By Victor Buawerr In the "Sunday Express'
Ihave just flown at more than 400 miles an hour. No other newspaperman has ever reached this speed. The world's speed record is 440 mph. It was at once the most exhilarating and terrifying experience I ever had.
The speed itself, until I saw the felouds and the ground, felt no different from any other speed I have flown at. But the sudden feeling of crushing weight when the machine banked round in a turn at 300 m.p.h. was sheer nightmare horror.
I was watching the altimeter as we took off. As I looked I received the first impression of something unusual. The needle was racing round the dial like the second hand of a clock, checking off thousands of feet of height almost in instants. Down below, as I turned my head. I saw the ground visibly shrinking. A great hangar contracted as I looked at it. No other aeroplane I had ever flown climbed like this There was a white, pasty flash past the wings as we rocketed through 2 cloud layer and out into-the sunlight of the upper air. Still we climbed—ten, 15,000 thousand feet. Then we levelled out Engine Sereamed The throttle moved forward, Ahead of me the great supercharged engine roared into a scream, A touch on the control column and the nose dropped just a fraction below the horizon. We began a shallow dive. I watched the speed indicator. The sight was incredible. From 250 it moved on to 290, then 300—320—350—380. I couldn't believe it. Still the needle swept on—390—400.
I looked out. The cloud layer v rushing up at us. As I looked it smashed towards us, broke, became a flash of white oblivion—and then a bank of grey cloud far above our heads.
Earth lay below instead of cloud The contracting process was reversed. Before my eyes the ground grew ever larger. The altimeter needle spun round the other way, decreasing its height instead of increasing it. We checked the speed and pulled out of the dive. Once more we zoomed through the clouds.
Then the horror began. The monoplane was put into a steep, high speed turn, As it started I felt my entire body begin to grow heavier. Some gigantic, invisible force seemed to be pushing me down into my seat, not only from outside me, but from within. Breathing became difficult My power of thought began to go. I couldn't reason. A feeling of it tense physical distress started, I couldn't move my head. I was pinioned. The sun swam into my vision, It didn't blind me, but moved cross the sky like a cold, white globe. The horror increased. Incoherent chased themselves through my And then the sun began to flicker in a dreary grey light. Faster it flickered, and faster into a whirling nce that broke it up into solid pieces of darkness—a darkness that suddenly enveloped everything.
I had blacked out. My weight had increased so much that my heart could no longer pump blood to my brain. Suddenly I could see again.
We were coming out of the turn.
Darkness vanished. The grey flicker Weight Multiptied But I had lost all sense of perception. I did not know whether the machine was on its back or right way up. I did not care. Out on one side I could see the earth through broken clouds. On the other T could see the sky In that turn my weight had increased from twelve stone to 36 si through acceleration. The force that makes. this weight increase is called "G" by scientists. We went up to three "G"—three times gravity. This multiplies your weight by three. The force is caused through acceleration Very strong men have stood a force of nine "G" and jived—but this is A fit man cen go up to six—which means that if normally he weighs twelve stone, he weighs 72 stone under the force.
The throttle was cut, We came in to land. T lost all judgment of speeds below 150 miles an hour. The landing seemed ludicrously slow, I slid back the cabin cover and stepped out to think
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.