My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyless accurate. My pilot on the flight was the most brilliant the R.F.C. had produced inthe handling of those machines. But he had two little habits which were highlydisconcerting to the newcomer. The first was to zoom the machine on the take-off,which consisted of holding the nose down just above the ground for a considerabledistance to get up maximum speed, and then to pull back the stick to send it up as itseemed almost vertically, finally straightening out just before the stall. The secondform of playfulness was on returning from a disagreeable stretch of work to arrive12,000 feet above his own aerodrome and then to stand the machine on one wing-tipand spiral all the way down; in effect, spinning it down like a top. His virtuosityimpressed fellow-officers, riggers and mechanics - my word, some bird - but was anunpleasant surprise to his observer, if he had not been notified where to look. For thesecret was not to look straight ahead, or at the wing above, but along the wing belowtowards the ground to which you were spinning; otherwise the experience was a sureemetic.BE2c built by British & Colonial ("Bristol"),and powered by the 90 hp RAF 1A engineHe was a most charming man, and had the best hands I have ever felt operating one ofthose early machines; he had the touch of a pianist. Unfortunately he had an imitatorin the flight who also had the best of natures but lacked the magic hands. He was theobserver's dread, for every time it was anyone's guess whether the initial zoom wouldstall the machine or not, while extricating it from the final spiral just above the groundrequired an exquisite delicacy in the handling whose absence could result in aspinning nose-dive, generally fatal at that time. It was all endured with anxiety butwithout remonstrance, for he was such a good fellow and complaint would have hurthis feelings. He died heroically trying to fly his machine home to save his observerwhen he was mortally wounded in the chest, but he lost consciousness not far abovethe ground just before landing; they were both killed.These machines even more than the BE2Cs sometimes involved a certain difficulty incrossing the lines with a following wind. When you turned to fly back, your progresswas your flying speed less wind; say seventy miles per hour less forty. In extremecases it would be impossible for an aircraft a long way behind the lines to get backwithout running out of petrol. There was only one way out of it, to put the nose downin a semi-dive and thus gain extra speed. This was impossible in the Morris Farmanbecause it was believed it could not be put into a dive without risking the wingscoming off. Consequently they were mostly used for gun-spotting, observing enemybatteries, and directing our fire upon them with morse signals.47 of 424