Jim Logajan wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Now, who wants to to be the first to start an argument about turning
back?

Seems to be a timeless topic. I just finished reading "Winged
Victory" by V. M. Yeates, a fictional account of his real life
experience flying Sopwith Camels during WW1. In it he describes one
poor rookie pilot's fatal attempt to turn back to the field after an
engine failure at takeoff. The story's main character wondered why the
pilot made that poor choice rather than fly it straight ahead. Guess
the danger of turning back was known less than 15 years after the
invention of the airplane.

The book has a great writeup on the vices (and virtues) of the
Camel:

"Flying Camels was not everyone's work. They were by far the most
difficult of service machines to handle. Many pilots killed themselves
by crashing in a right hand spin when learning to fly them. A Camel
hated an inexperienced hand, and flopped into a frantic spin at the
least opportunity. They were unlike ordinary aeroplanes, being quite
unstable, immoderately tail-heavy, so light on the controls that the
slightest jerk or inaccuracy would hurl them all over the sky,
difficult to land, deadly to crash: a list of vices to emasculate the
stoutest courage, and the first flight on a Camel was always a
terrible ordeal. They were bringing out a two-seater training Camel
for dual work, in the hope of reducing that thirty per cent of crashes
on first solo flights." ...
"Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which
took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you
were either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror
to Huns, who were more unwilling to attack Camels than any other sort
of machine except perhaps Bristol Fighters. But then Bristol Fighters
weren't fair. They combined the advantages of a scout with those of a
two-seater. Huns preferred fighting SEs which were stationary engined
scouts more like themselves, for the Germans were not using rotary
engines except for their exotic triplanes, and the standard Hun scout
was the very orthodox Albatros. They knew where they were with SEs,
which obeyed the laws of flight and did as properly stabilized
aeroplanes ought to do. If you shot at one, allowing correctly for
speed, you would hit it: it would be going the way it looked as if it
were going, following its nose. But not so a Camel. A Camel might be
going sideways or flat- spinning, or going in any direction except
straight backwards. A Camel in danger would do the most queer things,
you never knew what next, especially if the pilot was Tom Cundall."

Great book of WW 1 flying (though I have to admit it is the only
book
of WW 1 flight that I have read). In my opinion it does a better job
with the theme of "fate" than Gann's "Fate is the Hunter" and has
elements of Heller's "Catch-22" madness. And it predates both of them.
Considering the kind of machines Yeates and his contemporaries flew,
it really makes Gann and Heller's protagonists look pampered by
comparison. All IMHO of course.


Ernie Gann's " A gathering of Eagles" is about WW1 and is excellent. The
incoparable "Saggitarius Rising" has to be the best, though. Winged
Warfare by Billy Bishop, also very Good. Rene Fonck's autobiography as
well...


Bertie