"Well, we'd better be off, old chap. Hop aboard." This from the Observer
as he climbs into the front seat from which he will command a good view
over the lower plane; and the Pilot takes his place in the rear seat,
and, after making himself perfectly comfortable, fixing his safety belt,
and moving the control levers to make sure that they are working freely,
he gives the signal to the Engine Fitter to turn the propeller and so
start the engine.

Round buzzes the Propeller, and the Pilot, giving the official signal,
the Aeroplane is released and rolls swiftly over the ground in the teeth
of the gusty wind.

In less than fifty yards it takes to the air and begins to climb rapidly
upwards, but how different are the conditions to the calm morning of
yesterday! If the air were visible it would be seen to be acting in the
most extraordinary manner; crazily swirling, lifting and dropping, gusts
viciously colliding--a mad phantasmagoria of forces!

Wickedly it seizes and shakes the Aeroplane; then tries to turn it over
sideways; then instantly changes its mind and in a second drops it into
a hole a hundred feet deep, and if it were not for his safety belt the
Pilot might find his seat sinking away from beneath him.

Gusts strike the front of the craft like so many slaps in the face; and
others, with the motion of mountainous waves, sometimes lift it hundreds
of feet in a few seconds, hoping to see it plunge over the summit in a
death-dive--and so it goes on, but the Pilot, perfectly at one with
his mount and instantly alert to its slightest motion, is skilfully and
naturally making perhaps fifty movements a minute of hand and feet;
the former lightly grasping the "joy-stick" which controls the Elevator
hinged to the tail, and also the Ailerons or little wings hinged to the
wing-tips; and the latter moving the Rudder control-bar.

A strain on the Pilot? Not a bit of it, for this is his Work which he
loves and excels in; and given a cool head, alert eye, and a sensitive
touch for the controls, what sport can compare with these ever-changing
battles of the air?

The Aeroplane has all this time been climbing in great wide circles,
and is now some three thousand feet above the Aerodrome which from such
height looks absurdly small. The buildings below now seem quite squat;
the hills appear to have sunk away into the ground, and the whole
country below, cut up into diminutive fields, has the appearance of
having been lately