Ecstasy in motion for intrepid pioneers

NATAL-BORN aviation pioneer John Weston was something of a sensation when he visited Cape Town in December 1911, offering flights to anyone who was brave enough to clamber aboard his Bristol biplane.

Weston, who had trained at the Henri Farman flying school at Étampes in France, had flown solo for the first time only 12 months earlier, earning his licence – aviator certificate No 357 of the French Aero Club – in early February 1911.

But he evidently inspired confidence – not least in intrepid Argus journalist, Miss Woods.

The following is an edited version of her spirited account.

December 7, 1911

How it feels to fly – lady’s flight at Kenilworth yesterday

It is an awkward thing to mount this Bristol biplane made for two, with no steps or ladder, and built mainly of canvas and wires, which you must not touch or tread on. But you clamber up gingerly, and sink into a low seat, and find, to your delight, that there are two upright rods just handy to your grasp. You place one foot each side of the driver’s (is that the term?) chair. They begin madly whirring at the propeller behind, the “Gnome” begins to hiss and spit. The aeronaut signs “Let’s go”– you clench your teeth…

And then? There is no sickening sensation; no thrill even. You do not feel the sudden sucking out of all your breath, as you do when a lift springs with a bound up half a dozen storeys.

For the ship of the air is so smooth and graceful in its movements. It runs with such an airy tread and rises so gradually that you do not know when you leave the ground… When Mr Weston took me in his Bristol yesterday we rose smoothly and gradually. Objects passed under us at an increasing distance below. The breeze caused by our speed (there seemed to be little when we were still) swept past, as does the breeze when one is in a motor-car. But how clumsy did a motor seem to this ethereal motion – which bore one on as if weight and resistance did not exist. We rose higher before the grandstand, passing over hurdles and jumps. The ecstasy of absolute ease in motion was delightful, one was conscious of its exhilaration alone, and if the machine buzzed we did not know it. And then the machine gradually sank, lightly touching the ground on her wheels, and ending up with an airy little run.

It had been too short – that was the only fault. The aeroplane will be a useful machine one day; in the meantime it should be a sport for kings… Again and again I have grown dizzy as I have stood on the verge of Table Mountain. I have been unable to look over the parapets of cathedral towers after having laboriously climbed to their tops… I have passed beyond the chains on the Lion’s Head, and, within a few yards of the summit, turned back, dizzy with the prospect of sheer drops to sea on either hand.It is a delight not to be missed. There are chances of flights as long as Mr Weston has his biplane at Kenilworth. Who would miss such a chance?