When comparing his feelings with
other aviators in later times, he learned that every one of them had
experienced exactly similar sensations the first time they passed out of
touch of land, and found the heaving sea alone beneath them. It was a
sort of air intoxication; Andy even called it sea-sickness, though
doubtless most of it came from imagination alone.
"There they go, Frank!" he called out, not ten minutes later.
The land was far behind them now, and still in the other three
directions they saw only the level surface of the great lake.
His exclamation was called out by a sudden change in the method of
advance adopted by those in the leading aeroplane. Instead of keeping
along in a direct line the biplane had uptilted and was now shooting
downward in what seemed a terribly perilous way; just as though the pair
of precious scoundrels had taken a notion to end the pursuit by seeking
a plunge into the water.
But both boys knew differently, and that this was only a volplane,
adopted by experienced and rash aviators as a means of reaching the
lower air currents more rapidly than by slow spirals; or else undertaken
when having engine trouble that threatens destruction.
Frank was ready to follow suit. It would not be the first time by long
odds that the Bird boys had accomplished this speedy method of
descending from high altitudes.
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