It may be well to explain here just what a spinning nose dive is. A few years ago the spinning nose dive was considered one of the most dangerous things a pilot could attempt, and many men were killed getting into this spin and not knowing how to come out of it. In fact, lots of pilots thought that when once you got into a spinning nose dive there was no way of coming out of it. It is now used, however, in actual flying. The machines that are used in France are controlled in two ways, both by hands and by feet, the feet working the yoke or rudder bar which controls the rudder that steers the machine. The lateral controls and fore and aft, which cause the machine to rise or lower, are controlled by a contrivance called a "joy-stick." If, when flying in the air, a pilot should release his hold on this stick, it will gradually come back toward the pilot. In that position the machine will begin to climb. So if a pilot is shot and loses control of this "joy-stick" his machine begins to ascend, and climbs until the angle formed becomes too great for it to continue or the motor to pull the plane; for a fraction of a second it stops, and the motor then being the heaviest, it causes the nose of the machine to fall forward, pitching down at a terrific rate of speed and spinning at the same time. If the motor is still running, it naturally increases the speed much more than it would if the motor were shut off, and there is great danger that the wings will double up, causing the machine to break apart. Although spins are made with the motor on, you are dropping like a ball being dropped out of the sky and the velocity increases with the power of the motor. This spinning nose dive has been frequently used in "stunt" flying in recent years, but is now put to practical use by pilots in getting away from hostile machines, for when a man is spinning, it is almost impossible to hit him, and the man making the attack invariably thinks his enemy is going down to certain death in the spin. This is all right when a man is over his own territory, because he can right his machine and come out of it; but if it happens over German territory, the Huns would only follow him down, and when he came out of the spin they would be above him, having all the advantage, and would shoot him down with ease. It is a good way of getting down into a cloud, and is used very often by both sides, but it requires skill and courage by the pilot making it if he ever expects to come out alive. A spin being made by a pilot intentionally looks exactly like a spin that is made by a machine actually being shot down, so one never knows whether it is forced or intentional until the pilot either rights his machine and comes out of it or crashes to the ground.