Heat and Mirage Plague Aviators With British in "Garden of Eden"
Even Flights to Highest Altitudes Bring No Relief to Aero Scouts in Mesopotamia—Water in Machine Boils Away—Men "Cooked" by Months of Service Sent Out to Cool.
London, Feb 10 —C. G. Grey, editor of a British aviation magazine, tells the following story of the trials of the military aviators in Mesopotamia.
"People pertaining to the flying services are now beginning to trickle back from the wilds of Mesopotamia, some of them because they have been promoted, but most of them because they have been so thoroughly cooked that it 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 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.
High Levels Still Hot.
"Some of my friends from Mesopotamia tell me that so great is the heat on the ground that it is impossible to get high enough to get cool, owing to the hot air rising to such enormous heights. Even in the hottest weather in Europe one becomes perished with cold at anything over 10,000 feet, but apparently in Mesopotamia one can fly in a shirt and short pants at any height that an aeroplane can reach.
"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 explain how and why water boils at high altitudes at much lower temperatures than it does on the ground, but in Europe it is cold enough when high up to keep the water in the aeroplane engines below the reduced boiling point. In Mesopotamia, however, the water is perilously near boiling point before it leaves the ground, and never has a chance of getting very much cooler as it gets aloft. Consequently, one of the troubles of aviators in that region is the bailing away of the water in their radiators. The air-cooled engines are no better off because the oil suffers in much the same way.
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