Flying low, and with his motor emitting a deep-throated roar, the airman comes tearing for a turn. Some distance before reaching the pylon, he will begin to “bank” his craft; he will, that is to say, incline downward his inner wing-tip. Were he not to heel his craft it would skid outwards through its pace, and swing wide at the turn, thus losing a second or so of time. Down, therefore, he dips this inner wing, until there may seem no more than a foot or so between it and the ground. The speed of the machine appears tremendous. It has come up out of the distance, growing larger moment by moment; and now it seems, as it rushes towards the pylon, as though it must strike this structure instead of wheeling past it. Those on the ground, indeed, standing at the turn, find this illusion strong: it seems to them certain that the airman will strike the tower. But he, seated midway between the planes, and with his eye ever watching his inner wing-tip, has a better view-point and a clearer means of judgment, than the watchers who are grouped beside the tower. Steeper he banks his planes, until they seem nearly vertical; and then, with a swift, powerful swing upon his rudder-bar, he sends his craft round. The inner wing-tip appears almost to be sweeping the turf at the foot of the tower. And those who may be standing against it, watching this flashing wing-tip, feel an instinct to recoil; it seems as though, with its fine-cut edge, it might sweep among them like a scythe. But in reality there is no risk. The airman, although he has swung for the turn at lightning speed, has displayed an accuracy that is perfect. A foot or two of clearance--no more--there may be between his wing-tip and the tower; but it is enough. In a flash he has circled and gone, and has whirled away towards another turn--the roar of his motor dwindling to a heavy drone. And so he flies for lap after lap, controlling his machine so superbly that it is difficult to realize that it is a man’s hand, and not some mechanism, that guides the craft upon its flight. A pylon on the flying track, with a craft circling it, is seen in Fig. 92, and a photograph of a biplane, “banking” heavily as it rounds a tower, on Plate XIV. [Illustration: FIG. 92.--A pylon, or mark-tower, on the flying track.] Often, after a close-flown race, two perfectly-handled monoplanes will rush round the last pylon and into the finishing straight, and roar together past the judge’s box in a flash of planes. There is an international speed race, for the Gordon-Bennett trophy, held every year, and to which reference was made in regard to the first contest in 1909. Then, it may be recalled, the speed of Curtiss the winner was less than 50 miles an hour. But, mainly by a use of more powerful engines, the pace of the competing craft has been increased very largely from year to year, as will be seen from the table below: