Jimmy Hill learned a dodge that interested older aviators. Looping
the loop sidewise, he would catch the plane when upside down, and shoot
away at a tangent, head down, the machine absolutely inverted---then
continue the side loop, bringing him back to upright again some
distance from where he had originally begun his evolution.
Watching him at this stunt, a veteran pilot said to the chief one
morning: "That turn will save that kid's life one day. See if it don't."
And sure enough, one day, it did.
Harry learned what a French friend had told him the great Guynemer,
king of all French fliers, had christened "the dead leaf." With
the plane bottom side up, the pilot lets it fall, now whirling downward,
now seeming to hang for a moment, suspended in midair, now caught by
an eddy and tossed upward, just like a dead leaf is tossed by an
autumn wind.
Joe could nose-dive to perfection. He would hover high up, at well
over ten thousand feet from the ground, then drop straight for the
earth, like a plummet, nose directly downward, seemingly bent on
destruction.
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