Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1916 — LOOPING THE LOOP OVER LONDON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LOOPING THE LOOP OVER LONDON

Seven thousand feet above Hyde Park an American girt looked straight ahead and saw 44 the roof of the sky" from one of England's newest warplanes

*— ——-i N a British military aeroK plane, painted black, and especially designed for pursuing Zeppelins at night, I flew across London and, at height -Qf —7,000 feet, looped the loop over Hyde Park, and in the New York Tribune Jane Anderson goes on to describe her experience : I was permitted to make this flight, to start from one of Britain’s finest aerodromes and see, spread in a clear colored panorama one mile and a half below me, the houses and the streets of the greatest city in the world. In the great field from which I started the turf was broken by patches of black mud and the grass was beaten down by heavy rain of the morning. But, on the wooden runway, with her wheels blocked and her black ’planes silhouetted against the sky, a biplane was waiting. She was beautiful —this machine. There was power in the sweep of her wings; there was power in the shining blades of her propeller. Her two Lewis guns, of blue steel, were mounted on galvanized brackets, they were particularly businesslike — those guns. I climbed aboard and was strapped in. The observer’s seat, where I sat, was a wide seat, and the fusilage formed my arm rest. There was plenty of foot space. Captain X, who was my pilot, got into his seat behind me. To my right und above me a death’s head design had been painted in white on the wing. We circled the field, headed into the wind and were off. I mean, we dived up into the sky. When we left the ground we left it. It was good climbing. It was good and stiff. The black nose of the biplane pointed straight to the sun. I saw, swiftly, visions of a stalled motor, of a rapid backward slide. Below us the roofs of the hangars dropped away, and I saw, over the whirring propeller, the great curve of the Thames —the wide, splendid sweep of gray water, spanned hy bridges. Where two streets met there was a house with a red roof—a big house set a little apart from a long row of cottages. While I looked at this red roof the color of it changed; from a clear vermilion it became mauve—one small, clear square of mauve. - I looked-again at the big house with the red roof. But it had merged with the line of little cottages; it no longer stood apart with a strip of green separating it from its neighbors. I had come up 6,000 feet above a little village which is on the outskirts of London. I saw, far below me, the white roads, crossing and recrossing, and the bright green of the fields. But there were no longer any people; there were no longer trams and ’buses and motors. In this swift, upward climbing there was no sense of rising. Before me the blades of the propeller were flashing even in the gray light. I was filled with a sense of security. I saw the roads, the broad, smooth roads of England, become white threads <)on a 'clear background of green; from certain centers they reached out, spreading, then converging anew. Then I found that I had come into a bank of cloud. And, strangely enough, this white vapor increased, mysteribusly, my sense of security. There was an extraordinary impression of solidity, of substance, after my Journeying through the clear higher air. I watched, on the aluminum rim

of the windshield, a row of clear drops, like beads, forming and reforming. The white cloud was condensing to make bright crystals for us, little opalescent chains that broke, then fashioned themselves anew. The mist in front of me cleared and the white vapor became transparent. I looked down. Below I saw, in one vast, endless cyclorama, the roofs and gray streets of a city, with a river bounding them. The roofs were a deep, lusterless purple. In the distance I saw a little gray disk, faintly outlined. This was St. Paul’s. I was flying above the city of London. I thought for a moment that it was not true; that I, because of one man who was piloting me through certain uncharted spaces above the world, was not leaning over a little rim of painted iron and staring down at the greatest of great cities; that those fine lines of purple which we saw were not houses iu which people lived, houses in which people worked, houses where men and women fulfilled the appointed round of small incidents which make up the story of the world; that in those small houses there were people who were fighting a great war; that there were ttagedy and suffering and hope and courage and faith down there.

However, at this moment Captain X saw a cloud not too far above us and he started climbing again. I am not sure just how much that one particular cloud had to do with our sudden new ascent, but we went up there, just 7,000 feet above the city of London, and we jumped that cloud. When we started I don’t know what I thought we were going to do, but this is what we dtd —we bore down on that cloud, and when it was just before us, small, round, opaque, my pilot throttled his motor. We dropped. We dropped precipitately. It was rather a sensation this sliding off down toward earth. Then Captain X threw on the motor to full power and brought her back to an even keel. Then—we sailed up and hurdled the cloud. It was very well done. After this we seemed to gather speed, for reasons unexplained; that is, when I put my hand out the wind drove harder against it, pushing it back. Below, suddenly, a big strip of green appeared in the heart of London. Captain X explained about the bit of green, with its little white paths, which was interrupting . the gray streets of the city. Fir?t, he hammered on the iron casing of the fusilage; I turned around. He made a quick gesture, reaching out toward me. I didn’t know what he wanted. Then I saw that the captain was handing me a scrap of white papdr; folded, about the size of a stamp. It was a letter. It was not, however,

a long letter. And there was, on one side of it, printing of a somewhat miscellaneous character. This, by error, I read first and could not understand it all. Then I turned the paper over. Written on the other side of it, in pencil, were two sentences: “We are over Hyde Park. Would you like to loop over London?” Did I want to loop over London, in one of the finest of England’s warplanes? Did I want to loop over Hyde Parlt at a height of 7,000 feet? Yes, I did. The machine plunged headlong toward the earth. The motor was running full blast. The world rushed up to meet us. I found myself staring at the nose of the machine, which was straight above me. Her piston rods, a row of them on either side, were dancing up and down briskly. I saw them, and I saw the roof of the sky—yet I had not moved. I was still sitting, staring straight ahead. Only I was staring at the sky, instead of the earth. Everything was moving. Hyde Park wasn’t where it ought to have been. The sky was not in right. The nose of the machine was over my head. All wrong. Then a slice of the earth dislodged itself and, making circles, stood on end. And another section of earth rushed into it. I saw this myself. There were some trees mixed up in it. I don’t know when this was. But I saw it all.

Afterward the nose of the machine came down in front of me, where it should have been. And the iron strip on it was shaking again and the two thin cables on my left were vibrating pleasantly. I looked over and assured myself that Hyde Park was down below. It was. I liked the world. I turned and saw the captain leaning out over his windshield?' He was smiling—smiling and fumbling with his goggles. Something, It seemed, had gone wrong with them. So far as I could see, this was the only mark of our having been upside down. And it was set right straightway. For immediately we started turning. The captain banked her very prettily and I saw the little paths of Hyde Park between the 'planes. Sofnehow it gave them a wonderful perspective, this looking down the full length of the ’plane. And so we came back, over houses and white streets, to the wide sweep of the river. Came back straight toward the sun, which for the first time was shining through the mist. It seemed very close in front of us and not brilliant-abecause of the gray curtain before it. And in the little village a train was running along. Very small, making puffs of smoke. And the smoke was yellow, not the clean white of the broken clouds which were drifting below us. We circled toward the aerodrome. We dropped down, spiraling. It was a double spiral Captain X made —and’ia particularly beautiful one. It was the final evidence of the superb construction of his majesty’s biplane, designed for the destruction of enemy aircraft. I had full opportunity of discovering whatever weakness or fallibility might have been In her. There was none. Built for the purpose of war, designed for the most difficult and dangerous work, she fulfilled every demand. I knew that the Royal Flying corps had pride in her und faith in her. And I felt that it was justified.