Part 17 (1/2)

Nearly every time that a big money race comes along a lot of new planes put in an appearance. Some of them haven't been properly tested (you can get a special license for racing), and none of them are the type you would want to give your grandmother a ride in. But they are all fast, and when you are flying in a race for money you want speed, a lot of it.

I pulled up in front of the hangar late one summer afternoon and saw a brand-new, speedy type cantilever monoplane standing on the line. The wing had large L-shaped gashes in it. The plane belonged to Red Devereaux, who was going to fly it in the National Air Race Derby. As I sat there Red came over. He told me that on the way in from the factory in Wichita a terrific wing flutter set in every time he pa.s.sed through rough air. The oscillations were so bad that the stick would tear itself from Red's hands. He asked me to try it out and see if it were possible to race the plane.

I put on my parachute and climbed in. As I warmed the motor up I decided to have the door taken off the s.h.i.+p. Easier to get out that way. I put the s.h.i.+p in a shallow climb and held it to six thousand feet. Feeling it out, I dived, banked, rolled, looped, and spun it. It seemed to be fine.

I landed and told Red that everything was okay.

The next day diving over the Boston airport, in the lead, the wing broke off. The plane plunged into the marsh, killing Red and his bride of a few months.

”DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY”

A friend of mine knew a doctor who had an old skeleton. The skeleton wasn't of any use to the doctor. It had been hanging in a closet for almost a year. I decided to have some fun with it. I wired the head and jaws with fine wire. I attached two strings to the wire in such a way that by pulling one I could make the skeleton's head turn left or right.

When I pulled the other the jaws clacked up and down. I tied the skeleton in one of the dual-control seats of a cabin Travelair. I flew the s.h.i.+p from the other seat. By bending way down n.o.body from the outside could see me. It looked as though the skeleton were doing the flying. Jim Drummond, flying mechanic, lay on the floor of the plane and took charge of the skeleton's behavior.

I knew that Eric Wood and Pete Brooks were flying formation over Floyd Bennett Field that day. They had just joined the army reserve corps and were all steamed up trying to make a success out of it. I decided they would be my first victims of the day. We had no trouble finding the formation. There was Pete just behind the leader, looking very conscientious and pleased with himself. He was doing everything just right. I eased up beside him. He didn't notice me for a second. When he glanced around I gave Jim the signal. The skeleton looked right in his face and jabbered. Horror and amazement flooded Pete's face. He turned back to the formation-he had to unless he wanted to b.u.mp into the other planes. But he couldn't stand it for long. He had to look again. Jabber, jabber, went the skeleton. This went on a third and a fourth time, till I finally felt sorry for Pete. He was getting walleyed, one eye on the formation, the other on the skeleton. I gave him one final superb jabber, dipped my wings, and went in search of other game.

CONFESSION

Jimmie Doolittle has demonstrated American airplanes all over the world.

He landed on one of his tours at Bandoeng, Java, headquarters of the Dutch East Indian Air Corps. They had some American, Conqueror-powered, Curtiss Hawks there. They asked Jimmie to take one of them up and put on a show for them.

After turning the s.h.i.+p inside out for the better part of an hour, Jimmie really got into the spirit of the thing. He decided to dive straight down from about 6,000 feet and conclude the show by showing them how close he could come to the ground, pulling out of the dive.

He turned over and started down. Straight down, closer and closer to the ground, wide open, he roared. He yanked back on the stick to just clear the ground and discovered there were several little considerations he had overlooked. One was that he had just stepped out f a Cyclone-powered Hawk, much lighter than the Conqueror-powered one he was desperately trying to clear the airport in at that moment. The other was that he was accustomed to flying the lighter s.h.i.+p out of a sea-level airport, much heavier-aired than the 2,500-foot-high airport that he was at that moment trying to avoid. The heavier s.h.i.+p squashed in the thinner air and hit the ground in the pull-out. Just kissed it and skimmed into the air again.

Jimmie wondered if his landing gear had been swiped off, came around, landed, and discovered that it hadn't.

The Dutch officers rushed out to him when he crawled out of his c.o.c.kpit.

”My G.o.d, Jimmie,” they chorused, slapping him on the back, ”that was the most delicate piece of flying we have ever seen!”

”Huh,” Jimmie grunted, still thinking how lucky he had been to get away with it, ”delicate piece of flying, h.e.l.l! That was the dumbest piece of flying I ever did in my life!”

They knew it too, of course, despite the polite way they had put it. So from then on Jimmie was ace-high with them, because he had admitted the b.o.n.e.r instead of trying to lie out of it.

GONE ARE THE DAYS

George Weiss, one of the boys that kick the _Daily News_ photographic s.h.i.+p around into position for the aerial photographs that appear in New York's picture paper, told me this funny one he experienced with the late Commander Rogers of the navy:

Commander Rogers had flown way back in the early days of Wright pushers.

He saw George in Was.h.i.+ngton several years ago and asked him if he could fly him up to his home at Havre de Grace, Md. He a.s.sured George that there was a field there right beside his house that they could land in.