Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 144, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1918 — Page 3

Human factor in Airplane Accidents

Cadets Sau Fliers, Not German Aoents, Are Responsible for Most Falls

wM HE officers and cadets of the flying V fields that are scattered thickly ’ over Texas do not share the belief / ■ 'J of Senator Overman and a good k ) many others that Teuton agents in / airplane plants are responsible for \ ' any of the deaths by accident X among them. They say they do z—' \ not know anything about condi(yj tions in airplane factories and therefore do not know whether or > f ' not his assertions about the num- , 4 of Germans employed therein are true, but they are skeptical about the senator’s fears and allegations. They think they know a good deal about the causes of the many accidents, both fatal and unimportant, that have occurred during the last six months, says a writer in the New York Times’ magazine section. And they declare very positively that not one of these accidents has been due to faulty construction or to enemy tampering with the machinery. They say that in

every case, thus far, the cause for the accident was to be found In the man himself and not in the machine he was driving. Among the flyers the conviction is strong that even if the machinery of an airplane were to be weakened by the method Indicated by Senator Overman it would probably be discovered in the course of the rigorous examination and tests to which it is subjected be-

fore it is sent from the factory. Still, they admit that a machine so damaged might possibly slip through without discovery. But they do not believe that, up to the present time, any such damaged machine has been sent to an American flying field. And as for the possibility of a German agent doing any "monkey business” with an airplane fetter It is received by a flying field, they scoff without mercy at the mere suggestion. They do mot deny the possibility of spies being present on hny or all the flying fields but they do not believe that the most astute and malignant German agent could “put anything oVer” in the hangars wijich house their steeds of the air. J' In charge of each hangar is an officer whose duty it is to know all about each machine in it, what happens to each one, where it is at any moment, and what its condition is whenever it is in the hangar. Three mechanics are detailed to each machine to keep it in order and groomed for use whenever it may be needed. The flying men are confident that no sabotage could be successfully attempted under these conditions except by means of an organization so large and so Unlikely in flying field forces that its possibility is not worth considering. In addition, no man ever takes a plane up from a flying field without himself first carefully inspecting its machinery.! The aviators are so confident that the fault does not He In the planes that when they are discussthe cause of accidents they do not even mention the planes or their machinery, unless they <t?e questioned by an outsider. They confine their discussions to the human factor involved and speculate upon why his nerves or his muscle, his heart or his brain, failed him at some crucial moment. 1 The percentage of losses among student aviators is much larger at Canadian than at the American training schools, while the number of fatal accidents at the Canadian field at Fort Worth, Tex., is appalling. That field has suffered more casaulties than all the other fields together In Texas. Tfc& aviators of the American fields are all of the opinion that the fatalities there are mainly due to haste and carelessness in training. At the American fields a man must have had from four to nine hours of training in the air with an instructor, the time depending on his quickness in learning control, before he is allowed to take up a machine by himself. A “tail spin,” one of the causes of accidents most commonly cited, is an acrobatic stunt which an aviator must know how to execute with skill and ease. In It he noses his machine downward with its tail whirling in a circle above him, while its nose whirls in a similar but smaller circle beneath him, and he, in the pilot’s seat, is the pivot of the two gyrations. To- the landsman it sounds a heady sort of a combination, and it is likely to prove so to the airman unless he has the knowledge and the skill with which to manage it. To throw his machine in and out of tail spins is a part of his daily practice after he begins the acrobatic training, and in a very little while he acquires sufficient knowledge of what to do and instinctive control of the machinery to execute tail spins as easily and safely as he could twirl on his toes or turn on his heel if his feet were on solid ground. But he may get into a tail spin accidentally in his early flights alone and, although he may know what is the right thing to do to take the machine out of it, he may lose his head at the crucial moment and fall to do what he ought. Every man, woman, or child who has learned to ride a bicycle or drive an automobile is familiar with that unconscious influence of the mind over the muscles which causes one who has not yet acquired complete command of a machine to drive; straight at the object which he wishes and is doing his best to avoid. The aviator has a brief time in his training when he suffers from that same difficulty and at important moments is prone to give the wrong pressure upon his control stick or his elevator. If he does this when his machine goes into a tail spin and his mind does not work quickly enough to recognize his difficulty and do the right thing, a fatal accident Is very likely to result. Dizziness, sudden panic, failure tqthink quickly, unconscious movement, ignorance of what to cause a fat”! accident when a learner

gets into a tail spin accidentally. Or he may intentionally take his machine into one, before he has had the usual instruction, out of the spirit of adventure, or even the kiddish desire to convince himself of his daring or exhibit it to his fellow students. But, whatever the cause, it is the opinion of flying field aviators that getting into a tail spin, purposely or accidentally, without being able to manage it properly, is the cause of a large proportion of fatal accidents at the flying fields. The same perverse, unconscious influence of the mind over the muscles which forces the bicycle learner straight toward the object he is trying to avoid is responsible for many of the fatal accidents due to collisions. Even the most expert of flyers may. be unable to avert a serious accident when he sees approaching him a plane driven by a cadet who is doing his level best to keep his machine out of the other’s way. How serious and ever present is this danger in flying fields is proved by Capt. Vernon Castle’s death. In flying there are certain “blind angles” in which collisions are possible through no fault of the driver of either plane. The sections of space covered by the wings of his ship are invisible to the pilot, and if such a section coincides with the space concealed from the eyes of another pilot approaching from below or at one side, a sudden crash is likely to be the first that either knows of the other plane. This “blind angle” may be the cause of an occasional serious accident, but aviators do not think that such collisions are of frequent occurrence. Engine trouble causes many unimportant accidents, but, aviators say, should never offer any serious difficulty to a man who has learned how to manage his plane, if he is in a region where it is possible for him to come down safely. And for engine trouble there are as many possible and legitimate causes as there are reasons for an automobile to balk. In a few cases a broken propeller has caused a pilot to make a forced landing, with injury to his plane, but, up to the present time, never with serious result to himself. The accompanying picture shows what happened to a pilot when his propeller weakened, cracked and broke over the grounds of a high school in the environs of Houston, Tex. He brought his ship down with some damage to it, but none to himself, and greatly to the delight of the inhabitants of the region. Various causes may result in the breaking of the propeller. It may have been injured in some previous nose dive to the ground; or a bird may have got entangled in its blades. Cadets are forbidden to chase birds because of the possibility of such a result and the sure smashing of the propeller. Nevertheless, they do it sometimes, when the instinct of the chase is strong in their blood. And it would be quite possible for a bird to fly against his propeller, to the undoing of both bird and propeller, and the pilot to be ignorant of what had happened. The men who t>y hard work and steady practice have earned the right to the title of “birdmen” believe that with both students and skilled aviators one cause of fatal accidents is the failure of the nervous system tp respond Immediately and accurately to the command of the brain. Anything which causes nervous fatigue may bring about that physical state —dissipation, nerve strain, physical weariness, lack of sleep. The flyer must be so alert, his grasp upon every situation which may confront him so Instant, and his action to meet and control it so prompt that the fraction of a second in the movement of his hand upon the controls of his machine may mean the difference between life and death. And anything which slows by ever so little the action of the brain in an emergency, or the flashing of its, commands along the nerves, or the instant obedience of the motor nerves may send him crashing to the earth. The cadets before they have become what they call “instinctive flyers” are especially liable to this danger, although even those who are skilled in the air are not free from its menace. Birdmen who are skilled in one, or another, or several forms of athletics say that in nothing else have they felt so much the necessity of this instant and complete response of the nerves to the demand upon them. <" The cadets quickly discover, so they say, that lack of plenty of sleep soon results in a physical

THE RENSSELAER DAILY REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

• <- for the skilled motorist, running an automobile is ioi ui f .. d so far as the machine and his control of it ana the medium through which or upon moves oro concerned. But the the human mechanism must still „ r „„ tpr with, and that unreliability seems to be neater in the air than it is upon the ground It sometimes results In strange and unexpected happenings. Once in a while a man In the best of health and the pink of condition, who has passed with high success every one of the severe tests t which aviation candidates are subjected, who has never fainted before in bls life, will faint while he is in the air. One recent fatal accident at a Texas field is supposed to have been due to that cause. One pilot fainted and the plane fell to the earth, but neither he nor the student with him was hurt except for a few scratches and cuts. He said that he did not know why he fainted. All that he knew was that he suddenly lost consciousness, and did not regain it until he was being hauled out of the wrecked airplane. He had never fainted before in his life. Neither had another young fellow, to whom everything suddenly became a blank as his machine was sailing away through the blue. It was still sailing along easily when presently he came to himself again with the feeling that something had happened to him. Looking down, he could see that he had covered a considerable distance since the. moment when he had lost consciousness. He does not know why he fainted any more than he knows why he did not spin downward to probable death during those blank moments. A British surgeon attached to the relay naval air service, Dr. H. Graeme Anderson, who has had extensive experience at British flying stations, has recently written some interesting conclusions concerning these somewhat obscure causes of airplane accidents at training schools. In the opinion of Doctor Anderson, based upon study and comparison of the statements made to him in such cases by a hundred student flyers, there is a brain fatigue not due to previous mental or physical strain that may yet cause serious accidents. He thinks it is Induced by the impact ,cf overwhelming sensations upon the mind of the pupil after he is in the air. The flying pupil who is overcome by this form of fatigue, says Doctor Anderson, “reaches the stage where he has the power neither to reason, decide, nor act. A state of mental inertia supervenes. This is due to repeated stimuli received by his brain in rapid succession in his flight. He feels alone; a succession of errors occurs in the air; he feels he cannot manage to control the airplane; fear does not seize him, but the enormity of the whole thing appalls him; he feels helpless, and a state of brain fatigue occurs in which he, in a stupor, awaits events and takes little part in the airplane’s control.” This form of brain fatigue would seem to be largely a result of personal temperament. Doctor Anderson thinks it responsible for “a fair proportion of accidents” among students in the early stages of flying, and he adds that student aviators who have suffered from it, if they escape injury, are likely to give up flying. There are many, many of the unimportant accidents, ,of which nobody takes heed. But of fatal accidents, notwithstanding the concern over them manifest in some parts of the country, the percentage is no greater than should be expected, is less than in the flying schools of some other countries, and is not higher than it is in almost any extra-hazardous occupation. And when it is remembered that this latter comparison brings together figures representing men ln the training stage with those of skilled workers, it is evident both that flying is a safer game than it has the credit of being, and that it will be a good plan fpr the country to guard against hysteria over the fatalities that do occur.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

“Baths are scarce in Europe. Frequently you have to order a tub sent in.” “Is that so?” “Yes, and it takes time.” "Um. A fellow might do a good business going around with one of these motorcycles with bathtub attached.” —Louisville Courier-Journal.

condition which, although they would not even notice It in any other . occupation, they regard as dangerous in flying. In one of the Texas fields recently a lieutenant with a reputation as a skilled and careful aviator fell from a considerable height and was killed instantly. His nearest friends were unanimous in the belief that his fall was due to the fact that he had not been getting enough sleep. For a week he had been giving instruction in night flying, working all night, and had not been able to sleep well during the day. , , , _ Careful training and plenty of practice soon bring the student aviator to the point where flying becomes as instinctive with him, in the movement of hand and foot upon the controls of his machine, as the action of his body in walking. For him flying becomes as safe as

FACTS ABOUT FIRE

South Sea Islanders in the remotest days got their fire by the friction of dry wood. The primal Aleutian Islanders rub sulphur over quartz, make a rude match, and so strike a light., “Isaac spake unto Ahraham,” in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis, “and he said: Behold the fire and the wood.” v But we have no history of any race of men who didn’t know about fire. The earliest Bible records speak of fire. For stealing fire from the gods and giving It to man Prometheus was chained to fne rock. That was Greek mythology. Living in the shadow of the north pole, the far-off Eskimo strikes quartz against a pieee of iron pyrite and gets a flame. The most sequestered tribes of Africa and Central Asia knew about fire when the white men first made their acquaintance. When Columbus came to America he found Indian fires burning. The Indian rubbed dry sticks together and quickly got a spark. How Adam learned about fire we know not, but apparently Eve cooked food, although the famous apple was doubtless eaten raw. '-x It was said that when Magellan first sailed around the world he did find among the Ladrones people who never saw fire. When the Spanish adventurer burned their huts the natives thought the flames were a beast which ate up wood. —Girard’s Talk of the Day in the Philadelphia Telegram.

WAR DON'TS

Don’t criticize, unless your criticism Is constructive, and will help. Don’t be discouraged. Faith Is not a sentiment, but an act of will. Don’t listen to what ex-President Taft calls “whispering traitors.” Don’t sit down, and wish the war were over. Start out and work to get it over. Don’t grumble at being asked to do something you have never done before. Fall into line. Don’t wish you were serving In some different line from that you are in. You are needed where you are. Don’t forget that we are fighting for right, and therefore must win. Insert in your mofrning prayer the now immortal wflrds, “They Shall Not Pass !’* —Jane Dransfleld of the Vigilantes.

SCRAPS

The first self-moving gun car- i riage was invented InFrance in ’ 1769. 1 An alarm clock which awak- '■ -ens deaf sleepers by jarring their j beds has been invented in Ger- i many. i There is only one chance in ’ 17,000,000,000 for a mistake in ’ finger prints, according to a i French scientist. For hurrying a slow fire with* ] out danger to the user a paste i made of kerosene and wood , ashes has been found effective. ; Many of the toymakers of the ; Sonneberg district in Germany have now turned their attention to manufacturing munitions of ; war.

WORTH KNOWING

New Mexico has a lizard which is reputed to squirt blood from its eyes. Sixty men per thousand” are now being killed in the war, and about 150 men out of each thousand are wounded. Over 300,000 loads of sawdust and other mill waste were used during last year in the United States for making paper pulp. On the Isle of Man fresh herrings are packed in ferns and arrive at the market in as fresh a condition as when they were shipped. Frequent and moderate rain, such as constitutes the characteristic of British climate, is the most effective of all sanitary agencies.

SAYS THE OWL

Outsiders who speculate in oil frequently slip up. Only a remarkable girl is not flattered by her photograph. There are times when the corkscrew is mightier than the typewriter. The average man needn’t be very sick to imagine he is going to die. If she pays cash at the drug store she comes by her complexion honestly.

FLASHLIGHTS

Beauty may be only skin deep, but that’s deep enough if a girl has beauty. There’s something radically wrong with the man who isn’t welcome at home. Everybody who owns a car admits that the worst driver in the world is the other fellow. Some fellows’ idea of helping to win the war is to sit down and hope that it won’t last' much longer. —• Some men will give almost anything you ask of them to a good cause except their own time and effort. Sometimes we get to wondering just what kind of a war It would be if th© tightwads had the running of IL Now that so many states have gone dry We have the unusual spectacle of a man beating it home to get a drink. Practice makes perfect in nearly all things, but practice can’t make a songbird out of a young woman whose voice wasn’t intended by nature to warble a note. > One of the joys of spending four years making a garden is just as soon as the roses begin to reward you for your labor your wife decides to sell the place and move somewhere else.

AS WESTERNER SEES CHINA

Dust and ruined beauty. Ridiculous whimsicality of embroideries. The shrewd, humorous faces of the women. Loud voices and everywhere the latent mob. The free walk of the men in their dark blue clothes. Confucius, Lao-tze and Buddha, with wagging sleeves, in a dance before the applauding old men of heaven. That greatest of all dragons, the Great Wall, colling over the whole ranges, the work, and tomb, of millions. Temples created as If by magic, with the imperial gold tiles falling from the roofs, like leaves from an autumn elm. Age, decrepitude, tradition, non-lndi-vidualism, bursting like a scarlet firecracker into a shower of lyrics.—Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, in “Asia,”

NOTES FROM SCIENCE

Iron alloyed with gold has been 4 introduced as a substitute for tin in the making of cans. For many purposes cast iron is preferable to steel because it Is comparatively rust proof. Among the 800,000 inhabitants of Jamaica, there are 100,000 who live on an average of about 12 cents a day. Experiments have shown that a ton of dry sawdust will yield with proper treatment 20 or 25 gallons of 95 per cent ethyl or grain alcohol. The shortest tree in the world is the Greenland birch. Its height Is less than three inches, yet it covers a radius of from two to three feet. Water valves twelve feet in diameter and so constructed that they will close automatically in event of a break in the pipe line have been built for a hydroelectric plant in Utah. Houses are so scarce in Bath, Me., that Fred Knightly, of Waterford, who is now employed in Bath shipyards, decided to move his home from Waterford to Bath. It was taken down in sections and shipped from Norway to Bath, where it is being reconstructed.

WHAT MOTHERS WANT

Corporal punishment prohibited in schools. Plenty of agricultural training in all the grades. A chance for foreigners to pursue the study of English in the schools. Laws requiring juvenile courts to be distinct from other courts and from adult probation. The taking of delinquent children out of the hands of correctional officers and juvenile courts. Putting child delinquents entirely under the control of boards of education and state superintendents of education, with the idea that the school authorities are better able to handle the situation and that the remedy lien in the formation, not the reformation, of the child’s, character. —Exchange.

SHOTS FROM THE GUNS

Men run for office in America; in Russia they fight for it. There are no more neutrals, not eras in the spring fashion tints. Idealists will please step back an* make room for men of action.