The sun., 1918-12-29
By AGNES c. LAUT.

toric record kept of the first deep
sea mariner to launch out in
crazy craft with taut skins for sails
and essay the first voyage to the edges
of the world, from which science and
ignorance alike predicted he would fall
plumb of into the abyss of nowhere.
What were his fears and what were
his hopes theA first night out on the
I'VE after tlh sun went down? Was
he Viking OF the North or merchant
~adventurer OF the Mediterranean?
Anyway, whoever he was away back
in dim history, all the rest of the world
had proved 1t couldn't be done, and his
sensations couldn't have been very far
different from those Of the first airman
TO launch out on the abyss OF the blue
velvet dark overhead to essay night
fight.
OF course, we had proved it couldn't
be done. Without sun. shadows, clouds,
earth signs. how in the world was the
air navigator to know when he was
keeping the horizontal? Instruments
with n bubble in the spirit level are all
right in theory; but If you take q sud
den drop of several thousand feet in as
many minutes neither altimeter nor
bubble in a level has time to adjust it.
self to new conditions, INC II you had
to keep your lights dimmed on a bomb
ing rail- 1t would take you a minute =
get your bearings wen II both made
correct record Of your sky craft when
it was being shaken in the teeth Of the
wind Hka q Taf 0haEnn hSy a dAr ~
heaved suddenly almost in a somer-
sault by the terrific conclusion of air
from a bomb Just shot into a balloon
below full of explosives.
Even Daylight Is . Task.
Why. in clear daylight when a man
goes up above 10000 feet and gets wal
lowing around in mist or walloping air
1t is all he can do to know when he is
right side up or wrong side down; and
il that is 80 in daylight how about the
velvety blue dark night or the inky
stormy night then a squadron Of
bomb raiders could get their best ticks
in against Zepps and ammunition
bases?
We didn't begin night flying in this
wal because we wanted to or thought
II could be done, but because we had
toby accident, II you like, and I
rather guess the first deep sea mariner
got his first confidence in the same
way. Darkness overlook his galley
men rowing haEd against tide and
wind and he drifted out and found he
didn't fall off the edge OF the earth.
So of night flying in the airplane
world.
The Zepps had demonstrated they
could float at night, but they hadn't
advertised the fact very loudly, except
In one accident several years before
the war. What they really could do
at night they hadn't old the world
till the war broke out and they came
drifting " London and Paris: and
London and Paris at first were as
helpless below them as frightened
chickens are below hawks.
Anti-aircraft guns We're mounted on
all sorts of c~ontraptions. Air patrols
and high lookouts like ships crows
nests We're encircled round the endan-
gered cities. Sirens blew. bells rang.
word of an approaching Zepp raid was
flashed by wireless and telephone.
Then our own airmen began going up
in the dark to head the raiders off and
IL was found that it wasn't the going
up in the dark hat was dangerous.
1t was the coming down.
Like swords of Fire.
Searchlights Of tremendous range
and power were mounted all owe the
cities and they cut the inky blackness
like great swords Of fire trying to To-
cate the raiders. A~nti-aircraft guns
of higher and higher range were de-
vised, mounted on turntables with
strongly conveXed mirrors below to
reflect the heavens above, and before
the world realized it there had de-
veloped a whole new branch of aerial
warfare-anti-aircraft guns, night fly
ing, bombing squadrons for reprisals
for Zepp raids, landing lights and sys-
TENS of landing which did away with
h danger of the aviator's breaking
his neck by coming down on a church
steeple or a factory smokestack.
Presently we had whole squadrons
Of night fiers, bomb raiders and COM
bat machine escorts manned by the
best fighting aces the war had pro-
vided. Night flying had become as
regular a feature of air work as scout
ing or contact patrol to direct artil.
lery fire. The war had forced us to
do what couldn't be done, and men
who had at first declared night flying
"a fearsome thing" came t. regard II
as easier and safer than much OF the
day work. =,
In the first place you went out well
conveyed and escorted by protectors
In the second place, IL It was not
stormy, the air was less "pockety'
from heat waves than by day, and
finally If you were in a really big and
thrilling scrap. like blowing VI
ISrupp's or putting the fear Of God
in Trieste, the enemy could not see
A., YOU till o had lone your deed
believe the military term is reached
your ohjective"-and you had the
chance OF a safe getaway.
Night flying wasn't a game for be.
ginners, but it was a thriller to-I was
going to say veterans. but there wer,
no veterans in the air service. I hav,
said that night fiers went out I,
squadrons. In rhe early days of all