Notes

June 1916. My plane began to fall out of the sky and I went into reflex action, remembering the many times I'd practised "what to do in the event of engine failure". Only this was not just a failed engine, this was a dead engine. And I was 10,000 feet above the ground in a machine that was suddenly heavier than the air I was flying in. I was fighting a losing battle against gravity. And then an even bigger horror... the German's bullets had cut through my fuel line and I was being sprayed with gasoline. It was every pilot's nightmare, to be trapped in a burning plane...