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Show eORNITS COOKED Warriors of Air in Mesopotamia Mesopo-tamia Allowed to Go Home to Cool Off. MIRAGES BEWILDERING Intense Heat Incapacitates Men and Engines in Torrid Region. LONDON", Feb. 17. C. G. Grey, editor of a British aviation magazine, tells the following story of the trials of the military mili-tary aviators in Mesopotamia: People pertaining to the flying services ser-vices are now beginning to trickle back from the wilds of Mesopotamia, some of them because they have been promoted, but most of them because be-cause they have been so thoroughly cooked that At is time they were taken off the grill and put somewhere else to cooL The returned wanderers bring quite curious stories- of the difference between be-tween flying where the Garden of Eden used to be and flying under war conditions elsewhere, which, while suggestive of anything but the Garden of Eden, are distinctly more comforting to the average European, except while actually under hostile fire. Some of my friends from Mesopotamia Mesopo-tamia tell me that so great is the heat on the ground that it is Impossible Impos-sible to get high enough to get cool, owing to the hot air rising to such enormous heights. Even in the hottest hot-test weather in Europe one becomes perished with cold at anything over 0,000 feet, but apparently in Mesopotamia Meso-potamia one can fly in a shirt and short pants at any height that an aeroplane can reach. Engines Are Hindered. Incidentally, the same all -pervading heat makes it exceedingly difficult to get to any considerable height, because aeroplane engines suffer as much as their pilots. Scientists ex plain how and why water boils at high altitudes at much lower tem- peraiures than It does on the ground, but in Europe it is cold enough when high up to keep the water in the aeroplane aero-plane engines below the reduced boiling boil-ing point. In Mesopotamia, however, the water is perilously near boiling point before it ever leaves the ground, and never lias a chance of getting very much cooler as it gets aloft. Consequently, one of the troubles of aviators in that region is the boiling away of the water in their radiators. The air-cooled engines are no better bet-ter off. because the oil suffers in much the same way. i At certain seasons In the year, when alternate heat and cold in the day and night are complicated by heavy rains, all the material in the aeroplanes aero-planes themselves suffers badly. The woodwork assumes various strange shapes, so that the unfortunate mechanics me-chanics are kept eternally at work truing up machines which refuse to lift when the woodwork warps and the fabric distorts. Consequently the air mechanics, working in a super-Turkish super-Turkish bath temperature, have to do ever so much more work than thpy would have to do in more reasonable climates. Mirages Interfere. The troubles of aviators are still more complicated by the everlasting mirages, not because the aviators see the mirage, but because they do not. The reason for this is that the air scouts, looking vertically down on to the ground, can see exactly what is happening, whereas the troops on the ground are confused by the mirage and see things- which are not there. Consequently. when an aeroplane brings information that the country Is absolutely clear of the enemy along a certain road the people on the ground are rather apt to mistrust his observations, because they see as they approach that particular line of country coun-try things which only exist as an optical op-tical illusion. It Is worthy of note that the Royal Naval Air service has done very valuable val-uable work in Mesopotamia with seaplanes sea-planes operating from the Tigris, while the Royal Flying corps have been operating from aerodromes made of sand. The said sand aerodromes are naturally far from' healthy for the engines, "and one of the chief troubles In the Ufa of the unfortunate air mechanic is to keep the engines from getting choked up with grit, which is sucked in with the air Into the carburetor, car-buretor, and they tell me that even at quite high levels the engines manage man-age to consume quite a large quantity nf flim-a thrmp-h ihpn thev are above the sand level. Drops in Enemy Lines. Mesopotamia flying is apparently not altogether without its humors, as witness a story of an adventure which occurred a good many months ago. A certain senior officer of the army had been out as passenger in a seaplane sea-plane to see for himself the position of the enemy. The engine of the seaplane sea-plane went wrong, and the machine came down on a portion of the river actually behind the Turkish lines, though, fortunately, just where there did not happen to be any Turkish soldiers. sol-diers. Another aviator, on a landgolng machine, learning that the seaplane h ad com o d o urn , fl e w o v e r with a mechanic as passenger and landed not i far from the river bank on a gravelly island. There he disembarked the mechanic, who set to work to put the j engine of the seaplane right, and took i up the senior officer as passenger on his own macKne. As they sped across the gravel, sundry hostile Arabs, who had apparently come from the other side of the Island on seeing the machine ma-chine descend, opened fire on them with such firearms as they possessed pos-sessed Apparently they did the machine ma-chine no dumage, for it flew back safely. Plane Is Riddled. On Its arrival various people rushed out to congratulate the passenger on his safe return, and some of them, examining ex-amining the machine, pointed out what an astonishing narrow escape the pilot and passenger had had from beine- killed, because the lower plane of the machine was simply riddled with holes on each side of the body, and even tindernea th it! A.ppa re n t i y the passenger felt rather pleased Willi himself about it till some inquiring aviator discovered that In seven-. I cases the holes only went through the lower surface of the plane, and not through the upper surface. Further investigation discovered the Interesting fact that the holes in the ' lower plane had not been made by bullets, hut by small stones thrown up from the qravel by the wheels as the machine w;i s getting off, and whiske-J through the somewhat tired wing fabric by the draught of the propeller. pro-peller. Careful examination failed to find a bullet hole at all. The seaplane sea-plane also re turned sa f ely and u:i -1 damaged. |