up at
the same altitude day after day.
Perhaps one of the greatest diff
culties encountered was the fact that
the flyers did not realize that they
were being affected by the lack of
oxygen as the height increased. Even
after they crashed to earth, they had
no idea why 1t had happened,N for
everything had been working all
right when she started the nose dive.
That is what those who survived said.
What really happened? Just this:
The lungs require Fl per cent of
oxygen or 65 millimeters of oxygen
when a person is on the ground. AS
the bird-man climbs swiftly to great
er heights. the air contains less oxy-
gen and the pilot finds II increasingly
harder TO keep that amount in his
lungs. 1t requires faster breathing,
This increases commensurately the
higher he climbs.
Inversely. as the machine descends
swiftly from higher altitude to a
lower, he gets more oxygen with less
effort In either event, he begins to
lose efficiency. Coordination be-
tween hand and brain decreases. He