‘A Short Life in the Sky’: the story of a WWI pilot
Almost crashed, August 1915 
(NRS reference: GD486/62 pages 2 & 3)

Transcript:

Page 2:

[on Friday back to flying -]
…three cheers. It may
not be to Hendon
as that place is rather
crowded with newcomers. I rather hope it
is as we are not supposed to turn up till
Monday morning. If it's Hendon I can
go there on Friday, but if it is any
other place I shall have to spend the
weekend in town which as Enclitt says
'is absurd' as I have nowhere to go. I
might manage Newport-Pagnell but
it's rather far away. However it isn't
Friday yet. That joy ride at Hendon 
last weekend was very fine. The 
exhaust gases from the engine were 
coming back to me & though it was 
a bit difficult to breathe it was very 
warm and comfortable. At 3000 ft we 
went into a cloud & at once it got 
very cold. Then coming through it 
& above it we saw Hendon through a 
gap and we – came – down. 
down in about 1½ minutes something 
like the line across on the other page.
[The line on the other page shows a biplane following a steep spiral descent.]

Page 3:

It was gorgeous, no other word 
can describe it. I had a touch of 
cold feet at the bottom as Com[man]der 
Groves is notorious for his landings 
having smash[ed] innumerable 
machines. I thought we were 
going to crash straight into the 
ground but he flattened out 
perfectly touching the ground 
about 10 yds after flattening 
out. The machine, a 
Curtiss biplane, is a rather 
good flyer but has a weak 
landing-chassis. It looks 
something like this. 

[hand-drawn image of a biplane showing the all-important bolt beneath the wings, captioned]
One bolt to take all 
the strain.

My billiard playing is very
erratic: sometimes it is pretty
good helped on by most frightful
flukes: at other times I am [absolutely no use whatever].