“Yes,” cheerily commented an aviator—–­a clean-cut young Englishman—–­who was grooming the graceful plane.  “This very one crashed into the ground two weeks ago while going at over sixty miles an hour.  She is so strongly built that she was not hurt much and the pilot escaped without a scratch.  This is what we call a ‘hunter.’  She has an unbeaten record for speed—–­can show a clean pair of heels to anything in the air.  She has tremendous power; and the way she can climb into the clouds—–­my word!”

“Is she easy to fly?” asked Dicky Mann.

“Not bad,” was the answer.  “The high speed makes for a bust-up once in a while.  A pilot who gets going over one hundred and fifteen miles an hour, and yanks his machine up to six thousand feet in seven minutes, as he can do on this type of plane, and then drops straight down from that elevation, as the ‘hunter’ fellows have to do sometimes, puts a mighty big strain on his bus.  Little by little this sort of thing dislocates important parts.  Of course the pursuing game makes a pilot put his machine into all sorts of positions.  He has to jump at the other chap, sometimes, at an angle of ninety degrees.  I have known of cases where the air pressure caused by such a drop has been so great that the planes of one of these ‘hunters’ have been broken off with a snap.”

“Jiminy!” ejaculated Dicky.

At this the aviator laughed, saying smilingly:  “Accidents of some sort take place here several times a day.  If they didn’t we would not get on so fast either in the study of aeroplane construction or the art of flying itself.  Accidents tell us lots of things.  Between studying accidents and watching for Boche ideas, especially when we get hold of one of their late machines, we are never standing still at this game, I can tell you.”

“Do you get many German planes?” asked Jimmy Hill.

“We down lots of ’em, but we don’t get many—–­which is different,” and the aviator smiled.  “You see the Boche fliers stay their side, mostly, and when we drop one he goes down among his own lot.  Now the hostile hunters for instance, rarely go over our lines.  Their business apparently is to remain over their own territory.  That is their plan.  They are brave enough.  But the Germans look to their hunters chiefly to prevent our observers from doing their work.  They wait for our observation machines where they know the observers must come.  That is their game.  Just get some of the fellows who have been over recently, when you get up front a bit, to tell you how the new Fokkers hide themselves and pounce on our lot.