Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1918 — Sensations of an Airplane Man Detailed as to Thrills Experienced at Dizzy Height [ARTICLE]

Sensations of an Airplane Man Detailed as to Thrills Experienced at Dizzy Height

The trials for my military brevet were far the most interesting thing I have done in aviation. On finishing the 60-horse power Bleriot class, I was told that I would have to do my brevet work on a small Cauldron biplane, as 'there, were no Bleriots available, writes Nordhoff in Atlantic Monthly. Off she went with a roar, all ten cylinders firing perfectly, so I motioned the mechanic to pull out the blocks from before the wheels. A quick and a turn headed me into the wind, and the next moment the starter’s arm shot forward. Old 2887 is a bully bus. I was off the ground and heading up in forty yards. It was rather an occasion for a beginner who, had never before flown over 2,500 feet. The little Cauldrons, of course, are not high-powered, but she climbed splendidly. In ten minutes I was circling over the camps at 3,800 feet and in twenty I had reached 6,000, just under the roof of the clouds. There was only one blue hole through, so up this funnel I climbed in decreasing circles, till I finally burst out into the gorgeous upper sunlight. At 8,000 feet I began to float about in a world of utter celestial loneliness —dazzling pure sun, like the water of a coral atoll, and beneath me a billowy sea of clouds, stretching away to infinity. Here and there, from the cloudy prairies great fantastic mountain ranges reared themselves; foot hills and long divides, vast snowy peaks, impalpable sisters of Orizaba or Chimborazo, and deep gorges, ever narrowing, widening or deepening, across whose shadowy depths drove ribbons of thin gray mist. Once, as I was sailing over a broad canyon, I saw far off in the south a dark moving dot and knew with a sudden thrill that another man like myself, astride his gaunt buzzing bird, was exploring and marveling at this upper dream world.