©Wide World Photos

“WE”

“WE”

BY
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH

THE FAMOUS FLIER’S OWN STORY OF HIS LIFE
AND HIS TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT, TOGETHER
WITH HIS VIEWS ON THE FUTURE OF AVIATION

WITH A FOREWORD BY
MYRON T. HERRICK
U. S. AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE

FULLY ILLUSTRATED

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK—LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1927

Copyright, 1927
by
Charles A. Lindbergh
This is a copy of the First Edition of “WE”

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

July, 1927

The
Knickerbocker
Press
New York

Made in the United States of America

Dedicated to
MY MOTHER
And to the Men Whose Confidence and
Foresight Made Possible the Flight of the
“SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS”

MR. HARRY H. KNIGHT
MAJOR WILLIAM B. ROBERTSON
MAJOR ALBERT BOND LAMBERT
MR. J. D. WOOSTER LAMBERT
MR. HAROLD M. BIXBY
MR. EARL C. THOMPSON
MR. HARRY F. KNIGHT
MR. E. LANSING RAY

FOREWORD

WHEN Joan of Arc crowned her King at Rheims she became immortal. When Lafayette risked his all to help the struggling Americans he wrote his memory forever across a mighty continent. Shepherd boy David in five minutes achieved with his sling a place in history which has defied all time.

These three shining names represent the triumph of the idealism of youth, and we would not speak of them with such reverence today had their motives been less pure or had they ever for an instant thought of themselves or their place in history.

So it was with Lindbergh, and all the praise awarded him, judged by the rigid standards of history and precedent, he has merited. He was the instrument of a great ideal and one need not be fanatically religious to see in his success the guiding hand of providence.

For he was needed and he came at the moment which seemed exactly prëordained. He was needed by France and needed by America, and had his arrival been merely the triumph of a great adventure the influence of his act would have gone no further than have other great sporting and commercial achievements.

There have been moments here in France when all that my eye could reach or my intelligence fathom appeared dark and foreboding and yet, in spite of all, my soul would be warmed as by invisible sunshine. At such times when all human efforts had apparently failed, suddenly the affairs of nations seemed to be taken from out of the hands of men and directed by an unseen power on high.

Just before the Battle of the Marne I was standing on the Seine embankment.

A great harvest moon was rising over the city near Notre Dame. It seemed to rest on the corner of a building. The French flag was blowing steadily across its face. In fleeting moments while this spectacle lasted people knelt on the quay in prayer. I inquired the meaning of these prayers. The answer was that there is a prophecy centuries old that the fate of France will finally be settled upon the fields where Attila’s horde was halted and driven back and where many battles in defence of France have been won. And pointing up the Seine to the French flag outlined across the moon people cried, “See, see the sign in heaven. It means the victory of French arms. The prophecy of old is come true and France is once again to be saved on those chalky fields.”

Now when this boy of ours came unheralded out of the air, and circling the Eiffel tower settled to rest as gently as a bird on the field at Le Bourget, I was seized with the same premonition as those French people on the quay that August night. I felt without knowing why, that his arrival was far more than a fine deed well accomplished, and there glowed within me the prescience of splendor yet to come. Lo! it did come and has gone on spreading its beneficence upon two sister nations which a now-conquered ocean joins.

For I feel with every fibre of my being that Lindbergh’s landing here marks one of the supreme moments in the history of America and France, and the faith we have in the deciding power of spiritual things is strengthened by every circumstance of his journey, by all his acts after landing, and by the electrical thrill which ran like some religious emotion through a whole vast population. “The Spirit of St. Louis” was to the French people another sign come out of the sky—a sign which bore the promise that all would be well between them and us.

What a happy inspiration it was to christen his ship with such a name! It brought as from on high a new spiritual message of peace and good-will, and it was more than a coincidence that Lindbergh should drop from his ship his farewell message to Paris on that spot, in the Place de la Concorde, where once the Spirit of Saint Louis was invoked in tragic circumstances. The priest who stood there beside King Louis the Sixteenth as the guillotine fell, cried defiantly to the assembled mob: “The Spirit of Saint Louis ascends to the skies.” With Lindbergh, out of the skies, the noble Spirit of Saint Louis came back to France.

France took Charles Lindbergh to her heart because of what he was and because of what she knew he represented. His little ship came to the meeting place of the greatest conference that has ever gathered between two nations, for under the shadow of its wings a hundred and fifty million Frenchmen and Americans have come together in generous accord. No diplomatic bag ever carried so stupendous a document as this all unaccredited messenger bore, and no visiting squadron ever delivered such a letter of thanks as he took up the Potomac in returning. Has any such Ambassador ever been known?

Lindbergh was not commissioned by our government any more than Lafayette was by his; in each case it has been merely left for statesmen to register and approve the vast consequences of their acts. Both arrived at the critical moment and both set in motion those imponderable forces which escape the standards of the politician’s mind. Who shall say but that they were God-sent messengers of help, smiling defiance of their faith at an all too skeptical world? What one accomplished has already changed history through a century; what the other has just done the people of America and France will take good care shall not be wasted.

The way Lindbergh bore himself after getting here was but the continuation of his flight. He started with no purpose but to arrive. He remained with no desire but to serve. He sought nothing; he was offered all. No flaw marked any act or word, and he stood forth amidst clamor and crowds the very embodiment of fearless, kindly, cultivated, American youth—unspoiled, unspoilable. A nation which breeds such boys need never fear for its future. When a contract for one million dollars was sent him through his associates he cabled back to them, “You must remember this expedition was not organized to make money but to advance aviation.” There is the measure of his spirit; the key to his intentions.

Flying was his trade, his means of livelihood. But the love of it burned in him with fine passion, and now that his fame will give him a wider scope of usefulness, he has announced that he will devote himself wholeheartedly to the advancement of aeronautics.

His first step in that direction is the publishing of this book, and no one can doubt that its influence will be of enormous value in pushing on man’s conquest of the air. It will be idle for me or anyone else to estimate now what these results will be. But America vibrates with glowing pride at the thought that out from our country has come this fresh spirit of the air and that the whole world hails Lindbergh not only as a brave aviator but as an example of American idealism, character and conduct.

Myron T. Herrick.

United States Embassy
Paris
June Sixteenth, 1927

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

“WE”

I
BOYHOOD AND EARLY FLIGHTS

I WAS born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1902. My father was practicing law in Little Falls, Minnesota, at the time. When I was less than two months old my parents took me to their farm, on the western banks of the Mississippi River two miles south of Little Falls.

My father, Charles A. Lindbergh, was born in Stockholm, Sweden, January 20, 1860, the son of Ola and Louisa Manson. His father (who changed his name to Lindbergh after reaching America) was a member of the Swedish Parliament and had at one time been Secretary to the King.

About 1860 my grandfather with his family embarked on a ship bound for America, and settled near Sauk Center, Minnesota, where he took up a homestead and built his first home in America—a log cabin. It was here that my father spent his early life.

The Rev. C. S. Harrison, writing for the Minnesota Historical Society, gives an account of the activities of my grandfather during the early days in Minnesota.

There were very few schools in Minnesota at that time, and my father’s boyhood days were spent mostly in hunting and fishing. His education consisted largely of home study with an occasional short term at country schools.

He was educated at Grove Lake Academy, Minnesota, and graduated from the law school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with an LL.B. degree.

He began his law practice in Little Falls where he served as County Attorney. He later became interested in politics, and was elected to the 60th Congress in 1906 to represent the Sixth District of Minnesota at Washington, a capacity in which he served for ten years.

© Wide World Photos

FATHER AND SON

© Wide World Photos

MADISON, WISC.—INSTRUCTOR AND CLASSMATES IN A MID-WESTERN MILITARY SCHOOL

My mother was born in Detroit, Michigan, daughter of Charles and Evangeline Land. She is of English, Irish and French extraction. As a graduate of the University of Michigan, she holds a B.S. degree from that institution, also an A.M. degree from Columbia University, New York City. Her father, Dr. Charles H. Land, a Detroit dentist, was born in Simcoe, Norfolk County, Canada, and his father, Colonel John Scott Land, came from England, and was one of the founders of the present city of Hamilton.

My grandfather was constantly experimenting in his laboratory. He held a number of patents on incandescent grates and furnaces, in addition to several on gold and enamel inlays and other dental processes. He was one of the first to foresee the possibilities of porcelain in dentistry, and later became known as “the father of porcelain dental art.”

During the first four years of my life, I lived in our Minnesota home with the exception of a few trips to Detroit. Then my father was elected to Congress and thereafter I seldom spent more than a few months in the same place. Our winters were passed in Washington, and our summers in Minnesota, with intermediate visits to Detroit.

When I was eight years of age I entered the Force School in Washington. My schooling was very irregular due to our constant moving from place to place. Up to the time I entered the University of Wisconsin I had never attended for one full school year, and I had received instruction from over a dozen institutions, both public and private, from Washington to California.

Through these years I crossed and recrossed the United States, made one trip to Panama, and had thoroughly developed a desire for travel, which has never been overcome.

My chief interest in school lay along mechanical and scientific lines. Consequently, after graduating from the Little Falls High School, I decided to take a course in Mechanical Engineering, and two years later entered the College of Engineering of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

While I was attending the University I became intensely interested in aviation. Since I saw my first airplane near Washington, D. C., in 1912, I had been fascinated with flying, although up to the time I enrolled in a flying school in 1922 I had never been near enough a plane to touch it.

The long hours of study at college were very trying for me. I had spent most of my life outdoors and had never before found it necessary to spend more than a part of my time in study.

At Wisconsin my chief recreation consisted of shooting-matches with the rifle and pistol teams of rival Universities, and in running around on my motorcycle which I had ridden down from Minnesota when I entered the University.

I had been raised with a gun on our Minnesota home, and found a place on the R.O.T.C. teams at the beginning of my freshman year at Wisconsin. From then on I spent every minute I could steal from my studies in the shooting gallery and on the range.

The first six weeks of vacation after my freshman year were spent in an Artillery School at Camp Knox, Kentucky. When that was over I headed my motorcycle south and with forty-eight dollars in my pocket, set out for Florida. After arriving at Jacksonville I started back the same day, but over a different route leading farther west than the first. Seventeen days after leaving Camp Knox I arrived back in Madison with a motorcycle badly in need of repair and nine dollars left in my pocket. After stopping in Madison long enough to overhaul the engine I went to Little Falls to spend the remainder of my vacation.

Soon after the start of my third semester at Wisconsin I decided to study aeronautics in earnest, and if, after becoming better acquainted with the subject, and it appeared to have a good future, I intended to take it up as a life work.

I remained at the University of Wisconsin long enough to finish the first half of my sophomore year. Then about the end of March, 1922, I left Madison on my motorcycle en route to Lincoln, Nebraska, where I had enrolled as a flying student with the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation.

The roads in Wisconsin in March, 1922, were not all surfaced and when, after leaving the well-paved highway, I had progressed only about four miles in as many hours, I put my motorcycle on the first farm wagon that passed and shipped it to Lincoln by rail at the next town.

I arrived at Lincoln on the first of April. On April 9, 1922, I had my first flight as a passenger in a Lincoln Standard with Otto Timm, piloting.

N. B. In the following account of flying during the post-war period of aviation, before flying laws and the Aeronautical Branch of the Department of Commerce came into existence, it should be borne in mind by the reader that the experiences and incidents related in this book in no way describe modern commercial flying conditions. Even in this account it will be noticed that the more spectacular events took place in such a manner that all risk was taken by the pilots and by members of the aeronautical profession; also that exhibition and test flying were responsible for most of these.

In the four emergency parachute jumps described herein, it is apparent that in each case the plane would never have been flown with passengers under the conditions which necessitated the jump.

Commercial air transport has developed rapidly during the last few years, until today it has reached a stage where the safety of properly operated airlines compares favorably with other means of travel.

I received my first instruction in the same plane a few days later under I. O. Biffle, who was known at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation as the most “hard boiled” instructor the army ever had during the war.

The next two months were spent in obtaining, in one way or another, my flying instruction, and in learning what I could around the factory, as there was no ground school in connection with the flying course at that time.

We did most of our flying in the early morning or late evening on account of the strong Nebraska winds in midday with their corresponding rough air which makes flying so difficult for a student.

I believe that I got more than my share of rough weather flying, however, because my instructor, or “Biff” as we used to call him, had certain very definite views on life, one of which was that early morning was not made as a time for instructors to arise. So as I was the only student and Biff my only instructor, I did very little early morning flying.

By the end of May I had received about eight hours of instruction which (in addition to the $500 cost of my flying course) had required about $150 for train fare and personal expenses.

One morning Biff announced that I was ready to solo, but the president of the company required a bond to cover possible breakage of the plane, which I was not able to furnish. As a result I did not take a plane up by myself until several months later.

Before I had entirely completed my flying course, the instruction plane was sold to E. G. Bahl, who was planning a barnstorming trip through southeastern Nebraska. I became acquainted with Bahl at Lincoln and offered to pay my own expenses if allowed to accompany him as mechanic and helper. As a result we barnstormed most of the Nebraska towns southeast of Lincoln together, and it is to him that I owe my first practical experience in cross country flying.

“Barnstorming” is the aviator’s term for flying about from one town to another and taking anyone who is sufficiently “airminded” for a short flight over the country. In 1922 the fare usually charged was five dollars for a ride of from five to ten minutes.

It was while I was flying with Bahl that I began to do a little “wing-walking.” We would often attract a crowd to the pasture or stubble field from which we were operating, by flying low over town while I was standing on one of the wing tips.

In June I returned to Lincoln and received a little more instruction, making a total of about eight hours.

About this time Charlie Harden, well known in the aeronautical world for his parachute work, arrived in Lincoln. I had been fascinated by the parachute jumps I had seen, and persuaded Ray Page to let me make a double drop with Harden’s chutes.

A double drop is made by fastening two parachutes together with rope. Both are then packed in a heavy canvas bag; the mouth of the bag is laced together and the lace ends tied in a bow knot. The bag is lashed half-way out on the wing of the plane, with the laced end hanging down. When the plane has reached sufficient altitude the jumper climbs out of the cockpit and along the wing to the chute, fastens the parachute straps to his harness, and swings down under the wing. In this position he is held to the plane by the bow knot holding together the mouth of the bag containing his parachute, the bag itself being tied securely to the wing. When ready to cut loose he pulls the bow knot allowing the bag to open and the parachute to be pulled out by his weight.

In a double jump, after the first parachute has fully opened, the jumper cuts the rope binding the second chute to the first. The first chute upon being relieved of his weight, collapses, and passes him on the way down.

I made my first jump one evening in June from an 1800-foot altitude over the flying field.

My first chute opened quickly, and after floating down for a few seconds I cut it loose from the second, expecting a similar performance. But I did not feel the comfortable tug of the risers which usually follows an exhibition jump. As I had never made a descent before, it did not occur to me that everything was not as it should be, until several seconds had passed and I began to turn over and fall head first. I looked around at the chute just in time to see it string out; then the harness jerked me into an upright position and the chute was open. Afterwards I learned that the vent of the second chute had been tied to the first with grocery string which had broken in packing the parachute, and that instead of stringing out when I cut loose, it had followed me still folded, causing a drop of several hundred feet before opening.

I remained in Lincoln for two weeks working in the Lincoln Standard factory for fifteen dollars a week. Then I received a wire from H. J. Lynch, who had purchased a Standard a few weeks before and taken it on a barnstorming trip into western Kansas. He was in need of a parachute jumper to fill a number of exhibition contracts in Kansas and Colorado, and wanted me to go with him in that capacity at a small fraction of its cost. Page offered me a new Harden Chute instead of my remaining flying instruction, and I took a train for Bird City, Kansas.

Lynch and myself barnstormed over western Kansas and eastern Colorado giving a number of exhibitions from time to time, in which I usually made a jump and did a little wing-walking.

In the fall, together with “Banty” Rogers, a wheat rancher who owned the plane, we set out for Montana. Our course took us through a corner of Nebraska and then up through Wyoming along the Big Horn Mountains and over Custer’s Battle Field. At one time in Wyoming we were forced to land, due to motor trouble, near a herd of buffalo, and while Lynch was working on the motor I started over towards the animals to get a picture. I had not considered that they might object to being photographed, and was within a hundred yards of them when an old bull looked up and stamped his foot. In a moment they were all in line facing me with lowered heads. I snapped a picture but lost no time in returning to the plane. Meanwhile Lynch had located our trouble and we took-off.

© Donald A. Hall

SHIPPING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS”

© Erickson

THE MEN WHO MADE THE PLANE. LEFT TO RIGHT: WILLIAM H. BOWLUS, FACTORY MANAGER, RYAN AIRLINES; B. FRANKLIN MAHONEY, PRESIDENT, RYAN AIRLINES; CHARLES A. LINDBERGH; DONALD A. HALL, CHIEF ENGINEER AND DESIGNER; A. J. EDWARDS, SALES MANAGER

After we had been in Billings, Montana, about a week, Lynch traded ships with a pilot named Reese, who was flying a Standard belonging to Lloyd Lamb of Billings. Lynch and I stayed in Montana while Reese returned to Kansas with Rogers.

We barnstormed Montana and northern Wyoming until mid-October including exhibitions at the Billings and Lewistown fairs.

At the Lewistown fair we obtained a field adjoining the fairgrounds and did a rushing business for three days. We had arranged for the fence to be opened to the grounds and for a gateman to give return tickets to anyone who wished to ride in the plane. All this in return for a free parachute drop.

At Billings, however, our field was some distance from the fair and we decided to devise some scheme to bring the crowd out to us. We stuffed a dummy with straw and enough mud to give it sufficient falling speed to look like a human being.

When the grandstands were packed that afternoon we took-off from our field with the dummy in the front cockpit with me. I went out on the wing and we did a few stunts over the fairgrounds to get everyone’s attention, then Lynch turned the plane so that no one could see me on the wing and we threw out the dummy. It fell waving its arms and legs around wildly and landed near the Yellowstone River.

We returned to our field and waited expectantly for the curious ones to come rushing out for information, but two hours later, when a few Montanans did arrive, they told us about one of the other attractions—a fellow who dived from an airplane into the Yellowstone River which was about three feet deep at that point. That was the last time we attempted to thrill a Montana crowd.

The barnstorming season in Montana was about over in October and soon after returning from Lewistown I purchased a small boat for two dollars. After patching it up a bit and stopping the larger leaks, I started alone down the Yellowstone River on the way to Lincoln.

The river was not deep and ran over numerous rapids which were so shallow that even the flat bottom of my small boat would bump over the rocks from time to time. I had been unable to purchase a thoroughly seagoing vessel for two dollars, and very little rough going was required to knock out the resin from the cracks and open the old leaks again.

I had my camping equipment lashed on top of one of the seats to keep it dry, and as I progressed downstream through the ever-present rapids, more and more of my time was required for bailing out the boat with an old tin can, until at the end of the first day, when I had travelled about twenty miles, I was spending fully half of my time bailing out water.

I made camp that night in a small clearing beside the river. There had been numerous showers during the day, which thoroughly soaked the ground, and towards evening a steady drizzling rain set in.

I pitched my army pup tent on the driest ground I could find and, after a cold supper, crawled in between the three blankets which I had sewn together to form a bag.

The next morning the sky was still overcast but the rain had stopped, and after a quick breakfast I packed my equipment in the boat and again started down the river.

The rain set in anew, and this together with the water from the ever-increasing leaks in the sides and bottom of the boat required such constant bailing that I found little use for the oars that day. By evening the rocks had taken so much effect that the boat was practically beyond repair.

After a careful inspection, which ended in the conclusion that further progress was not feasible, I traded what was left of the boat to the son of a nearby rancher in return for a wagon ride to the nearest town, Huntley, Montana. I expressed my equipment and bought a railroad ticket to Lincoln, where I had left my motorcycle.

A short time before I had left Lincoln, while I was racing with a car along one of the Nebraska country roads, a piston had jammed and I had not found time to replace it. Accordingly, after returning from Montana, I spent several days overhauling the machine before proceeding on to Detroit where I was to meet my mother.

I made the trip to Detroit in three days and after spending about two weeks there I took a train for Little Falls to clear up some business in connection with our farm.

During the winter months I spent part of my time on the farm and part in Minneapolis with my father. Occasionally we would drive the hundred miles from Minneapolis to Little Falls together.

In March, 1923, I left Minnesota and after a short visit in Detroit, departed on a train bound for Florida. My next few weeks were spent in Miami and the Everglades.

II
MY FIRST PLANE

SINCE I had first started flying at Lincoln, the year before, I had held an ambition to own an airplane of my own. So when I took my last flight with Lynch in Montana, and started down the Yellowstone, I had decided that the next spring I would be flying my own ship.

Consequently when April arrived, I left Miami and went to Americus, Georgia, where the Government had auctioned off a large number of “Jennies,” as we called certain wartime training planes. I bought one of these ships with a new Curtis OX-5 motor and full equipment for five hundred dollars. They had cost the Government nearly twice as many thousands, but at the close of the war the surplus planes were sold for what they would bring and the training fields were abandoned. Americus, Georgia, was a typical example of this. The planes had been auctioned for as little as fifty dollars apiece the year before. A few days after I arrived, the last officer left the post and it took its place among the phantom airports of the war.

I lived alone on the post during the two weeks my plane was being assembled, sometimes sleeping in one of the twelve remaining hangars and sometimes in one of the barracks buildings. One afternoon a visiting plane arrived and Reese stepped out of the cockpit. I had not heard from him since we had traded planes in Montana, and he stayed with me on the post that night while we exchanged experiences of the previous year.

One of the interesting facts bearing on the life of aviators is that they rarely lose track of one another permanently. Distance means little to the pilot, and there is always someone dropping in from somewhere who knows all the various flyers in his section of the country, and who is willing to sit down and do a little “ground flying” with the local pilots. In this way intimate contact is continually established throughout the clan. (“Ground flying” is the term used to designate the exchange of flying experiences among airmen.)

I had not soloed up to the time I bought my Jenny at Americus, although at that time the fact was strictly confidential.

After my training at Lincoln I had not been able to furnish the required bond and, although I had done a little flying on cross country trips with Bahl and Lynch, I had never been up in a plane alone. Therefore when my Jenny was completely assembled and ready to fly I was undecided as to the best method of procedure. No one on the field knew that I had never soloed. I had not been in a plane for six months; but I did not have sufficient money to pay for more instruction, so one day I taxied to one end of the field, opened the throttle and started to take-off. When the plane was about four feet off the ground, the right wing began to drop, so I decided that it was time to make a landing. I accomplished this on one wheel and one wing skid but without doing any damage to the ship. I noticed that the wind was blowing hard and suddenly decided that I would wait for calmer weather before making any more flights and taxied back to the hangar.

A pilot who was waiting for delivery on one of the Jennies offered to give me a little dual instruction, and I flew around with him for thirty minutes and made several landings. At the end of this time he taxied up to the line and told me that I would have no trouble and was only a little rusty from not flying recently. He advised me to wait until evening when the air was smooth and then to make a few solo flights.

When evening came I taxied out from the line, took one last look at the instruments and took-off on my first solo.

The first solo flight is one of the events in a pilot’s life which forever remains impressed on his memory. It is the culmination of difficult hours of instruction, hard weeks of training and often years of anticipation. To be absolutely alone for the first time in the cockpit of a plane hundreds of feet above the ground is an experience never to be forgotten.

After a week of practice flights around Southern Field I rolled my equipment and a few spare parts up in a blanket, lashed them in the front cockpit and took-off for Minnesota.

This was my first cross country flight alone, less than a week after my solo hop. Altogether I had less than five hours of solo time to my credit. I had, however, obtained invaluable experience the year before while flying around in the western states with Biffle, Bahl, and Lynch.

While learning to fly in Nebraska the previous spring, I discovered that nearly every pilot in existence had flown in Texas at one time or another during his flying career. Accordingly I decided that, at the first opportunity I would fly to Texas myself and although I travelled a rather roundabout way from Georgia to Minnesota, my course passed through Texarkana en route.

The first hop was from Americus to Montgomery, Alabama, and passed over some fairly rough territory of which both Georgia and Alabama have their share.

I had been warned before leaving the field, that the airline course to Texas was over some of the “worst flying country in the south” and had been advised to take either a northern course directly to Minnesota or to follow the Gulf of Mexico. This advice served to create a desire to find out what the “worst flying country in the south” looked like. I had a great deal of confidence in my Jenny with its powerful OX-5 engine, and it seemed absurd to me at that time to detour by airplane. Consequently I laid my route in the most direct line possible to conform with my limited cruising range with forty gallons of fuel.

The flight to Montgomery was uneventful. I landed at the army field there before noon, filled the fuel tanks and took-off again for Meridian, Mississippi.

I arrived over Meridian in late afternoon and for the first time was faced with the problem of finding a suitable field and landing in it.

An experienced pilot can see at a glance nearly everything necessary to know about a landing field. He can tell its size, the condition of the ground, height of grass or weeds, whether there are any rocks, holes, posts or ditches in the way, if the land is rough and rolling or flat and smooth; in short whether the field is suitable to land in or if it would be advisable to look for another and better one. In fact, the success of a barnstorming pilot of the old days was measured to a large extent by his artfulness in the choice of fields from which to operate. Often, in case of motor failure, the safety of his passengers, himself, and his ship depended upon his alertness in choosing the best available landing place and his ability in maneuvering the plane into it. If his motor failure was only partial or at high altitude, time was not so essential, as a plane can glide a great distance, either with a motor which only “revs” down a couple of hundred R.P.M. or without any assistance from the engine at all. The average wartime machine could glide at least five times its height, which meant that if it was five thousand feet above the ground the pilot could pick a field to land in five miles away with safety; but if the failure was soon after the take-off, then instant decision and immediate action were necessary.

An amateur, on the other hand, has not overcome the strangeness of altitude, and the ground below looks entirely different than it does from the air, although there is not the sensation, in an airplane, of looking down as from a high building. Hills appear as flat country, boulders and ditches are invisible, sizes are deceptive and marshes appear as solid grassland. The student has not the background of experience so essential to the successful pilot, yet his only method of learning lies in his own initiative in meeting and overcoming service conditions.

There was no regular airport in Meridian in 1923, and a few fields available for a reasonably safe landing. After a half hour’s search I decided on the largest pasture I could see, made the best kind of a short field landing I knew how by coming down just over the treetops, with the engine wide open, to the edge of the field, then cutting the gun and allowing the ship to slow down to its landing speed. This method brings the plane in with tremendous velocity and requires a much larger landing field than is necessary, but until the pilot has flown long enough to have the “feel” of his ship it is far safer to come in fast than too slow.

It had been raining at Meridian and the field was a little soft, so that when my “Jenny” finally did settle to the ground it had a very short roll and there was still some clear ground in front.

I taxied up to a fence corner alongside of a small house and proceeded to tie down for the night. I had gained considerable respect for the wind in Kansas and Nebraska, so after turning off the gasoline and letting the motor stop by running the carburetor dry, (a safety expedient to keep the ever-present person who stands directly under the propeller while he wiggles it up and down, from becoming an aeronautical fatality) I pushed the nose of the plane up to a fence and after blocking the wheels securely, tied each wing tip to a fence post and covered the motor and cockpit with a canvas in case of rain.

By this time the usual barnstorming crowd had gathered and I spent the remaining daylight explaining that the hole in the radiator was for the propeller shaft to go through; that the wings were not made of catgut, tin, or cast iron, but of wood framework covered with cotton or linen shrunk to drum tightness by acetate and nitrate dope; that the only way to find out how it feels to fly was to try it for five dollars; that it was not as serious for the engine to stop as for a wing to fall off; and the thousand other questions which can only be conceived in such a gathering.

As night came on and the visibility decreased the crowd departed, leaving me alone with a handful of small boys who always remain to the last and can only be induced to depart by being allowed to follow the aviator from the field.

I accepted an invitation to spend the night in the small house beside the field.

The next morning I telephoned for a gas truck to come out to the field and spent the time before the truck arrived in the task of cleaning the distributor head, draining the carburetor jet wells and oiling the rocker arms on the engine.

While I was working, one of the local inhabitants came up and volunteered the information that he had been a pilot during the war but had not flown since and “wouldn’t mind takin’ a ride again.” I assured him that much as I would enjoy taking him up, flying was very expensive and that I did not have a large fund available to buy gasoline. I added that if he would pay operating costs, which would be five dollars for a short ride, I would be glad to accommodate him. He produced a five dollar bill and after warming up the motor I put him in the cockpit and taxied through the mud to the farthest corner of the field. This was to be my first passenger.

The field was soft and the man was heavy; we stalled over the fence by three feet and the nearest tree by five. I found myself heading up a thickly wooded slope, which was sloping upward at least as fast as I was climbing in that direction and for three minutes my Jenny and the slope fought it out over the fifteen feet of air between them. Eventually, however, in the true Jenny style we skimmed over the hilltop and obtained a little reserve altitude. I had passed through one of those almost-but-not-quite accidents for which Jennies are so famous and which so greatly retarded the growth of commercial flying during the post-war period.

© Wide World Photos

ST. LOUIS, MO.—FINANCIAL BACKERS OF THE NON-STOP NEW YORK TO PARIS FLIGHT
UPPER ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: HAROLD M. BIXBY, HARRY HALL KNIGHT, HARRY F. KNIGHT, MAJOR A. B. LAMBERT
LOWER ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: J. D. WOOSTER LAMBERT, MAJOR WILLIAM B. ROBERTSON, E. LANSING RAY, EARL C. THOMPSON

© Wide World Photos

FUSELAGE FRAME OF THE PLANE

I decided that my passenger was entitled to a good ride after that take-off and kept him up chasing a buzzard for twenty minutes. After we landed he commented on the wonderful take-off and how much he enjoyed flying low over the treetops; again assured me that he had flown a great deal in the war; and rushed off to tell his friends all about his first airplane ride.

The gasoline truck had arrived and after servicing the ship I took-off again and headed west. I had no place in mind for the next stop and intended to be governed by my fuel supply in picking the next field.

The sky was overcast with numerous local storms. I had brought along a compass, but had failed to install it on the instrument board, and it was of little use in a suitcase out of reach. The boundary lines in the south do not run north and south, east and west as they do in the Northern states but curve and bend in every conceivable direction, being located by natural landmarks rather than meridians and parallels. I was flying by a map of the entire United States, with each state relatively small.

I left Meridian and started in the direction of Texas, cutting across country with no regard for roads or railways. For a time during the first hour I was not sure of my location on the map, but soon passed over a railway intersection which appeared to be in the proper place and satisfied me about my position. Then the territory became wilder and again I saw no checkpoints. The storm areas were more numerous and the possible landing fields farther apart, until near the end of the second hour I decided to land in the first available field to locate my position and take on more fuel. It required nearly thirty more minutes to find a place in which a plane could land and take-off with any degree of safety, and after circling the field several times to make sure it was hard and contained no obstacles, I landed in one corner, rolled down a hillside, taxied over a short level stretch, and came to rest half-way up the slope on the far side of the field.

A storm was approaching rapidly and I taxied back towards the fence corner at rather high speed. Suddenly I saw a ditch directly in front of me and an instant later heard the crash of splintering wood as the landing gear dropped down and the propeller came in contact with the ground. The tail of the plane rose up in the air, turned almost completely over, then settled back to about a forty-five degree angle. My first “crack-up”!

I climbed out of the cockpit and surveyed the machine. Actually the only damage done was to the propeller, and although the wings and fuselage were covered with mud, no other part of the plane showed any marked signs of strain. I had taxied back about thirty feet east of the landing tracks and had struck the end of a grass-covered ditch. Had I been ten feet farther over, the accident would never have happened. The usual crowd was assembling, as the impact of the “prop” with the ground had been heard in all of the neighboring fields and an airplane was a rare sight in those parts.

They informed me that I was half-way between Maben and Mathiston, Mississippi, and that I had flown one hundred and twenty-five miles north instead of west.

When enough men had assembled we lifted the plane out of the ditch, pushed it over to a group of pine trees and tied it down to two of the trees. After removing all loose equipment I rode into Maben with one of the storekeepers who had locked up his business when he heard about the landing of the plane.

I wired Wyche at Americus to ship me one of the two propellers I had purchased before leaving, then engaged a room at the old Southern Hotel.

While waiting for the propeller I had extracted promises from half a dozen citizens to ride at five dollars each. This would about cover the cost of the “prop,” as well as my expenses while waiting for it to arrive. When it did come I put it on the shaft between showers, with the assistance of most of Maben and Mathiston. I gave the plane a test flight and announced that I was ready to carry passengers when it was not raining too hard.

The Mississippians who were so anxious to fly when the propeller was broken immediately started a contest in etiquette. Each and every one was quite willing to let someone else be first and it required psychology, diplomacy, and ridicule before the first passenger climbed into the cockpit. I taxied over to the far corner of the field, instructed my passenger how to hold the throttle back to keep the ship from taking off, and lifted the tail around in order to gain every available foot of space for the take-off.

The first man was so audibly pleased with his ride that the others forgot their manners of a few minutes before and began arguing about who was to be next.

That afternoon a group of whites chipped in fifty cents apiece to give one of the negroes a hop, provided, as they put it, I would do a few “flip flops” with him. The negro decided upon was perfectly willing and confident up to the time when he was instructed to get in; even then he gamely climbed into the cockpit, assuring all of his clan that he would wave his red bandanna handkerchief over the side of the cockpit during the entire flight in order to show them that he was still unafraid.

After reaching the corner of the field I instructed him, as I had the previous passengers, to hold the throttle back while I was lifting the tail around. When I climbed back in my cockpit I told him to let go and opened the throttle to take-off. We had gone about fifty yards when it suddenly occurred to him that the ship was moving and that the handle he was to hold on to was not where it should be. He had apparently forgotten everything but that throttle, and with a death grip he hauled it back to the closed position. We had not gone far enough to prevent stopping before reaching the other end of the field and the only loss was the time required to taxi back over the rough ground to our starting point. Before taking off the next time, however, I gave very implicit instructions regarding that throttle.

I had promised to give this negro a stunt ride yet I had never had any instruction in aerobatics. I had, however, been in a plane with Bahl during two loops and one tailspin. I had also been carefully instructed in the art of looping by Reese who, forgetting that I was not flying a Hisso standard with twice the power of my Jenny, advised me that it was not necessary to dive excessively before a loop but rather to fly along with the motor full on until the plane gathered speed, then to start the loop from a level flying position.

I climbed up to three thousand feet and started in to fulfill my agreement by doing a few airsplashes, steep spirals and dives. With the first deviation from straight flight my passenger had his head down on the floor of the cockpit but continued to wave the red handkerchief with one hand while he was holding on to everything available with the other, although he was held in securely with the safety belt.

Finally, remembering my ground instructions, I leveled the plane off and with wide open motor waited a few moments to pick up maximum speed, then, slowly pulling back on the stick I began to loop. When I had gotten one-fourth of the way around, the ship was trembling in a nearly stalled position; still, the Curtiss motor was doing its best and it was not until the nose was pointing directly skyward at a ninety degree angle that the final inertia was lost and for an instant we hung motionless in the perfect position for a whipstall. I kicked full right rudder immediately to throw the plane over on its side but it was too late, the controls had no effect.

The Negro meanwhile decided that the “flip flops” were over and poked his head over the side of the cockpit looking for mother earth. At that instant we whipped. The ship gathered speed as it slid backwards towards the ground, the air caught the tail surfaces, jerked them around past the heavier nose and we were in a vertical dive; again in full control, but with no red handkerchief waving over the cockpit. I tried another loop in the same manner but just before reaching the stalling point in the next one I kicked the ship over on one wing and evaded a whipstall. After the second failure I decided that there must be something wrong with my method of looping and gave up any further attempt for that afternoon. But it was not until we were almost touching the ground that the bandanna again appeared above the cowling.

I remained in Maben for two weeks carrying over sixty passengers in all or about three hundred dollars worth. People flocked in from all over the surrounding country, some travelling for fifteen miles in oxcarts just to see the plane fly.

One old negro woman came up and asked,—

“Boss! How much you all charge foah take me up to Heaben and leave me dah?”

I could have carried many more passengers but it rained nearly every day and each flight rutted the field badly. When I landed it was necessary to pass over a soft spot between two hillsides, and before taking off I had to taxi back over this soft place on the way to the far corner of the field. During the last few days several men were required on each wing to push the plane through the mud to the hillside beyond. Another difficulty was that the old black wartime rubber shock absorber card had deteriorated to such an extent that I replaced it with hemp rope and taxi-ing over the harder parts of the field was a very rough procedure, especially since the ground had been plowed in years gone by and allowed to grow sod without being harrowed.

I made several attempts to find another suitable field nearby but there was none from which I could safely operate.

Landing fields are of primary importance to safety in aviation. It is not a question of how small a field a plane can operate from, but rather of how large a field is necessary to make that operation safe.

Large and well equipped airports situated close to cities will go far towards developing commercial airlines and keeping the United States at the top in aeronautical activity.

The cities who foresee the future of air transportation and provide suitable airports will find themselves the center of airlines radiating in every direction.

When an airline is organized, one of the primary considerations is the condition and location of the various landing fields where terminals are contemplated. If the airport is small and in poor condition, or if a passenger must of necessity spend nearly as much time in traveling from the business district out to the field as it will require for him to fly from the field to his destination, then it is very probable that some other city will be selected for the stopping point.

The condition of the field together with the fact that after a heavy rain it was often necessary to carry gasoline in five gallon cans a mile and a half over the railroad tracks by hand forced me to leave Maben and a large number of would-be passengers behind, and early one morning I took-off for the last time and again headed for Texas.

III
BARNSTORMING EXPERIENCES

I HAD strayed over a hundred miles off my course and experienced a minor crack-up, but I departed with two hundred and fifty more dollars in my pocket than I had arrived with, besides confidence in my ability to make at least a little more than expenses by barnstorming.

The constant rains had filled the rivers to overflowing, and after leaving Maben I flew over flooded territory nearly all the way to Lake Village, Arkansas. Often the water was up to the second story windows of the farmhouses, and a forced landing at any time would have at least meant nosing over.

I had installed the compass while waiting for the new propeller at Maben, and experienced no further difficulty in holding my course.

After circling Lake Village I landed in a field several miles north of town. The nearest building was a clubhouse and soon the keeper and his family had arrived beside the plane. They invited me to stay with them as long as I wished, but the keeper persistently refused to accept a flight in return for his hospitality. I carried only a handful of passengers that afternoon. The flying territory around that part of the country was fairly good and there were a number of fields available for planes to land in. Consequently an airplane was no longer the drawing attraction that it was farther in the interior.

I staked the plane down much earlier than usual and went over to the clubhouse.

Evening came on with the clearness of a full moon and open sky. The landscape was illuminated with a soft yellow light; an ideal night for flying. I decided to see what the country looked like from the air at night and jokingly asked my host to accompany me. To my surprise he willingly agreed. For some reason he had no fear of a night flight although I had been unable to persuade him to go up with me in the daytime. What his reaction would have been, had he known that I had never flown after dark before, is a matter of speculation.

We untied the plane, removed the canvases from engine and cockpit, and after a few minutes spent in warming up the motor, taxied down the field and took-off for a moonlight flight down the Mississippi and over Lake Village.

Later in the evening after the ship was again securely staked to the ground and we were sitting quietly in the clubhouse, my host stated that he had never spent a more enjoyable quarter of an hour in his life.

The next morning I was again heading towards Texas against a strong westerly wind which retarded the speed of the Jenny so greatly that even with my double fuel capacity it was necessary to land at Farmerville, Louisiana, to replenish my supply. From there I flew to Texarkana and landed between the stumps of the 1923 airport.

On the following morning I left Texarkana with a strong tail wind and after crossing the western end of the Ozark mountains, landed near a small town in north eastern Oklahoma where I took on a fresh supply of fuel and again headed north towards Lincoln, Nebraska.

My tanks began to run low about half-way through Kansas and I picked out a hillside near Alma. After flying low and dragging the field several times I came in for a landing, but just as the wheels were about to touch the ground I discovered that it was covered with fairly large rocks half hidden in the tall grass. I opened the throttle to take-off but the plane had lost too much speed for the motor to take effect and as it struck the ground the left wing hooked in the rocks and groundlooped the ship to the left but without doing serious damage. The landing gear wires were strained and about two feet of the rear spar on the lower left wing tip was snapped off. Nothing was broken however which would require immediate repairing.

© Erickson

WORKING ON NAVIGATION CHARTS FOR FLIGHT

© Erickson

INSTRUMENT BOARD OF THE PLANE

The field was quite a distance from Alma and in order to get an early start in the morning I stayed with the ship that night. During the heavy rains at Maben, Mississippi, I had constructed a hammock of heavy canvas which could be suspended under the top wing.

I tied the corners of this hammock to the upper strut fittings and crawled into the three blankets inside which were sewn up to form a bag. Thus I spent a comfortable night.

When I arrived over Lincoln the next day I circled over the Lincoln Standard factory, and after landing on the old flying field south of town, waited for the car which was sent out to bring in visiting airmen.

The remainder of the day was spent in “ground flying” with my friends in the factory. We had not been together for seven months and the usual exchange of experiences was necessary.

I soon learned that Bud Gurney had made a parachute for himself and was intending to test it by the simple method of going up to an altitude of fifteen hundred or two thousand feet and cutting loose from the plane. If the chute opened it was successful.

After a great deal of persuasion I prevailed upon him to let me take him up in my ship while we made the first test with a sand bag.

The tanks had just been filled with fuel but I had unlimited confidence in my Jenny and we lashed the parachute and a sandbag on the right wing. Bud, who weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds himself, climbed into the front cockpit and we started to take-off with a total load of about six hundred pounds, to say nothing of the resistance of the parachute and sandbag which were directly in the slipstream from the propeller.

Even with this load we cleared the nearest obstacle by a safe margin and finally attained an altitude of about two hundred feet. Then we were caught by a descending current of air which carried the plane down to within ten feet of the ground, and try as I would I could not get any higher. A wooded hill was directly in front, and to avoid striking the trees I turned down wind. A railroad tressle was then in front of us and we stalled over it by inches. For five minutes we dodged hills, trees, and houses. I signaled Bud to cut the sandbag, but when he started to climb out of the cockpit to reach it, the added resistance brought the plane down still lower. Then in front of us appeared a row of trees, much higher than the rest, which I knew it would not be possible to get over. We were then passing over a grain field and I cut the gun and landed down wind. The grain was high enough to keep the ship from rolling far and we unloaded the handbag before taking off again. With the weight of the bag and its resistance gone, we had no trouble in getting out of the grain and back to the flying field.

A week later Bud carried out his original intention of testing the chute. It was successful.

Before continuing the flight to Minnesota, Bud and I made a short barnstorming trip through eastern Nebraska. That territory had been fairly well covered by other barnstormers, however, and we did very little business.

At one place where we landed we were overtaken by a violent thunderstorm combined with a strong wind. It came up so suddenly that we had only time enough to tail the ship into the wind and lash the stick to keep the ailerons from whipping before the wind struck us. We were both holding on to the tail trying to keep the plane from blowing away. Following the wind was a heavy rain which covered the ground with water and at each flash of lightning the electricity on the wires of the ship would pass to the ground through our bodies with the intensity of a booster magnet.

In an electric storm a plane acts as part of a condenser, since it is insulated from the ground by the rubber tires and wooden tailskid. It is possible to receive a violent shock by standing on wet ground and holding on to one of the wires.

We were unable to let go of the ship in the high wind and could only remain and take these discharges as they came. Fortunately the storm did not last long.

The night after our return to Lincoln we slept on the field so that I could get a good start in the morning. Bud was in the back of a Ford truck, and I was in the hammock.

The next morning was overcast with local showers which were visible in every direction. I took off soon after daybreak and after flying through several storms landed in a hayfield at Forest City, Iowa, where I serviced the ship between showers and took off on the final flight to Shakopee, Minnesota, where I expected to meet my father and carry him around on his campaign.

I found Shakopee covered by a cloudburst and in flying around waiting for the storm to pass so that I could land I got into a heavy shower near Savage. One of the cylinders cut out, and I was circling preparatory to landing in a clover field when two more stopped firing. I was flying at less than a two hundred foot altitude and loosing that rapidly. It was necessary to land immediately but the only choice of landing places lay between a swamp and high trees. I took the swamp and cut the throttle. When the wheels touched earth they rolled about twenty feet, sank into the spreader bar and we nosed over.

The rudder did not quite touch the swamp grass and the plane stopped after passing through three-quarters of a semi-circle, with the radiator cap and top wing resting on the ground. I was hanging on the safety belt but when I tried to open the clasp with one hand, holding on with the other to keep from falling out on my head, I found it to be jammed. After several futile attempts to open it I reverted to the two strap buckles at the end of the belt to release myself from the cockpit.

All this required not more than two or three minutes.

After getting out of the cockpit I inspected the plane carefully. Again there was little actual damage. The propeller was badly cracked and would have to be replaced; there was a crack in the spreader board which required winding with strong cord. Otherwise the plane was in perfect condition although splashed with mud.

For once there was no one in sight and I made my way through the swamp to the nearest farmhouse. On the way I found that there was solid ground along the edge of the swamp less than 100 yards from the plane from which I could take-off.

The farmer had seen the plane pass over in the rain and was on his way down towards the swamp when I met him. He informed me that it was not possible to get horses through the mire out to the ship and that he had no idea of how I was to get it back to hard sod again.

I borrowed a rope from him to use in pulling the tail back to a normal position and we started back to the swamp.

Meanwhile it seems that two boys had seen me land, and when I did not emerge from the cockpit immediately, had run to Savage with the news that “an aviator had landed upside down in the swamp” and that they had “gone up and felt of his neck and that it was stiff and he was stone dead.”

I had flown over the town in the rain only a few minutes before, and as in those days it was not difficult for anyone to believe anything about an airplane, the town promptly locked its doors and came crawling and wading through the swamp. The older inhabitants followed the railroad track around its edge and by the time I returned with the farmer and a rope there were enough townspeople to solve my problem by carrying the ship back onto solid ground.

They were undoubtedly much disappointed at having come so far on a false alarm but turned to willingly to help me get the ship out of the swamp.

The next edition of one of the Minneapolis papers carried the following item which typically exemplifies what has been the average man’s knowledge of aeronautics.

AIRPLANE CRASHES NEAR SAVAGE

Charles A. Lindbergh, son of ex-Congressman Lindbergh, crashed near Savage, Minnesota, this morning. He was flying in his plane three hundred feet above the ground when it suddenly went into a nose dive and landed on its propeller in a swamp. Lindbergh says he will be flying again in three days.

After reading this and similar accounts of equally minor accidents of flight, it is little wonder that the average man would far rather watch someone else fly and read of the narrow escapes from death when some pilot has had a forced landing or a blowout, than to ride himself. Even in the post-war days of now obsolete equipment, nearly all of the serious accidents were caused by inexperienced pilots who were then allowed to fly or to attempt to fly—without license or restriction about anything they could coax into the air—and to carry anyone who might be beguiled into riding with them.

My next move was to wire to Little Falls for a propeller which Wyche had expressed from Americus and two days later joined my father in his campaign at Marshall.

My father had been opposed to my flying from the first and had never flown himself. However, he had agreed to go up with me at the first opportunity, and one afternoon he climbed into the cockpit and we flew over Redwood Falls together. From that day on I never heard a word against my flying and he never missed a chance to ride in the plane.

After the campaign was over I spent the remainder of the summer barnstorming through Minnesota, northern Iowa and western Wisconsin. Most of the time I was alone, but I took one student around with me for a few weeks while I was teaching him to fly, and then I barnstormed southern Minnesota with my mother for ten days. My mother had never objected to my flying, and after her first flight at Janesville, Minnesota, she became an enthusiast herself.

We had been together constantly up to the start of my flying career and had both looked forward to flying around together. Consequently when the opportunity presented itself I wired her to meet me at Janesville.

My mother enjoyed flying from the first and has made a number of flights with me; including a round trip between Chicago and St. Louis in the mail compartment of my plane.

Some weeks I barely made expenses, and on others I carried passengers all week long at five dollars each. On the whole I was able to make a fair profit in addition to meeting expenses and depreciation.

One evening while I was waiting for chance passengers at a field in southern Minnesota, a car drove up with several young fellows in it, one of whom was a graduate of the Army Air Service Training Schools. He asked me why I did not apply for enlistment as a cadet at Brooks Field and explained that by writing to the Chief of Air Service at the War Department in Washington I could get enrollment blanks and full information on the course and its requirements.

I had always wanted to fly modern and powerful planes. Ever since I had watched a group of fourteen De Havilands with their four hundred horsepower Liberty motors come into the field at Lincoln in my flying school days, I had longed to fly one of them. The Army offered the only opportunity, for there were no Liberty engines flying around barnstorming. Consequently at the hotel that night I wrote my letter to the Chief of Air Service, and a few days later when I received my next mail forwarded from Minneapolis, a letter from Washington with the enrollment blanks was included. The letter informed me that a candidate must be between twenty and twenty-seven years of age inclusive, unmarried, of good physical condition, and must have a high school education or its equivalent.

I completed and returned the forms, and a short time later received another message authorizing me to appear before an examining board at Chanute Field, Rantoul, Illinois, in January, 1924.

Toward the end of September I began to work south. Cold weather was coming on in Minnesota and most people did not enjoy flying in an open cockpit in winter.

I barnstormed over into Wisconsin but found that someone had been carrying passengers for half price there. I had always conformed to the rule in use among most pilots at that time, of giving a good ride for five dollars but not carrying anyone for less. So I left southern Wisconsin and turned towards Illinois. After taking off I decided to take in the International Air Races at St. Louis, which were then in progress; so instead of sizing up each town I passed over for its passenger possibilities, I flew towards St. Louis until the gasoline ran low, then landed, took on a fresh supply from a passing gas truck, and pressed on to Carlinville, Illinois. There I picked up more fuel, and a twenty-five dollar passenger for St. Louis.

As we neared Lambert Field where the races were being held we passed over the race course while the bombers’ contest was in progress. I landed on a hill east of Lambert in order to keep out of the way of the races, and waited until evening before hopping over and staking my ship down at the end of one of the long rows of civilian planes.

A large number of my old friends were attending the races and soon after landing I met Bud Gurney who, together with one of the flying students at Lincoln, had managed to get to the races without buying a Pullman ticket. He had brought his chute with him and was entered in the parachute spot landing contest, in which he was to be the last attraction of the meet by staging a double drop.

In the evening, after the races were over for the day, I carried a few passengers and looked over the different types of planes. I would have given the summer’s barnstorming profits gladly in return for authority to fly some of the newer types, and I determined to let nothing interfere with my chance of being appointed a Flying Cadet in the Army. This appeared to be my only opportunity to fly planes which would roar up into the sky when they were pointed in that direction, instead of having to be wished up over low trees at the end of a landing field.

When I went to St. Louis it was with the expectation of pressing on still farther south when the races were over, but with Bud’s assistance I sold my Jenny to his friend, flying instruction included. Marvin Northrop who had flown a Standard down from Minneapolis had sold his ship in St. Louis also; together with a course in flying. Since it was necessary for him to return home immediately, I agreed to instruct his student while mine was learning on the Jenny.

I had promised to carry Bud for his last jump, and towards evening on the final day of the races he packed his two chutes and tied them together with the only rope he could find. It was rather old but we decided that it would hold and if it did not the only consequence would be a little longer fall before the second chute opened.

I coaxed the old Jenny up to seventeen hundred feet and as we passed to the windward of the field Bud cut loose. The first chute opened at once, but in opening, the strain on the old rope was too great and it snapped releasing the second chute which fell another two hundred feet before opening.

© Erickson

“WE” MAKE A TEST FLIGHT

© Wide World Photos

CURTIS FIELD, L. I.—PATSY, THE MASCOT FOR “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS”

Planes were circling all around the parachute and flying in every direction without apparent regard for one another. The air was kept in constant motion by their propellers, and the chute swung from side to side in the rough currents with the result that Bud broke an arm as he landed among the crowd on the side of a ditch. This was the only accident in which anyone was injured during the entire meet.

For the next few weeks I instructed my two students and made a short barnstorming tour through Illinois.

IV
HEADING SOUTH

WHEN the period of instruction was completed I flew the old Jenny up to my student’s home in Iowa and, after watching him make a few solo flights from his home field, I left on a train for Lincoln. My last sight of the old Jenny was as it passed two hundred feet over the station near the center of town—and my parting instruction had been to keep a safe gliding angle when over the city and under no circumstances to come below fifteen hundred feet.

I went to Lincoln to get an S.V.A., which is a two-place Italian pursuit plane, and fly it back to St. Louis. But on arriving I learned that it was in the old Pulitzer Field near Omaha and in questionable condition. It was reported that some cows had eaten all the fabric off the rudder. Cows and mules are fond of the fabric covering, and it is not uncommon to hear of a plane being completely stripped by these animals in a few minutes. On the other hand, I have left a machine unguarded in the same pasture with cattle for days without having them touch it. And during the two weeks I spent at Maben, Mississippi, there had been a number of mules in the same pasture with my ship yet they apparently never came near it.

We filled the back of a touring car with a new rudder and other spare parts, and drove to Omaha the next morning.

The S.V.A. was in even worse condition than had been represented. In addition to needing a new rudder, part of the lock-stitching had broken in the wings and as a result, the fabric was very loose. The radiator had developed a number of leaks which someone had attempted to stop by dumping in a pailful of bran. And when we eventually did get it started the engine skipped badly and would not “rev” up over 1100 R.P.M.

At last we decided to attempt to fly the ship to Lincoln where it would be much more convenient to work on it, and I took off with a sputtering motor and with the centigrade five degrees below boiling. At the end of five minutes the needle was crowding the peg at 115°, and in fifteen minutes the water expansion tank exploded. I landed in a stubble field and hired the farmer to hitch his team to the ship and haul it to a fence corner next to his house, where I left it to be taken apart and hauled to Lincoln by truck.

I passed the month of December barnstorming in Illinois, and in January went to Chanute Field to take the entrance examinations for a Flying Cadet.

On one occasion while at Lambert Field I had made a short flight into the Ozark foothills with Leon Klink, an automobile dealer who had bought a Canuck that fall and was just learning to fly it. After I returned from Chanute Field and was waiting for the results of my examinations, we decided to make a pleasure flight through the south, barnstorming only enough to make current expenses, if possible. Klink wanted to learn to fly, and at the same time take a vacation, while my only objective was to keep flying and at the same time be ready to enter the next class at Brooks Field which commenced in March, providing my examinations had been passed satisfactorily.

Accordingly on the twenty-third of January we took off from Lambert Field in five below zero weather and headed for the Sunny South.

Our first stop was at Perryville, Missouri, where we visited with some of Klink’s friends for several days, and carried nineteen passengers. After leaving Perryville we flew to Hickman, Kentucky, and landed in a soft field east of town. We had passed out of the extremely cold weather and the wheels of our plane sank several inches into the southern mud. When we had refueled and attempted to take-off, it was impossible to get enough speed to lift the tires out of the mud. So Klink got out and I tried to take-off alone. On the third attempt the ship gained enough speed for the wings to begin to carry a portion of the load and keep the wheels from sinking so deeply; then it was only a matter of a few more feet before I was off.

I picked out a hayfield a little further from town, which appeared to be a little more solid than the first, and landed. By that time it was too late to make another hop before dusk, and as even the new field was too soft to make it advisable to carry any passengers, we left the Canuck tied to a fence and went into Hickman for the night.

The first effort to take-off the following morning was unsuccessful, also the second. We could not gain a speed of over five miles an hour over the soft ground. Finally, with the assistance of several men pushing on each wing, we got the ship to the top of a gentle rise which gave us enough of a start to take-off without serious difficulty. We stopped once in Tennessee for fuel; then at Friar Point, Mississippi, where we landed in an old cotton field and tied down for the night.

The Canuck had only one fuel tank with a capacity of twenty-three gallons or enough to last for two and a half hours. By leaving half an hour for locating a landing field, which was quite difficult at times, we had enough gasoline remaining for about one hundred and twenty-five miles in still air. If we were bucking a head wind it would be just that much less.

We spent the night with one of the plantation hands near the field and the next day in seeing the country and carrying a handful of passengers. In the evening we visited a “hanted” house with a party of the younger residents but were unable to find any “hants.”

Our next stop was at Hollandale, then Vicksburg, where we landed in a little field six miles north of town by slipping in down the side of a small mountain and ground-looping before striking a stump. After a day seeing Vicksburg we flew to Clinton where the passenger trade was quite lively and another day passed making sightseeing flights.

We refueled at Hattiesburg and Mobile, then landed at the Naval Air Station near Pensacola, Florida, where the Commanding Officer showed us every courtesy during our visit.

At last I received notice from the War Department to the effect that my examination had been satisfactorily passed, along with an order to appear at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas, in time to enter the March fifteenth class of Flying Cadets.

Klink and I decided to cut short our stay at Pensacola and to work our way as far west as time would allow before it was necessary for me to leave for Brooks Field.

We had promised to take one of the ladies of the post for a short hop before leaving, and on the morning of our departure I took off for a test flight before taking the lady over Pensacola. Just after the ship had left the field and was about two hundred feet high over the bay, the motor “reved” down to about five hundred. I banked around in an attempt to get back to the field but lacked by about fifteen feet enough altitude to reach it, and was forced to land in the sand hills less than a hundred feet from the edge of the flying field. The first hill wiped off my landing gear and one wheel went up through the front spar on the lower left wing, breaking it off about two feet from the fuselage.

A quick survey of the plane showed that we would require a new landing gear and propeller in addition to the material required to splice the spar.

The Navy hauled the plane into one of its large dirigible hangars and allowed us to make use of its equipment in repairing the damage. We purchased a spare landing gear and a propeller, then built a box frame around the broken spar and after gluing all the joints, screwed it in position and wound the splice with strong cord, which was then shrunk tight by several coats of dope. In this way the splice was made stronger than the original spar had ever been.

When we were not working on the ship we made several trips to the old Spanish forts which protected the city during the days when Florida still belonged to Spain. These are in an excellent state of preservation and contain a number of passageways, one of which is supposed to lead underground between the two fortifications, but although we searched carefully for the opening to this tunnel we never found it.

In all we spent about a week repairing the plane and when it was ready to fly once more I tested it with an Irving parachute borrowed from one of the officers of the station. That was the first service type of chute I had ever worn and I experienced the unique feeling of not caring particularly whether the ship held together during the tests or not. I put that Canuck through maneuvers which I would never have dreamed of doing with it before, yet with the confidence of absolute safety.

The advent of the service parachute was a tremendous step forward in the advance of aviation. It gave the test pilot a safe means of escape in most cases when all else had failed. It permitted formations to fly closer in comparative safety and in short allowed flyers to learn more about their planes than ever before. All this contributed to the ever-increasing knowledge of practical flying which makes possible the safety of present air commerce.

The airplane parachute has developed with the rapidity of the planes themselves. For years descents with chutes were made from balloons, but the first jump from a plane was by Capt. Berry at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1912. His parachute was a comparatively crude affair and of no use in an emergency. Ten years later, service type parachutes had been perfected which were strong enough to stand any strain the weight of a man’s body falling through the air could place on them, no matter how many thousand feet he fell before releasing the parachute from its pack; and today, fifteen years after Capt. Berry made the first jump from an airplane, every army and air mail pilot is required to wear a parachute.

The test flight over, we lashed a five gallon can of gasoline on each wing and followed along the Gulf of Mexico to Pascagoula, Mississippi. There was a small crack half-way down the back of the Canuck’s gasoline tank and when the gas no longer oozed out through the crack we knew that the tank was half empty. By carrying the two gas cans we obtained an extra hour’s cruising range, and when the main tank became low I would pour their contents into it through a short length of steam hose. In this way we expected to make longer flights between landing fields and partially make up for the time lost at Pensacola.

From Pascagoula we went to New Orleans, landing in the race track north of the city. Then to Lake Charles and from there to Rice Field at Houston, Texas. At Rice Field we installed three fuel tanks under the top wing and center section, which gave us twenty-seven gallons extra capacity, or, in addition to the five gallon cans lashed on the wings, a cruising range of about four hundred miles.

The field was covered with water and as our next stop was to be Brooks Field, which is just a few miles south of San Antonio, we only filled the wing and main tanks, leaving the five gallon cans empty.

At Brooks I obtained definite instructions to report not later than March fifteenth.

It was then the end of February but we decided to push on as far west as the intervening time would allow. Then I would return by rail and Klink would continue alone.

We filled all of our tanks and after running along the ground for half a mile, stalled into the air; but after three circles of Brooks Field were completed and the plane was less than fifty feet high we landed and left one of the cans. Klink held the other in his lap in the rear cockpit.

We had no more trouble in attaining several hundred feet of altitude with the lessened load and greatly lessened resistance, which counted for much more than the weight of the gasoline, but an hour later, when the elevation of the ground below us increased as the mountains were approached, we were again just skimming the mesquite and cactus. At last it was necessary for Klink to heave his gas can over the side and for me to turn the ship down a ravine to keep from striking the ground. It was disappointing enough to leave the first can at Brooks Field but I do not believe Klink will ever forget the sight of the second as it burst on the ground below us.

Sometime later we came to the West Nueces River and, mistaking it for the Rio Grande, turned north. We had been cutting across country but had hardly flown long enough to have reached the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande was the only river, according to my map, with a railroad running along the northeast bank. We followed the West Nueces to Camp Wood where the rails ended. By that time I knew that the map was in error and we were on the wrong course, but as there was insufficient fuel remaining to warrant our cutting across the mountains to the west, we landed in a small sheep pasture near Barksdale. This pasture was not large enough for us both to take-off together so I flew the ship over to Camp Wood alone and landed in the town square. With the wind blowing from the right direction, and by taking off under two telephone lines and over one road, the square afforded a long enough runway, provided the wind was blowing from the proper direction.

The next day conditions were ideal but Klink wanted to go to a dance that evening, and the day after, the wind was blowing from the opposite direction. Our remaining time was passing rapidly and we were both anxious to get to California before my return to Brooks Field. If we could get the plane to a larger field six miles south of Camp Wood we would have room to take-off with a full load of gasoline.

One of the town streets was wide enough to take-off from, provided I could get a forty-four foot wing between two telephone poles forty-six feet apart and brush through a few branches on each side of the road later on. We pushed the ship over to the middle of the street and I attempted to take-off. The poles were about fifty feet ahead and just before passing between them there was a rough spot in the street. One of the wheels got in a rut and I missed by three inches of the right wing tip. The pole swung the plane around and the nose crashed through the wall of a hardware store, knocking pots, pans and pitch-forks all over the interior.

The merchant and his son thought that an earthquake was in progress and came running out into the street. He was highly pleased to find an airplane half-way into his place of business and not only refused to accept anything for damages, but would not even allow us to have the wall repaired. He said the advertising value was much more than the destruction.

© Wide World Photos

CURTISS FIELD, L. I.—POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS” ON ITS WAY TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE TAKE-OFF

© Wide World Photos

CURTISS FIELD, L. I.—CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK

The greatest damage to the plane was a broken propeller, although from that time on it always carried left rudder. We wired for a new propeller and a can of dope from Houston and in a few days were hedgehopping the mountain tops in true Canuck fashion on our way west.

A Canuck, or J.N.4C is nothing more or less than a Canadian Jenny and while it is lighter and performs a little better than a Jenny, it is subject to the same characteristic of being able to just miss most everything it passes over.

We passed over the Rio Grande and cut through a corner of Mexico, then landed on one of the Army emergency fields at Pumpville and induced the section boss to sell us enough gasoline to continue our flight.

Dusk overtook us near Maxon, Texas, and we landed between the cactus and Spanish dagger west of the town, which consisted of a section house and three old box cars of the type used throughout the Southwest for housing the Mexican section hands.

The section boss was living alone. He was soon to be relieved and stationed in some more populated locality. We spent the night with him and in the morning cleared a runway for the ship. Maxon was quite a distance above sea level and as the air was less dense, an airplane required a longer distance to take-off in. There was a small mountain on the east end of the field and the land sloped upwards toward the west. We worked until midday cutting sagebrush and cactus. There was a light breeze from the west and the air was hot and rough. After using three-quarters of the runway the Canuck rose about four feet above the ground but stopped there, and when the end of the runway was passed the wings and landing gear scraped along on the sagebrush. As soon as we picked up a little extra flying speed, another clump of sagebrush would slow the ship down again until, after we had gone about two hundred yards, a large Spanish dagger plant passed through the front spar of the lower left wing. After being cut off by the internal brace wires, it remained firmly planted in the center of the outer bay. We landed immediately and found the plane to be undamaged except for a fourteen inch gap in the spar and a number of rips in the wing fabric.