lf associated with an
enterprise in which a number of "pusher" biplanes were employed, and
he decided that it would be useful for him to become accustomed to
this type of machine. His flying experience of course helped him, and
he soon found himself passing to and fro above the aerodrome, the
biplane well in hand. Then he thought he would make a vol-plane, with
his motor stopped, as he had been in the habit of doing in a
monoplane. He switched off his engine without further thought, and
moved his elevator to a position for the descent. But it was here that
he made the mistake. In a monoplane, which has the weight of the
engine and other gear well forward in the machine, the bow has a
natural tendency to tilt down when the motor is cut off--particularly
as the propeller-draught ceases to sweep under the sustaining planes.
Therefore one can, in such a machine, switch off safely without first
shifting the elevator, and getting the bow down as a preliminary. What
the pilot had forgotten, for the moment, was the essential difference
between monoplane and biplane. When he had switched off the engine in
the biplane, and moved his elevator as he was accustomed to do, he
found to his dismay that the machine failed to respond. Instead of
pointing its bow down, indeed, it began to tilt rearward. Also, and
this fact was noted by the airman with even more dismay, the craft
lost forward speed so rapidly that it became uncontrollable. The next
moment, the pilot helpless in his seat, the machine began a side-slip
towards the ground. One sweep it made sideways, falling till it was
not far short of the surface of the aerodrome. It paused an instant,
then began a side-slip in the opposite direction. But here good
fortune came to the pilot's aid. In this second swing, the machine
being near the ground, it came in contact with the surface of the
aerodrome before the "slip" had time to develop any high rate of
speed. The biplane took the ground sideways, breaking its
landing-chassis and damaging the plane-ends which came first in
contact with the earth. But the pilot emerged from the wreckage
unhurt. The accident was a lesson to him, though, as it was to others,
and as it should be to all pupils. A machine must be in a gliding
position before the engine is switched off.

The art of the accomplished pilot, granted there is no reason for him
to reach earth quickly, is to glide at as fine an angle as is possible,
consistent of course with main