Part 8 (1/2)

Bob looked over at his uncle and grinned. ”Why, you old sinner. What a way to talk about your favorite nephew. But now that you mention it, maybe I did intend to finish the story, seeing that I'd started it. Now, where was I?”

Pat was clearing up the debris made by four men eating a picnic lunch.

”You've got Lindbergh at the Nebraska flying school for 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 dollar bond from every student before he went up on his first solo flight. This seemed silly to Lindy, and he left the school.

”When he left, he did what so many of the flyers were doing then. He went out west, and did stunting, risking his neck at county fairs and air circuses to give the people a thrill. He did, too. He handled his plane like a toy, doing rolls, tail spins, and every kind of stunt imaginable. But the most exciting thing that he did, and it usually isn't an exciting thing at all, was landing his plane. He could land on a dime, and as lightly as a feather. That's really piloting, isn't it, Bill?”

”You bet,” said the Captain. He was sprawled out on his back, enjoying his after dinner rest. ”A landing will show you your flyer's ability every time. Provided, of course, that he has a fairly decent landing field. Did I ever tell you the story that Hawks tells in his autobiography? Do you mind if I interrupt for just a minute, Bob?”

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

”Thanks,” said Captain Bill with a grin. ”I will. Well, it seems that Hawks was stunting down in Mexico, and doing quite a bit of private flying. He got a commission to fly a Congressman and a General, I think it was, back to their home town of Huatemo. Have you ever heard of Huatemo? I thought not. Well, Huatemo had never seen an airplane close up, and the two high muckamucks decided that they'd give the natives a thrill by coming back via plane. Hawks had them wire ahead to have a landing field prepared. The native officials wired that they had a fine field, clear of all obstructions, but dotted with a few small trees.

'Fine, says Hawks, but have them remove the trees immediately.' The natives said that this had been done, and the party started out.

”After several adventures, Hawks flew over Huatemo, and prepared to spiral down to the landing field. Imagine his chagrin and surprise, my dear boys, when he discovered, that the officials of Huatemo had indeed cut down the Huateman trees, but had left the stumps standing!”

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

”No, he couldn't. And anyway, there was no other place to land. The field was surrounded by dense forests. He had to make it. He brought his plane down without hitting a stump, and then zig-zagged wildly from stump to stump like a croquet ball trying to miss wickets. And he missed them all, too, except one. The wheel hit it an awful smack, and collapsed. The plane tilted up on its nose, and came to rest with its propeller in the ground and its tail waving gayly in the air, not at all like a proper plane should.”

”And killed them all,” said Pat.

”Who, Hawks? Not on your life. He's a lucky fellow. Not one of them was hurt. They climbed out of the plane, and were greeted by the natives, joyously and with acclaim. And not one of the natives seemed to suspect in the least that this wasn't the way a plane should land. Or at least the way a crazy American would land a plane.” The Captain finished his story, and paused.

”Well,” said Bob grudgingly, ”that was a 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 his own. He heard that there was going to be a sale of army planes down in Georgia, and he went down and bought a Curtiss Jenny with the money that he had saved from his stunting work. He fixed it up, and was soon off barnstorming again. But I guess the Jenny was too clumsy a boat for Lindy. He wanted to fly the newer, better planes that the army had. So he joined the army's training school at Brook Field, San Antonio. This was when he was 22 years old.

”I guess he got along pretty fine at San Antonio, and he was sent down to the pursuit school at Kelly Field. He joined the Caterpillar Club there. It was the first time that he had to jump from a moving plane and get down with his parachute. I guess it was a pretty close shave.”

”Gee, how did it happen?” said Hal, his eyes wide.

”Wait a second, I'm coming to it,” said Bob. ”He and another officer were to go up and attack another plane that they called the enemy. It was a sort of problem they had to work out. Well, Slim dove at the enemy from the left, and the other fellow from the right. The enemy plane pulled up, but Lindy and the other officer kept on going, dead toward each other. There was an awful crack, and their wings locked. The two planes began to spin around and drop through the air. Lindy did the only thing there was to do. He kept his head, stepped out on one of the damaged wings, and stepped off backwards. He didn't pull the rip-cord until he had fallen quite a way, because he didn't want the s.h.i.+ps to fall on him. When he'd gone far enough, he pulled the cord, and floated gently down. That was the first.”

”And the second?” said Hal.

”The second,” went on Bob, ”happened in 1927, just about a year before Lindy flew the Atlantic. He took a new type of plane up to test her. He put her through all the stunts that he could think of, and she stood them all right. It seemed as though she was going to come through the test O.K., when Lindy put her into a tail spin. They spiraled down for a while, and Lindy tried to pull her out of it. She wouldn't respond and went completely out of control. Lindy tugged and yanked at the controls, but he couldn't get that bus to go into a dive. He did his best to save the s.h.i.+p, but it was no use. He didn't give up until they were about 300 feet from the ground, which is a mighty short distance to make a jump, if you ask me. But Lindy made it, and landed in somebody's back yard, the wind knocked out of him, but otherwise all right. That was the second.”

”And the third?” asked Hal.

”We're getting ahead of the story. In fact, we're ahead of the story already. Before he made his second jump, Lindy had joined the Missouri National Guard, and was promoted to a Captaincy in the Reserve and Flight Commander of the 110th Observation Squadron. That's how he got to be a Captain, you know how he got to be a Colonel.

”Then Lindy joined the Robertson Aircraft Corporation, at St. Louis.

While he was with them, he helped map out the first mail route from St.

Louis to Chicago, and was the first pilot to carry mail along this route. Slim had a habit of starting things off. He was the first to do a lot of things. No sitting back and waiting for others to start things.

It was first or nothing for him. Maybe it was his Viking ancestors, I don't know.

”It was while he was flying this route that Lindy had his third initiation into the Caterpillars. He took off one September afternoon from Lambert Field, in St. Louis, on his way to Maywood. Just outside of Peoria a fog rolled in, so thick you could cut it with a knife, Lindy could climb up over it for flying, but he couldn't land blind. He dropped a flare, but it only lit up a cloud bank. He saw lights, then, through the fog, and knew that he was around Maywood, but couldn't get the exact location of the field. He'd circled around for two hours, when his engine sputtered and died. The tank was dry. Lindy quickly turned on the reserve gravity tank. There was twenty minutes of flying in that tank, and Lindy had to think fast.