Famous Flyers and Their Famous Flights

Hal was cajoling now. “Aw, come on,Bob. We want to hear the end. Come on, tell us the rest.”

Bob bit into a huge slice of cake. Heshook his head. “Nope, no end.”

“Well, at least about the Caterpillar Club.At least you’ll tell us how Lindy saved hislife by bailing out. We’ve got to hear that.”

But Bob was adamant. “I’ve been insulted.I’m not going on. Anyway, Lindydidn’t save his life once by bailing out ofa plane.”

“He didn’t? You said a little while agothat he did.”

“I didn’t say once. He became eligibleto the Caterpillar Club four times.”

Hal looked at Bob with disgust. “I mustsay that you’re being very disagreeable.”

Captain Bill, who had been looking on inamusement, suddenly laughed very loudly.“Don’t coax him, Hal. He doesn’t needcoaxing. He’s going to tell the rest of thestory, don’t you worry. Wild horses couldn’tkeep him from finishing the tale. Couldthey, Bob, old man?”

Bob looked over at his uncle and grinned.“Why, you old sinner. What a way totalk about your favorite nephew. But nowthat you mention it, maybe I did intend tofinish the story, seeing that I’d started it.Now, where was I?”

Pat was clearing up the debris made byfour men eating a picnic lunch. “You’vegot Lindbergh at the Nebraska flying schoolfor a long time.”

“Oh, not very long,” said Bob. “You see,he stayed there really a short time. In fact,he never did any solo flying there.”

“Well, why not?” asked Hal.

“They asked for a five-hundred dollarbond from every student before he went upon his first solo flight. This seemed silly toLindy, and he left the school.

“When he left, he did what so many ofthe flyers were doing then. He went outwest, and did stunting, risking his neck atcounty fairs and air circuses to give the peoplea thrill. He did, too. He handled hisplane like a toy, doing rolls, tail spins, andevery kind of stunt imaginable. But themost exciting thing that he did, and it usuallyisn’t an exciting thing at all, was landinghis plane. He could land on a dime, andas lightly as a feather. That’s really piloting, isn’t it, Bill?”

“You bet,” said the Captain. He wassprawled out on his back, enjoying his afterdinner rest. “A landing will show you yourflyer’s ability every time. Provided, of course, that he has a fairly decent landing field. DidI ever tell you the story that Hawks tellsin his autobiography? Do you mind if Iinterrupt for just a minute, Bob?”

“Oh, no, go right ahead,” said Bob, witheringly.“Go right ahead. I was just tellinga story.”

“Thanks,” said Captain Bill with a grin.“I will. Well, it seems that Hawks wasstunting down in Mexico, and doing quitea bit of private flying. He got a commissionto fly a Congressman and a General,I think it was, back to their home town ofHuatemo. Have you ever heard of Huatemo?I thought not. Well, Huatemo hadnever seen an airplane close up, and the twohigh muckamucks decided that they’d givethe natives a thrill by coming back via plane.Hawks had them wire ahead to have a landingfield prepared. The native officials wiredthat they had a fine field, clear of all obstructions, but dotted with a few small trees.‘Fine, says Hawks, but have them removethe trees immediately.’ The natives said thatthis had been done, and the party started out.

“After several adventures, Hawks flewover Huatemo, and prepared to spiral downto the landing field. Imagine his chagrinand surprise, my dear boys, when he discovered, that the officials of Huatemo had indeedcut down the Huateman trees, but had leftthe stumps standing!”

“Whew,” said Bob. “What did he do, turn around?”

“No, he couldn’t. And anyway, therewas no other place to land. The field wassurrounded by dense forests. He had tomake it. He brought his plane down withouthitting a stump, and then zig-zaggedwildly from stump to stump like a croquetball trying to miss wickets. And he missedthem all, too, except one. The wheel hit itan awful smack, and collapsed. The planetilted up on its nose, and came to rest withits propeller in the ground and its tail wavinggayly in the air, not at all like a properplane should.”

“And killed them all,” said Pat.

“Who, Hawks? Not on your life. He’sa lucky fellow. Not one of them was hurt.They climbed out of the plane, and weregreeted by the natives, joyously and withacclaim. And not one of the natives seemedto suspect in the least that this wasn’t theway a plane should land. Or at least theway a crazy American would land a plane.”The Captain finished his story, and paused.

“Well,” said Bob grudgingly, “that wasa good story, too. But, as I was saying,Lindy was a good stunter, and a good flyer.He decided that he wanted a plane of hisown. He heard that there was going to bea sale of army planes down in Georgia, andhe went down and bought a Curtiss Jennywith the money that he had saved from hisstunting work. He fixed it up, and wassoon off barnstorming again. But I guessthe Jenny was too clumsy a boat for Lindy.He wanted to fly the newer, better planesthat the army had. So he joined the army’straining school at Brook Field, San Antonio.This was when he was 22 years old.

“I guess he got along pretty fine at SanAntonio, and he was sent down to the pursuitschool at Kelly Field. He joined theCaterpillar Club there. It was the first timethat he had to jump from a moving planeand get down with his parachute. I guessit was a pretty close shave.”

“Gee, how did it happen?” said Hal, hiseyes wide.

“Wait a second, I’m coming to it,” saidBob. “He and another officer were to goup and attack another plane that they calledthe enemy. It was a sort of problem theyhad to work out. Well, Slim dove at theenemy from the left, and the other fellowfrom the right. The enemy plane pulledup, but Lindy and the other officer kepton going, dead toward each other. Therewas an awful crack, and their wings locked.The two planes began to spin around anddrop through the air. Lindy did the onlything there was to do. He kept his head, stepped out on one of the damaged wings, and stepped off backwards. He didn’t pullthe rip-cord until he had fallen quite a way, because he didn’t want the ships to fall onhim. When he’d gone far enough, he pulledthe cord, and floated gently down. Thatwas the first.”

“And the second?” said Hal.

“The second,” went on Bob, “happened in1927, just about a year before Lindy flewthe Atlantic. He took a new type of planeup to test her. He put her through all thestunts that he could think of, and she stoodthem all right. It seemed as though shewas going to come through the test O.K., when Lindy put her into a tail spin. Theyspiraled down for a while, and Lindy triedto pull her out of it. She wouldn’t respondand went completely out of control. Lindytugged and yanked at the controls, but hecouldn’t get that bus to go into a dive. Hedid his best to save the ship, but it was nouse. He didn’t give up until they wereabout 300 feet from the ground, which isa mighty short distance to make a jump, ifyou ask me. But Lindy made it, andlanded in somebody’s back yard, the wind knockedout of him, but otherwise all right. Thatwas the second.”

“And the third?” asked Hal.

“We’re getting ahead of the story. Infact, we’re ahead of the story already. Beforehe made his second jump, Lindy hadjoined the Missouri National Guard, andwas promoted to a Captaincy in the Reserveand Flight Commander of the 110th ObservationSquadron. That’s how he got to bea Captain, you know how he got to be aColonel.

“Then Lindy joined the Robertson AircraftCorporation, at St. Louis. While hewas with them, he helped map out the firstmail route from St. Louis to Chicago, andwas the first pilot to carry mail along thisroute. Slim had a habit of starting thingsoff. He was the first to do a lot of things.No sitting back and waiting for others tostart things. It was first or nothing forhim. Maybe it was his Viking ancestors, Idon’t know.

“It was while he was flying this routethat Lindy had his third initiation into theCaterpillars. He took off one Septemberafternoon from Lambert Field, in St. Louis,on his way to Maywood. Just outside ofPeoria a fog rolled in, so thick you could cutit with a knife, Lindy could climb up overit for flying, but he couldn’t land blind. Hedropped a flare, but it only lit up a cloudbank. He saw lights, then, through thefog, and knew that he was around Maywood, but couldn’t get the exact location ofthe field. He’d circled around for two hours, when his engine sputtered and died. Thetank was dry. Lindy quickly turned on thereserve gravity tank. There was twentyminutes of flying in that tank, and Lindyhad to think fast.

“He tried flares again, but it was no use.When he had just a few minutes of gasleft, he saw the glow of a town. He didn’twant to take a chance on landing in a townand killing somebody, so he headed for opencountry. In a few minutes his engine died.Lindy stepped out into the blind fog andjumped. After falling a hundred feet, hepulled the rip-cord, and left the rest tochance. Every once in a while his ship appeared, twirling away in spirals, the outsideof the circle about 300 yards away fromLindy. He counted five spirals, and thenlost sight of the bus. He landed in a cornfield, shaken, of course, but all right. Hefound his way to the farm house, and toldthe farmer who he was. The farmer, whohad heard the crash of the plane as it smashedto earth wouldn’t believe that this safe andsound man was the pilot of it. Finally Lindyconvinced him, and they went in searchof the plane, which the farmer was sure hadlanded close to his house. They found ittwo miles away, looking not much like aplane, but a heap of rubbish. The mailwasn’t hurt. They got it to a train forChicago, and the mail went through. It alwaysdoes, you know.”

“Yup, it always does,” said Captain Bill.

“That reminds me of a story,” said Pat.

“Hold it,” said Bob. “I’ve got anotherparachute for Lindy.”

“Fire away,” said Pat. “But rememberto remind me not to forget to tell you myown story.”

“All right,” Bob put in. “Now the fourthtime Lindy jumped was not long before hisbig flight. He was still flying for Robertson’s, carrying mail to Chicago. Just southof Peoria he ran into rain that changed tosnow. Lindy flew around, waiting for thefog to lift, until he heard his motor sputterand die. He was up about 13,000 feet whenhe stepped out of the cockpit and jumpedinto the air. He landed on a barbed wirefence. Tore his shirt, but the plane waspretty much of a wreck. He grabbed theair mail; hurried to a train for Chicago, gotanother plane, and flew the mail through.A little late, but still, it got through. Andhe didn’t bat an eye. Not one of the jumpsfazed him a bit.

“But it wasn’t as though Lindy jumpedat the slightest sign of anything going wrong.He stayed with his plane until the very lastminute, doing everything he could to saveit. He hated worse than anything to havea plane smashed up. Look how long hestayed with that new plane he was testingout – until he was just 300 feet above theground.

“Well, Lindy was one of the best mail pilotsthat the Robertson corporation had, infact, he was their chief pilot. They coulddepend on him to go out in weather that noother pilot would think of bucking. Hedidn’t show off. Just knew that he couldfly through anything, and he did.

“At this time there was a lot of excitementin the air. Orteig was offering his $25,000prize for the first man to cross the Atlantic, and there were a lot of aviators whowould have liked the prize, and were tryingfor it. Of course, the money wasn’t thewhole thing. There was the honor attachedto it. And besides, there was the fact thatcrossing the Atlantic would make peoplesit up and take notice that flying wasn’t asdangerous as they thought. If a man couldfly all that distance in a plane, maybeplanes weren’t the death traps that some peoplehad an idea they were. Lindy must havebeen thinking of this when he first decidedthat he’d like to try for the Orteig prize. Becauseeverything that he’s done since his flighthas been to get people interested in aviation.

“But it takes money to fly across the ocean.You’ve got to get a special plane and allthat. Lindy had to have backers. Hecouldn’t get them at first. Everybody triedto discourage him. In the first place, helooked such a kid. He was twenty-five, andthat’s young, but he didn’t even looktwenty-five. The men he asked to back him allbut told him to run home and wait untilhe had grown up.

“Then Major Robertson, Lindy’s BigBoss, tried to get backers for him. He knewthat Lindy could fly and finally got some influentialmen to put up $15,000 for hisflight. Maybe Lindy wasn’t glad! He tuckedhis check in his pocket and went on ashopping trip for a plane. He tried theBellanca people in New York, but theydidn’t have what he wanted, so he skippedto San Diego to the Ryan Airways, Inc., and told them what he wanted. They puttheir engineers to work on his specifications, and designed him a Ryan monoplane, theneat stream-lined job that was christened theSpirit of St. Louis. It’s a graceful bird – butyou’ve all seen so many pictures of it, you know what it looks like. It has a wingspan of 46 feet, and an overall length ofover 27 feet. They put in a Wright engine – aWhirlwind, 200 horsepower. It’s aradial engine. You two probably know whata radial engine is, but Hal here doesn’t.”Bob paused and turned to Hal. “Do you?”

“Uh-uh,” grunted Hal. “Do you?”

“Of course I do. It’s one in which thecylinders aren’t in a straight line or in a V,but arranged around an axis, like the spokesof a wheel. Lindy’s plane had two sparkplugs for each cylinder, so that in case onemissed, there was another one ready. Shecould carry 450 gallons of gas and twentygallons of oil, and she was loaded to thegills when Lindy took her off the groundat the Field.

“Suppose Lindy wasn’t anxious aboutthat plane. He hung around the factoryall the time that it was being built, andmade suggestions to help along Hawley Bowlus, who built the thing. You know HawleyBowlus. The fellow who held the gliderrecord until Lindy took it away from him – butthat’s later. Bowlus knows how tobuild planes, and Lindy swears by him.

“Well, they got the plane finished in 60days, which isn’t bad time. Out in NewYork, Byrd and Chamberlin and the otherswere getting ready to fly the Atlantic. It’swasn’t really a race to see who would befirst, but of course, there’s no doubt thateach one was anxious to be the first manto cross the Atlantic. Because after all, nobody likes to be second. So Lindy had toget out to the east coast as fast as he could.He could hardly wait for the plane to befinished. But at last it was, and all theequipment in place. Lindy climbed into thecockpit to test her out. The cockpit was inclosed.I don’t know whether I told thatbefore or not. Anyway, he could see outlittle windows on each side, but he couldn’tsee ahead, or above him. So it was reallyflying blind all the time, except for a slidingperiscope that he could pull in or out at theside, in case he had to see straight ahead.But Lindy doesn’t mind blind flying. He’sa wonderful navigator.

“Well, Lindy turned over the motor ofhis new plane, and it sounded sweet. Hehadn’t got it any more than off the groundwhen he realized that this was the plane forhim. It responded to every touch, althoughit was a heavy ship, and not much goodfor stunting. But Lindy didn’t want tostunt. He wanted to fly to Europe.

“It was on May 10, I think, that heleft San Diego. It was in the evening, notquite six o’clock. The next morning, alittle after eight, he got into St. Louis. Tookhim just a bit over fourteen hours, the wholetrip. It was the longest cross-country hopthat any one man had made up to thattime. His old pals at Lambert Field werepretty glad to see him, and he spent thenight at his old stamping grounds. But hedidn’t stay long. Early in the morning hegot on his way, and made New York inthe afternoon, in not quite seven and a halfhours. Pretty flying.

“Nobody much had heard of Lindy untilhe started from San Diego. Of course, he’dbeen a dandy mail pilot, but they’re usuallyunnamed heroes. Nobody hears about them, and they never get their names in the paperunless they crash. Not that they care.They’ve got their jobs to do, and they dothem. But when Lindy flew that grand hopfrom San Diego to St. Louis to New York, people began to sit up and take notice. Hedidn’t say much after he got to the CurtissField.