Chapter I: SEE (2)

"Aw, I got tangled up with a load of ice after dark. She started losing altitude, and I eased a little more gun to her. She kept on losing, so I eased a little more gun to her. She still kept on losing, so I eased all the gun she had. She was squashing right down into the trees. I had done everything I knew and couldn't hold her up. So I said, 'Here, God, you fly it awhile,' and turned her loose and threw my arms up in front of my face.

"I guess it must have been tough, because He cracked her up. He piled into that last ridge just outside of Bellefonte."

ORCHIDS TO ME!

The late Lya de Putti, German screen actress, paid me the nicest compliment of all.

She was up front in the two-place passenger compartment of a Lockheed Sirius. The owner of that plane was in the pilot's open cockpit just back of her. And I was behind him in the rear cockpit.

He had insisted, against my better judgment, upon getting into that pilot's cockpit in the first place. But, after all, he owned the ship, I was only his pilot, and there was a set of dual controls in the rear cockpit.

The motor quit cold over Whitehall, N. Y., because we ran out of gas in one of the six tanks in the ship. I shouted back and forth with the ship's owner, halfway to the ground, trying to tell him how to turn on one of the other five tanks. There was a complicated system of gas valves in the ship, and I couldn't make him understand what to do, and I couldn't reach the valves myself.

Finally I shouted, "You play with them. I'll land," and stuck my head out and looked around. We were already low. I picked a small plowed field, the only likely-looking one in the mountainous country, and started into it.

I was coming around my last turn into the field when I discovered high-tension wires stretching right across the edge of it. I was too low to pick another field. The field was too small to go over the wires. I had to go through a gap in the trees to get under them.

I kicked the ship around sidewise. The trees flashed past me on either side, and I hit the ground. The wires flashed past over my head. I used my brakes and stopped the fast ship very quickly in the soft ground. If we had rolled fifty feet farther we would have hit an embankment that rose sharply at the far end of the field.

I crawled out of my cockpit and started to help Lya out of her cabin. She was already emerging, fanning herself with a handkerchief. She spoke with a German accent.

"Oh, Jeemy," she said, "all the way down I pray to God. But I thank you, Jeemy. I thank you."

RECOVERY ACT

Johnny Wagner came up to me for his transport pilot's license test. I was the inspector for the Department of Commerce. Johnny knew I was "tough." As a matter of fact, he figured I was much tougher than I was.

I knew Johnny and liked him. He was crazy about flying and had worked hard to get his flying training. He had pushed ships in and out of hangars, washed them, acted as night watchman and office boy, done anything and everything to pay for his flying time. But I didn't have the slightest idea how he flew. And after all, you may be a swell guy but not be able to fly worth a cent, and a transport test is supposed to determine whether you are safe to carry passengers.

I found out three minutes after Johnny got in the ship how he flew. Nevertheless, I made him go all through the test. When he came to steep banks I made him pull them in tight. He was reluctant to do it, so I took the ship to do it myself to show him. I could see right away why he was reluctant. It was the way the ship was rigged. It had a tendency to roll under in a tightly pulled in steep bank. But I wanted to see what he would do with it, so I made him do it. He did, and rolled right under into a power spin. He had gone into an inadvertent spin, the unforgivable sin in a flight test.

I started to reach for the controls but let him go. When he had pulled out of the spin I told him to land.

He got out of the ship with his face as long as a poker. He couldn't even talk, the test had meant so much to him. I didn't say anything for a moment, then with a stern face I said roughly, "Well," and waited a moment. The poor kid was getting all set for the worst. I could tell by his face.

"Well," I went on, "you passed," and I smiled broadly at him.

His mouth fell open. "But--but--" he stuttered--"but I spun out of that steep bank!"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But you also recovered. It was the way you recovered. You stopped that spin like that and recovered from the resultant dive neatly and smoothly, with a minimum loss of altitude and still without squashin' the ship. It was a beautiful piece of work and told me more about your flying than anything else you did, although I could tell in the first three minutes that you could fly." I never saw a kid beam so much.

Johnny is now flying a regular run over the Andes in South America for Pan American Grace.

"A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME...."

I delivered a plane at a ranch in Mexico a few years ago for Joe and Alicia Brooks. I was to take back the ship they had been using. The ranch was about eighty miles over the border from Eagle Pass. The Brookses planned to leave with me and fly formation to New York. Both planes had approximately the same cruising speed. Alicia and I flew in one ship. Sutter, the mechanic, flew with Joe in the other.

The day we started didn't look too good. Thick gray clouds were rolling in from the northeast. There was no way we could check our weather till we got to Eagle Pass. We had to take a chance on the eighty miles.

Joe led the way, and everything went fine at the start, but the nearer we got to Eagle Pass the worse the weather got. We were flying on top of a jerkwater railway, just missing the tops of the trees, when we bumped into a solid wall of fog. Joe disappeared into it. I stuck my nose in the stuff and pulled out: there was no percentage in two planes milling around blind. Too much chance of collision. I picked out a spot in between the cactus and landed. There was nothing to do but wait. If Joe came out he would come out on the railway and we would see him. Ten uncomfortable minutes passed. We heard a motor. Joe reappeared. He circled and landed alongside of us.

By this time the planes were surrounded by a herd of angry shrieking Mexicans. There must have been over a hundred of them. They didn't seem to like us, but we couldn't find out why. None of us spoke Spanish. Finally an official-looking fellow appeared with a lot of brass medals on his coat. He made us understand through the sign language that he wanted to see our passports. We couldn't find them. The atmosphere was most unpleasant. We had visions of spending the next few days in a flea-bitten Mexican jail.

Then it occurred to me that I did know one Spanish word. Might as well use it, I thought, and see what happens. "Cerveza" I commanded. The Mexicans looked startled. "Cerveza" I commanded again. The Mexicans started to laugh.

The next thing we knew, we were sitting at a Mexican bar drinking beer with a lot of newfound friends. Cerveza is the Spanish for beer.

"YES, SIR!"

Our jenny hit the ground wheels first and bounced dangerously. My instructor in the cockpit in front of me grabbed his controls, gave the ship a sharp burst of the gun, and set her down right. We were in a little practice field near Brooks Field in Texas.

My instructor turned around to me: "Damn it, Collins," he said, "don't run into the ground wheels first like that. Level off about six feet in the air and wait until the ship begins to settle. Then ease the stick back. When you feel the ship begin to fall out from under you, pull the stick all the way back into your guts and the ship will set itself down. Go around and try it again."

"Yes, sir."

I came in the next time, hit the ground wheels first, and bounced. My instructor righted the ship.

"No, Collins. No," he fumed. "Six feet. Look, I'll show you what six feet looks like."

He took the ship off and flew over the open fields, then came around and landed.

"Now do you know what six feet looks like?" he shouted back to me.

"Yes, sir," I lied. I was afraid to tell him that I could not see the ground right. He might send me to the hospital to have my eyes examined. They might find some slight defect in my eyes that they had overlooked in the original examination and wash me out of the school.

"Well, then, go around and make a decent landing for me," my instructor said.

"Yes, sir."

I leveled off too high the next time. My instructor grabbed his controls and prevented us from cracking up.

"Damn it, Collins," he shouted when the ship had stopped rolling, "don't run into the ground wheels first. And don't level off as high as the telegraph wires. Level off at about six feet. Then set her down. Now go round and try it again."

"Yes, sir."

"Damn it, Collins, don't sit back there and say 'Yes, sir' and then do the same damned thing again."

"No, sir."

MOONLIGHT AND SILVER

Pat paints. She also flies.

Pat and I landed at Jacksonville, Fla., late one night in Pat's Stearman biplane. Pat was taking cross-country instruction from me. We gassed hurriedly and took off again. We left the glare of the floodlights behind us as we headed our ship along the line of flashing beacons stretching southward toward Miami. The stars were brilliant in the cloudless sky, but the night was very dark. There was no moon.

Soon we were flying down the coast. White breakers rolled in under us from the Atlantic Ocean on our left and dimly marked the coast line. Swamps stretched away to the inland on our right but were invisible in the black night. Beacons flashed brilliantly out of the darkness in a long line far behind us and far ahead. Blotches of lights slipped slowly past under us when we flew over towns.

We saw clouds ahead. We nosed down under them. We had to fly uncomfortably low to stay under the clouds. We nosed up to get above them.

We flew into them. The lights beneath us dimmed and disappeared. We climbed in opaque blackness, flying by instruments.

We emerged into an open space where the clouds were broken. The lights reappeared. The stars became visible.

The clouds spread out under us to the horizon in all directions. They were lit a dim silver by the stars. They softly undulated like a mystic, limitless sea beneath us.

Now and then we saw a break in the clouds and caught the flash of a beacon through it or saw the lights of a town. We caught glimpses of dim breakers rolling in on the beach far down under the clouds.

Something I couldn't explain was happening. The sky in the east was getting lighter. It was only about midnight. I looked at the western sky and then looked back at the eastern sky. Yes, the sky was definitely getting lighter in the east. Half an hour later the eastern sky was much lighter than the western sky.

I watched toward the east.

I saw a thin, blood-red tip of something rise up from the eastern horizon. The top of the object was rounded. The bottom of it was irregular in shape. The object got larger rapidly.

"The moon!" I shouted out loud to myself.

It rose rapidly. Invisible clouds far out at sea, silhouetted against the moon, gave the bottom of it its irregular shape.

The moon got up above the clouds in an incredibly short time. It was a full moon, golden and glorious. It made the clouds between me and it seem darker. It made the sea beneath the clouds silver. Through the large breaks in the clouds I saw a beam of moonlight like a golden path from the moon across the sea to the beach beneath us. The beam traveled with us. It raced across the sea under the clouds at the same speed that we flew through the air above the clouds.

I eased the throttle back and slowed the ship down.

"Paint that some day," I shouted to Pat.

Pat was gazing out across the ocean toward the moon. She didn't say anything. I knew she had heard me.

FIVE MILES UP

I was stationed at Selfridge Field after I graduated from the Advanced Flying School at Kelly. The Army Air Corps' First Pursuit Group was at Selfridge. The officers used to gather every morning at eight-fifteen in the post operator's office. We would be assigned to our various functions in the formation. Then we would fly formation for an hour or so, practicing different tactical maneuvers. After flying we would gather at the operations office again for a general critique, which was supposed to conclude the official day's flying. We would separate from there and go about our various ground duties. I discovered I could quickly finish my ground duties and have a lot of time left over for extra flying. I used to bother the operations officer to death asking him for ships. He usually gave me one, and I would go up alone and practice all sorts of things just for fun. It was no part of my work. It was pure exuberance.

One day I was flying around idly in a Hawk. I decided I would take the Hawk as high as I could, just for the hell of it.

I opened the throttle and nosed up. I gained the first few thousand feet rapidly. The higher I went the slower I climbed. At 20,000 feet climbing was difficult. The air was much thinner. The power of my engine was greatly diminished. I began to notice the effect of altitude. Breathing was an effort. I didn't get enough air when I did breathe. I sighed often. My heart beat faster. I wasn't sleepy. I was dopey. I was very cold, although it was summer.

I looked up into the sky. It was intensely blue, deep blue; bluer than I had ever seen a sky. I was above all haze. I looked down at the earth. Selfridge Field was very small under me. The little town of Mount Clemens seemed to be very close to the field. Lake St. Clair was just a little pond. Detroit seemed to be almost under me, although I knew it was about twenty miles from Selfridge Field. I could see a lot of little Michigan towns clothing the earth to the north and northwest of Selfridge. Everything beneath me seemed to have shoved together. The earth seemed to be without movement. I felt suspended in enormous space. I was 23,000 feet high by my altimeter.

I was dopey. My perception and reaction were ga-ga. I was cold, too. To hell with it. It said 24,500 feet. I eased the throttle full and nosed down.

I lost altitude very rapidly and with very little effort at first. After that it got more and more normal. I didn't come down too fast. It was too loud on my ears. I came down fairly slowly, so as to accommodate myself to the change in air pressure as I descended.

It was warm and stuffy on the ground.

I saw the Flight Surgeon at dinner that evening.

"I worked a Hawk up to 24,500 feet today," I told him proudly. "Gee, it sure felt funny up there without oxygen."

"Without oxygen?" he asked.

I nodded my head.

"You're crazy," he said. "You can't go that high without oxygen. The average pilot's limit is around 15,000 to 18,000 feet. You're young and in good shape. Maybe you got to twenty. But you just imagined you went higher than that."

"No, I didn't imagine it," I said. "I really went up that high."

"You went ga-ga and imagined it," he said.

He added: "Don't fool around with that sort of business. You're likely to pass out cold at any moment when you're flying too high without oxygen. You're likely to pass out cold and fall a long way before regaining consciousness. You might break your neck."

AERIAL COMBAT

I was flying in a student pursuit formation of SE-5s. Another student pursuit formation of MB3As was flying several thousand feet above us. The formation above us was supposed to be enemy pursuit on the offensive. My formation was supposed to be on the defensive. We were staging a mimic combat. Kelly Field, the army Advanced Flying School, lay beneath us.

I had to watch my flight leader, the other ships in my formation, and the enemy formation.

I saw the enemy formation behind us and above us in position to attack. I saw it nose down toward us.

I looked at my flight leader's plane. He was signaling a sharp turn to the left. He banked sharply to the left. Everybody in our formation banked sharply to the left with him. The attacking formation passed over our tails and pulled up to our right.

I saw the attacking formation above us to our right, banking to the left, nosing down to attack us broadside.

I looked at my flight leader. He was signaling a turn to the right. He turned sharply to the right. Our whole formation turned with him. We were heading directly into the oncoming attack of the other formation.

Just as I straightened out of my turn my ship lurched violently and I got a fleeting impression of something passing over my head. I couldn't figure out what had happened. My leader was signaling for another turn. I followed him through several quick turns in rapid succession. We were dodging the enemy formation. I kept trying to figure out what had happened when my ship had lurched.

Then it occurred to me: Somebody in the attacking formation, when the formation had been diving head on into ours, had pulled up just in time to keep from hitting me head on. I had passed under him and immediately behind him as he pulled up, and the turbulent slip stream just back of his ship was what had caused my ship to lurch.

I felt weak all over. God, how close he must have come, I thought!

Later, on the ground, we stood around our instructors, listening to criticism of our flying. I wasn't listening very much. I was looking around at the faces of the other students. I saw another student looking around too. It was Lindbergh. He had been flying in the attacking formation. After the criticism was over I walked up to Lindbergh.

"Say," I said, "did you come close to anybody in that head-on attack?"

He grinned all over.

"Yes," he said. "Was that you?"

"Yes."

"Did you see me?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I _felt_ you."

"It is a good thing you didn't see me," Lindbergh said, "because if you had seen me you would have pulled up, too, and we would have hit head on."

WINGS OVER AKRON

Tom was flying in front of me to my left. We both had PW-8s. We were heading toward Uniontown, Pa. They were opening a field there. We were going to stunt for them. We were flying 7,000 feet high in a milky autumn haze. The rolling Ohio country beneath us was visible only straight down and out to an angle of about 45 degrees. Beyond that the earth mingled with the haze and was invisible.

I saw a town over the leading edge of my lower right wing. I recognized it as Akron, O. I pushed my stick forward and opened my throttle. I had always wanted to jazz the fraternity house in a high-powered fast ship.

Down I came. Roaring louder and louder. I couldn't see a soul in the yard of the fraternity house.

I missed the house by inches as I pulled sharply out of my dive and zoomed almost vertically up for altitude. I looked back as I shot up into the sky. The yard was full of fellows.

I kicked over and nosed down at the house again. I came as close to it as I could without hitting it as I pulled back and thundered up into the air.

I nosed over into a third dive at the house. As I pulled up this time I kicked the ship into a double snap roll as I climbed. I didn't look back. I just kept on climbing, heading for Uniontown. I overtook Tom a little while later.

On my return trip from Uniontown I was forced down at Akron owing to bad weather. Tom had gone back a day earlier than I. I was alone.

Friends of mine at the airport came up to me as I climbed out of my ship. They asked me if I had flown over Akron in a PW-8 a few days before. I said, "No. Why?" They showed me a clipping from a local newspaper. It said:

AIRMAN STARTLES AKRON--MANY LIVES ENDANGERED

At noon today a small fast biplane appeared over Akron and
proceeded to throw the populace into a panic by performing a
series of zooms and dives and perilous nose spins low over the
business section of town. Onlookers said that the plane narrowly
missed hitting the tops of the buildings and that it several
times almost dove into the crowds in the streets.

Hospital authorities complained to city officials that the plane
roared low over the hospital, frightening many of their patients
and endangering the lives of others. Other complaints have
rolled in from all over the city.

City officials told reporters that the name of the pilot is
known. He was a former resident of Akron and was a student at
Akron University. At present he is on duty with the Army
Aviation Service. Officials said they had reported the
outrageous act to the military authorities at the pilot's home
station.

"I wonder who that damned fool could have been," I said as I handed the clipping back to my friends. I grinned.

I was staying with my uncle. I didn't have much appetite for dinner that night. I didn't sleep very well.

"What is the matter, Jim?" my uncle asked me at breakfast the next morning. "Why don't you eat more?"

"I don't feel very well," I said.

I got back to Selfridge that afternoon. Nobody there had heard of my escapade.

I ate a big dinner that evening.

TEARS AND ACROBATICS

"Go around and try it again," I shouted.

"Yes, sir," the cadet in the rear cockpit behind me shouted back.

I felt the throttle under my left hand go all the way forward with a jerk. I pulled it back.

"Open that throttle slower and smoother," I shouted back. I didn't look round. I just turned my head to the left and put my open right hand up to the right side of my mouth. That threw my voice back.

"Yes, sir," came the cadet's voice from the rear cockpit.

I felt the throttle under my left hand move forward slowly, smoothly. The engine noise rose louder. The ship rocked and bumped slowly forward over the rough ground. The tail of the ship came up, and the nose went down. The nose of the ship veered to the left. I wanted to kick right rudder to bring the nose back. I just sat there. The nose swung back straight and then veered badly to the right. I wanted to kick left rudder and bring the nose back. I didn't move. The nose stopped veering. We were going pretty fast. We bumped the ground once more and bounced into the air. We stayed there. I took my nose between my left thumb and forefinger and turned my head to the left so the cadet behind me could see my profile.

The ship banked to the left. I felt a blast of air strong on the right side of my face and felt myself being pushed to the right side of my cockpit. We were skidding. I wanted to ease a little right rudder on and stop the skid. Instead, I patted the right side of my face several times with my right hand so the cadet could see it. I felt the rudder pedal under my right foot jerk forward. We stopped skidding. The ship straightened out of the bank and flew straight and level for a little way. It made another left-hand bank, leveled out again, and flew straight again for a little way. It did it again. I felt the throttle under my left hand come all the way back. The engine noise quieted down, and the engine exhaust popped a few times. The ship nosed down into a glide. It made another left turn in the glide and then straightened out. We were gliding toward the little field we had just taken off from. It was a little field near Brooks that the Army Primary Flying School used as a practice field.

"That was lousy," I shouted back. "You jerked your throttle open. You veered across the field on your take-off like a drunken man. Are you too weak to kick rudder? You skidded on your turns. You landed cross-wind. Go around and try it again. See if you can do something right this time." It was about the twentieth speech like that I had shouted back to the cadet that morning.

I felt the throttle under my left hand jerk forward. I pulled it back.

"Damn it, open that throttle slower and----"

A voice from the rear cockpit broke in on me:

"I hope you never get anyone else as dumb as I am, Lieutenant."

The voice was choked. The kid was crying.

"Hey, listen here," I said, "I give you a lot of hell because I'm as anxious for you to get this stuff as you are to get it. I wouldn't even give you hell if I thought you were hopeless. Sit back and relax and forget it a while now. You'll do better tomorrow."

The cadet started to open his mouth. I turned hastily around and sat down in my cockpit and opened the throttle wide open. The engine roared. I didn't hear what the cadet said.

I took off in a sharp climbing turn. I dove low at the ground, flew under some high-tension wires. I pulled up and dove low at a cow in a pasture. The cow jumped very amusingly. I pulled up and did a loop. I came out of the loop very close to the ground. It was all against army orders. It was all fun. I pulled back up to a respectable altitude and flew sedately over Brooks Field. I cut the gun to land. I looked back at the cadet. He was laughing. There were little channels in the dust on his face where the tears had run down.

ACROSS THE CONTINENT

It was 1:45 a. m. The lights of United Airport at Burbank, Calif., where I had left the ground fifteen minutes before, had disappeared. I knew the low mountains were beneath me, but I couldn't see them. I knew the high mountains several miles east of me were higher than I was, but I couldn't see them. I could see the glow of the luminous-painted dials in my instrument board in front of me. I could see the sea of lights of Los Angeles and vicinity south of me, stretching southeastward. I could see the stars in the cloudless, moonless sky above. I was circling for altitude to go over the high mountains.

At 13,000 feet I leveled out and assumed a compass course for Wichita, Kan. I passed over the high mountains without ever seeing them. I saw only an occasional light in the blackness beneath me where I knew the mountains were. I knew from my map that there were low mountains and desert valleys beyond.

Greener country. Fertile valleys. Mountains looming. The Sangre de Cristo range loomed high in front of me. Twelve thousand feet. I passed over it into the undulating low country beyond it. Soon I was flying over the flat fertile plains of western Kansas.

Gas trucks were waiting for me at Wichita Airport. Reporters asked me questions. They took pictures. They told me I was behind Lindbergh's time. A woman out of the crowd jumped up on the side of my ship and kissed me. I was off the ground, headed for New York, fifteen minutes after I had landed.

It was very rough. It was hot. I was miserable in my fur flying suit. I ached like hell from sitting on the hard parachute pack and wished I could stand up for a while. I hadn't had a chance to step out of the ship at Wichita.

Clouds gone. Towns closer together. Towns larger. Farms smaller. More railroads and paved roads. Industrial towns. On into the rolling country of eastern Ohio.

Pittsburgh was covered with smoke. The Allegheny Mountains were dim in a haze. It was getting dark.

Mountains beneath me in the dusk like dreams floating past. Stars appearing in the clear sky. Lights coming on in the houses and towns.

It was dark now. The flashing beacons along the Cleveland-New York mail run were visible off to my left.

New York. An ocean of shimmering light in the darkness, spreading immensely under me. Beyond stretched Long Island. I could see where the field ought to be. Did I see the Roosevelt Field beacon? Was that it? What was that beacon over there? I saw hundreds of beacons. Beacons everywhere. Every color of flashing beacon. Then I remembered it was Fourth of July night. I would have a hell of a time locating the field. Finally I distinguished Roosevelt Field lights from the fireworks, and dove low over the field. The flood lights came on. My red-and-white low-wing Lockheed Sirius glided out of the darkness, low over the edge of the field, brilliantly into the floodlight glare, landed and rolled to a stop.

There was a crowd at the field. Roosevelt was giving a night demonstration. People ran out of the crowd toward me. George jumped up on the wing and leaned over the edge of my cockpit. I was taxiing toward the hangar.

"That did it," Pick shouted over the noise of my engine.

"Did what?" I shouted back.

"Broke the record, boy!"

"You're crazy as hell," I answered. It took me sixteen and a half hours. Lindbergh made it in fourteen forty-five.

THE FLYER HIKES HOME

I was hanging around Roosevelt Field one afternoon with nothing much on my mind when a couple of friends came up and said they were just taking off for the South. They wanted to catch the Pan-American plane from Miami the next day. They were amateur pilots. The weather was lousy toward the South and they hadn't had much experience in blind or night flying. I said I would fly with them as far as Washington and maybe by that time the weather would clear. When we got to Washington the weather had pretty well closed down. I didn't like to see them start off in a fog bank with the sun already setting, so I volunteered to go to Greensborough. The stuff grew thicker. We were flying at two hundred feet and getting lower all the time. So when we landed at Greensborough there was nothing to do but stick with the ship. We took off for Jacksonville after a scanty supper. It was one o'clock in the morning. By that time I could barely make out the beacon lights. I turned to the girl sitting next to me and told her that if we lost the beacon behind us before we saw the one ahead of us we would have to turn back. At that moment both beacons disappeared. I started to bank the ship towards home. And then suddenly the whole sky lightened up. It looked as though a huge broom had gone to work to tidy up the clouds.

We landed at Jacksonville at five in the morning without further mishap. I said good-bye to plane and passengers and then started wondering how I was going to get back to New York. I decided to hitch-hike and save the train fare. It took me three days. When I appeared at the house with a straw behind each ear and a suit full of holes my wife thought I had gone crazy.

KILLED BY KINDNESS

Earle R. Southee was so good-hearted he killed a guy. I don't mean that he actually killed him, but you can see for yourself from the following story that, nevertheless, he killed him.

Southee was a civilian flying instructor to the army before the war, when the Signal Corps was the flying branch of the army. He was also an instructor during the war, after the Air Service had been created.

It was while he was instructing at Wilbur Wright Field during the war that he met up with this guy. The guy had come down there to learn to fly and then go to France and shoot Germans--or get shot by them. For some reason or other he couldn't pick the stuff up. Some people are like that. They simply can't get going when they first start to learn to fly. Most of them actually have no flying ability and ought to quit trying. It's not in their blood. But occasionally you run across one who later gets going and is all right.

This guy came up to Southee for washout flight. He was so obviously broken up over the idea that he was going to get kicked out of the Air Service into some other branch of service, he loved flying so much, that Southee took pity on him, held him over a while, gave him special instruction, and finally got the guy through. The guy even became an instructor himself, and a very good one.

Later, most of the gang was transferred to Ellington Field, Houston, Tex. At Ellington, this guy had such a tough time at first, got so hot, that he was made a check pilot and put in charge of a stage or section.

One day one of the students came up to him for washout check. The kid was just as broken up about it as he was. He gave the kid a chance, like Southee had given him. Three days later the student froze on him, spun him in, and lulled him.

THE FIRST CRACK-UP

I sat in the cockpit of an army DH, high over southern Texas. I was heading toward Kelly Field, the Army Advanced Flying School. I was returning from a student trip to Corpus Christi.

I was looking behind me. Beyond the tail of the ship I could see the Gulf of Mexico. Far out over the Gulf was a low string of white clouds. The sky was very blue. The water flashed in the sun.

Occasionally I turned to scan my instrument board, but mostly I looked behind me. Purple distance slowly swallowed up the Gulf.

I turned around and faced forward and lit a cigarette. I looked at my instrument board. I looked at my map. The course line on my map lay between two railroads. I looked down at the earth. I was directly over a railroad, flying parallel to it. To my right a little distance ran another railroad, parallel to the one I was flying over. Another railroad lay off to my left. I could not decide which two of the three railroads I should be flying between.

I saw a little town on the railroad under me. I throttled back and nosed down. I circled low over the town and located the railroad station. I dove low past one end of the station and tried to read the name of the town on the station as I flashed past it. I didn't make it out. I opened the throttle to pull up. The engine started to pick up, then sputtered, then picked up all right. I paid no attention to its sputtering. It had done that when I took off from Kelly Field that morning. It had done it when I had circled the field at Corpus Christi on the Gulf. There was a dead spot in the carburetor. The engine was all right. It was airtight above or below that one spot on the throttle. I continued to pull up. I went around and dove low at the station again. Again I failed to read the sign. I opened the throttle to pull up. The engine started to pick up, then sputtered, then picked up beautifully. I went around and dove at the station again. I got it that time. It was Floresville, Tex. I knew where that was. I opened the throttle to pull up. The engine started to pick up, then sputtered, then died. The prop stood still.

I swung my ship to the left. I held it up as much as I dared. I headed toward the open space. I was almost stalling. I barely cleared the last house. I was dropping rapidly. I eased forward on the stick. No response. I eased back. The nose dropped. I was stalled. I was about ten feet above the ground. There was a fence almost under me. Maybe I would clear it.

I heard a loud rending of wood and tearing of fabric. I felt a sensation of being pummeled and beaten. Something hit me in the face. Then I was aware of an immense quietness.

I just sat there in the cockpit. The dust settled slowly in the still air. The hot Texas sun filtered through it. I still held the stick with my right hand. My left hand was on the throttle. My feet were braced on the rudder bar.

I was on a level with those fences. I stepped over the side of the cockpit onto the ground. I looked at the wreck. The wings and landing gear were a complete Washout. The fuselage wasn't damaged.

I looked into the gasoline tanks. The main tank was empty. The reserve tank was full. I looked into the cockpit at the gas valves. The main tank was turned on. The reserve tank was turned off. I turned the main tank off and turned the reserve tank on.

I phoned Kelly Field from a house near by.

An instructor flew down to get me. He landed his ship and then walked over and looked at my ship. He looked at the gas tanks. He looked in the cockpit at the gas valves. He turned to me. His eyes twinkled.

"What was the matter, wouldn't your reserve tank take?" he asked.

"No, sir, it wouldn't take," I lied.

"That's the first tough luck you've had during the course, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "I have never cracked up before."

He flew me back to Kelly Field.

A POOR PROPHET

"What is the weather to New York?" I asked the weather man at the air-mail field at Bellefonte, Pa.

"Clear and unlimited all the way," he told me.

I took off in my low-wing Lockheed Sirius at dark and flew along the lighted beacons through the mountains. Half an hour later I ran into broken clouds at 4,000 feet. I flew under them. Soon they became solid and I couldn't see the stars overhead. I saw lightning ahead of me flashing in the darkness.

Water began to collect on my windshield. The air got very rough. A beacon light that had been flashing up ahead of me disappeared. I noticed the lights of a town beneath me getting dim. For a second I lost sight of them entirely. I nosed down to get out of the clouds.

A brilliant flash of lightning lit the darkness around me. I saw the rain driving in white sheets and caught the flash of a beacon through it. I nosed down toward the beacon and started circling it. I knew by my altimeter that I was down lower than some of the mountain ridges around me. I looked for the next beacon but couldn't see it through the raging thunderstorm. I didn't dare strike out in the general direction of the next beacon in the hope of finding it. I might hit a mountain top.

Another blinding flash of lightning surrounded me with glaring light. I saw the dark bottoms of the clouds and the black top of the next ridge I had to pass over. Then blackness and the slashing rain with only the friendly beacon under me.

I fought my way from beacon to beacon for an hour. The lightning flashes receded farther and farther behind me. I began to see from beacon to beacon. Stars appeared overhead. They were very dim. I was flying in a haze.

I passed over Hadley Field, New Jersey, and saw its boundary lights burning cheerfully. I continued on toward Roosevelt Field. I was almost home now.

I noticed the lights of the towns beneath me getting dimmer. I looked up. The stars were gone. I looked down again. The lights had disappeared! I was flying blind in a thick fog. I began to fly by instruments. I pulled up. At 3,000 feet I saw the stars. I was on top of the fog.

I swung around to go back to Hadley Field. Its lights were covered. I saw the lights of what I figured was New Brunswick. I started circling them. I knew Hadley Field was only a few miles from there. The lights of New Brunswick began to blot out. Hey, what the hell! I said out loud to myself.

I saw a segment of the rotating beam of a beacon break through a hole in the fog and make about a quarter of a turn in the darkness before it disappeared. That's the beam from Hadley beacon! I was saying all my thoughts out loud now. I flew over to where I figured the center of the beam was and started circling. The top of the fog looked pretty bright there. I decided that Hadley had heard me and had turned on its floodlights.

I eased back on my throttle, settled into a spiraling glide, and sank down into the fog, flying by instruments. The opaque white fog got more and more luminous. Individual bright spots, greatly blurred, began to appear. I figured they were the boundary lights of the field. My altimeter read very low. I broke through the bottom of the fog at about two hundred feet. I was over Hadley. I flew low into the blackness back of the field and came around and landed.

"What the hell are you flying in this stuff for?" the Hadley weather man asked me.

"Because I was damned fool enough to take Bellefonte's weather report seriously," I said.

TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE

When I was in Cleveland at the air races a couple of years ago four so-called flyers asked me to fly with them in their Bellanca to the Sky Harbor airport near Chicago. I agreed. We took off after the last race with just enough gas to make the field nicely. We hit a head wind, but I still figured we were okay. I didn't know where the field was, but one of the girls in the plane had been taking instruction at Sky Harbor and the other three claimed that they had lived in Chicago all their lives and knew Sky Harbor as well as their own mother.

When we got to Chicago it was already dark. I followed instructions. We flew north. Someone yelled I should turn east. I turned east. Someone else shouted that was all wrong, we were already too far east. I turned west. The next fifteen minutes were bedlam. "_East, north, west, and south,"_ they yelled. I lost my temper. "_Do you or do you not know where this field is?"_ I exploded. "_There it is!"_ they chorused. I heaved a sigh of relief and got ready to land. It wasn't the field. I looked at my gas, and my gas was too low. I took matters into my own hands and flew back to the municipal airport and gassed up. We started out again. The situation started to strike me as funny as soon as the tanks were full. I let them have their fun, and eventually they did find the field. I called back to the girl who had been taking instruction and asked if there were any obstructions around the field. "Absolutely not!" she vowed. I looked the field over as carefully as I could. There were no floodlights (they had also told me the field was well lighted). I cut the gun and glided in for a landing. A high-tension post whizzed by my left ear. We had missed the wires by just two inches. And there were no obstructions around the field!

HIDDEN FAULTS

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 passed 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 ship. Easier to get out that way. I put the ship 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 ship from the other seat. By bending way down nobody 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 bump 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 ship 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 ship 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 ship 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 cockpit. "My God, 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, hell! 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 boner instead of trying to lie out of it.

GONE ARE THE DAYS

George Weiss, one of the boys that kick the _Daily News_ photographic ship 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 Washington several years ago and asked him if he could fly him up to his home at Havre de Grace, Md. He assured George that there was a field there right beside his house that they could land in. He said that he had landed in it himself.

George took him up in his Travelair cabin ship. He arrived over the Commander's house and the Commander pointed out the field. "It's full of cows," George objected. "That's all right," the Commander told him, "just buzz the field a couple of times and somebody will come out and chase the cows away."

George did, and sure enough somebody came out and chased the cows off the field.

"I still can't land there," George remonstrated. "The field is too small."

"Sure you can," the Commander assured him; "I've done it."

George circled the field again. He said it looked like a good-sized pocket handkerchief to him and was surrounded by tall trees.

"Are you sure you've landed there?" George insisted.

"Sure, I have," the Commander reassured him. "Go ahead, you can get in it."