Here's to flying

Media

Part of The Marksman Magazine

Title: Here's to flying
Language: English
Year: 1939
Rights
Fulltext: ~o THE MARKSMAN Au~ust, 1939 HERE'S To FL YING. . .. By G. TRINIDAD THE PERSON U"HO NEVER FLEW You are snugly seated in the cockpit of a modern airplane, you are at the controls, its engine is thundering with power hurtFng you through the air at 100 miles an hour, your altitude is two thousand feet, all of a sudden the eng"ine begins to sputter and stops, the controls become unsteady, the plane noses .toward the earth plummeting like a meteor, with that shrill wnfoing of the wire struts as if in a big storm and then everything seems to go cloudy and CRASH !You jump out of your chair with cold hands and a cold sweat, you have been day dreaming again, Yes Sir! This airplane business is too dangerous and I don't want a part in it. Well! Somehow, if they can make it as safe as the automobile, I may decide to become an aviator and experience the thrills ifn the air. This conclusion is the one that is always arrived at by persons of commendable intelligence but with no experience in flying. The impression of airplane crashes read in the papers which are usually vague in details contribute more to their fear of destruction. August, 1939 THE MARKSMAN 31 They don't even stop to think that automobile accidents are more frequent than airplane crashes! FEAR! That feeling that turns your spine icy-cold is one of nature's gift to man for his own self-preservation. We fear conditions, forces and other things of which we are ignorant of. What a relief it will be if he was told that an airplane does not dive towards the earth when its motor stops and that it can glide as smoothly as a yacht in the sea. How he will say his A-h-h-s, when you tell hdm that a plane settles to the ground only after you have cut the power off the motor. WORiLD WAR PLANES AND PILOTS A majority of the people living in this modern age has still the thought that the antiquated Jennys of the world war period are still the. same as the airplanes of today. During the war, the a1 '.rplane wa~ still in its second experimental stage, most of them being made of wood and pilots were looked upon as daring and unafraid of death. Whenever there was an order for flights, you will usually find the pilots saying their prayers or trying tO make a happy smile in spite of their heavy hearts and emergency ambulances scattered on advant~geous points. over the ·field. When an airplane starts to take off, chances, are that it may head for the nearest obstruct''On to halt its crazy route. When a plam~ leaves the ground a similar element of chance is again present, that of never being able to land in the right way. Generally in the take-off. they barely skimmed the tree tops and on landing, their speed wa~ almost the same as in flight that a sHght ·mistake meant disaster to the pilot. Gas was only for two or three hours and flying was mairi1y done on clear weather. ·If you missed the fi~ld or got lost somewhere, all you have to do was land on the first available field you can fiind or keep on flying until the gasoline supply gave out and you are sure that the airplane will come down and with alJ the noise you can imaj!ine. During those davs when a plane went into a spin five hundred feet from the ground. the nrobability of rig-hting the airplane was almost a miracle an<l all that t.he pilot could. do was say his prayers and awaiit the inevitable crash. This was one of the critical stages of the airplane and also the first experience for it as instrument for warfare. World War airplanes were usually called Crates or J ennys due to their clumsy and backward design. All the 'instruments they had were a gas gauge, a tachometer, an altimeter which becomes very unreliable 32 THE MARKSMAN August, 1939 below five hundred feet and usually an oil pressure gauge. In the modern airplanes, the instruments sometimes reach a staggering total of ahout 30, giving informat1 'on from propeller tips to the tail, as compared with the 3 or 5 of the old Crates which strongly shows the advancement made on the part of the human element in connection with flight. THE AIR MAIL After the War the future of the airplane was again obscure and was only brightened when the United States first attempted to use airplanes to carry ma']s since the majority of the people were rather doubtful about the airplane as a means of transportation. In this state, the most important discoveries made was the necessity of instruments to enable the pilot to fly blind thru fog, heavy cloud formation anc1 pitch dark nights when the mail must go through; weather reports to nssure a safe flight to their .destination and radio communication to P.stablish constant contact with the ground operations. Experiments were carried on for the safety of the airplanes and the U. _S. Government was always _willing to .back the right man. RAYMOND ORTEIG. The name of Raymond Ortefo: will s011nd verv unfamiliar to even the well informed reader. He is ltlable t.o tell you that he may hf' a scenario writer of Hollywood or a promoter of some sort. Ask anvbody who Charles A. Limlbergh is and they will tell- you with an air of :iuthority that he was the first man to fly non-stop across the Atlantic from New York to Paris and fa the unfortunate father of B:lbv I 1 'ndbe:rgh of the famous Lindbergh kidnapping tragedy. Raymond Orteig was the real brains of the first non-stop New York to Paris flight. He wa,s the man who posted the Twenty Five Thousand Dollar prize for the first man who can span the Atlantic non-stop. Let us not forget Mm, as this ma.11 was responsible for the enormous capital that began to take notice of the :ihplanes' commercial possibilities when Lindbergh spanned the Atlantie in 1927. COi\UiJEUCIAL AIRPLANES When Lindbergh crossed the Atlanti~c, people began to take notfce and wondered if the airplane was really safe after all. Factories he.gan building bigger planes for passenger transport which little by little began to carry people with a remarkable degree of safety. Better engines were being made and all of man's safety devices called to W<;>rk. The auswer to this are the Clipper planes that cross the Atlantic and Pacific Augustt 1939 THE MARKSMAN 33 with clocklike schedule their crews trained to utmost human perfection that they perform their duties with machine like precis1 i'On. Bigger Clipper ships to carry 70 or more passengers have been put into regular service early thi~ year~ HAZARDS IN FL YING COMPARED This will be an attempt to compare the varied conditfons under \vhich airplane flights are made in the Philippines and in the United States. We will take into consideration few of the elements that go with it. There is a big difference in the Geographical locations of the Philippin~s and United States, the former being in the Torrid Zone where there are only two seasons, the wet and the dry, the latter being in the Temperate Zone with four seasons. The weather conditions and rJther atmospheric disturbances that affect flying in general will be taken up in this section as a brief subject, a detailed one being too voluminou2 for average reading. A resume of scheduled transport accidents in the Philiippines will show almost perfect flying with only one fatality. Why this is so, can be easily attributed to our almost perfect weather throughout the year with only strong winds to worry about and occasional squaJs to hamper visibility. American Transports worry about the varying_ weather conditions occasioned by snow, sleet and its most dangerous enemy, the :~og. Once in a w:hile we read about a tragic crash of a transport plane due to its being lost in the fog and hitting a mountain, or of ~ce forming on the wings or control surf aces that make the pilot helpless. Science is still ,working hard for a better way to conquer these hazards of which fog ·i·s the most dangerous. Another disadvantage- that American pilots have is its night flying when. sleeper planes must go on with their schedule. In the Philippines only Army planes do night flyiing as part of their maneuvers. The Islands are so close together that a· fast plane can start from Aparri i.n the morn. ing and land in Davao before sundown, hence we have no worry about night flying-. You will see then in this brief comparison what a tremendous handicap the pi]ots of the United States must meet in order to make flying safer. Despite this they have established so remarkable rate of safety that more people are making their trips by air., - THE PHILIPPINES-HOW IT HAS TAKEN TO A.VIATION The Philippines is still in the elementary.stage of flying and at present there is one company licensed to manufacture- airplanes -and two com34 THE MARKSMAN August, 1939 panies operating scheduled transport services - the Inaec having the southern part of the Islands and the Philiippine Aerial Taxi having the whole Island of Luzon as its flying ground. The Dutch Airways request for the approval of a franchise to extend their operations to the Philippines have been definitely turned down. Our Ph1 ]ippine Army has so far graduated thirty or so of its men as part of the nucleus of its Air Force. Civil aviation has unfortunately been neglected and at present there are only Fifteen Licensed Filipino Pilots against 45 licensed students whrJch have only a 3% chance of getting licenses due to its rather prohibitive cost. 'An Aero Club was formed bv some air-minded Filipinos, but they had to abandon the :idea after a big expense. In America, a majority of the Pilots with commendable records are taken up as Reserve Officers of the Air Corps of both the Army and Navy. Germany due to its extensive mtilitary program requires all pilots outside of its standing Army to undergo a period of military flight training to cope with any emergency. Russia, Italy and France have the same principles, but due to limited capital in prtlvate and commercial aviation. the Government itself helps maintain the Flying Clubs to keep its dtizens well schooled in aviat( on as a necessary means of National Defen8P. Germanv of today can boast of the biggest availabl-e citizen pilots and a big number of them are women ! The Philippine offensive in cases of foretlP"n aggression will be most effective in the ·air. The coastline of the country is longer than tha1 of the United States and requires a faster method of offense a_nd defense. An attacking enemy can be met within a moment's notice mile·.s od of our coast and their advance hindered by bombing planes. The Philippines with its population of 16,000,000 can harrlly count wifo a decent average of its populatfon as licensed pilots, military, eommercial and private all put together. A Philippines boasting of 3,500 pilots on its population will command the respect of other nations .. * * * * JOIN THE READ THE MARKSMAN N.R.P.A. 1 Year __________________________ P2.00 6 Months ________________________ Pt.50