onsecutive minutes without breakdown. The war has shown us, and under
working conditions which have been exceptionally trying, how reliable
the aero-motor has become. But until duplicate plants have been
perfected, and more than one motor is fitted to aircraft as a matter
of course, there must always be this risk of failure.

In the mere stoppage of a motor no great danger is implied. The pilot
must descend; that is all. His power gone, he must glide earthward.
But where the risk does lie, in engine failure, is that it may occur
at a moment when the airman is in such a position, either above
dangerous country or while over the sea, that he cannot during his
glide reach a place of safety. A study of flying will show how awkward,
and how perilous on many occasions, has been the stoppage of a motor
while a machine is in the air. Two historic instances, though they did
not, fortunately, end in a loss of the pilot's life, were the
compulsory descents into the Channel made by the late Mr. Hubert
Latham, during his attempts, in 1909, to fly from Calais to Dover. In
both these cases--once when only a few miles from the French shore,
and on the second occasion when the aeroplane was quite near its
destination--the motor of the Antoinette monoplane failed suddenly,
and the aviator could do nothing but plane down into the water. On the
first occasion he alighted neatly, suffering no injury, and being
rescued by a torpedo boat; but in the second descent, striking the
water hard, he was thrown forward in his seat and his head injured by
a strut.

Less fortunate, in a case of presumed engine failure that will become
historic, was Mr. Gustave Hamel. Eager to reach Hendon, so as to take
part in the Aerial Derby on May 23rd, 1914, his great experience of
Channel flying induced him to risk the crossing with a motor which, on
his flight from Paris to the coast, had not been running well. His
monoplane was a fast machine, and the flight across Channel would have
taken him less than half an hour. But at some point during the
crossing, it seems obvious, his engine failed him, and he was unable
to prolong his glide either to gain the shore, or the vicinity of a
passing ship. His monoplane was never recovered; but the body of the
aviator--whose loss was mourned throughout the flying world and by the
general public as well--was discovered by some fishermen while
cruising off the French coast, and identified by means of a map,
clothing, and an