"Well," began Bob, "I guess my story isn't going to be very new to any
of you. Gee, I know it almost by heart, and I suppose everybody else
does, too."
"Don't apologize," said the Captain. "We'll be only too glad to stop you
if we've heard it before. I don't think that we will, though. It's a
story that bears repeating."
Bob's eyes lighted up. "You bet," he said. "I never get tired of reading
about it." He plucked at the grass beside him. "Gee, it makes a fellow
want to do things. It makes him feel that the older folks don't know
everything--"
"A-hem," interrupted Captain Bill.
Bob laughed. "You're not old folks, old bean. Don't flatter yourself.
Anyway, they told Lindbergh that he couldn't do it. They told him that
his plane was carrying too much, and he'd never be able to make it
alone."
"Did he?" said Pat.
Bob looked at him disgustedly. "Did he! Don't make fun of me, you old
Irishman!"
The old Irishman looked grieved. "Well, I just wanted to know. I'm
always willing to learn somethin' new. And you'd better get started, or
we'll never know. We'll be leaving the lad up in the air, so to speak."
"Ignore that ape," said Captain Bill, "and proceed."
"Lindbergh didn't listen to them. He just went ahead and did what he
thought was right, and by golly, he was right. It makes a fellow feel
that even if he is young he can do things. He doesn't just have to sit
around and do what everybody else has done before. There's got to be a
first every time. Lindy wasn't afraid just because nobody had ever flown
the Atlantic alone before, and the wiseacres said that it couldn't be
done. He just went ahead and flew it."
"It wasn't as easy as all that," quietly remarked Hal.
Bob turned to him. "Of course not. Lindy had planned every move that he
was going to make. He was prepared for anything. That's why he's always
so successful. He has his plans all laid before he ever takes off. He's
got all the courage in the world, but he's not reckless."
"Put that under your hat, my lad. It's a good lesson to know by heart
when you're going into the flying game."
"You bet," said Bob. "Gee, it needed a lot of courage for him to make
that take-off. I've got the date down here. It was May 20, 1927, on a
Friday. That must have been an exciting morning down at Roosevelt Field.
He made up his mind on Thursday afternoon. They told him that the
weather was all right over the North Atlantic, and that it would be best
if he started out the next morning.
"He didn't tell anybody about his plans. He never talks very much
anyway. Everybody found that out later. It was all sort of secret. He
just told his mechanics to get the Spirit of St. Louis ready, and keep
their mouths shut. I guess he didn't want everybody messing around with
his plans. But the men who delivered his gasoline weren't so secret, I
guess, and somehow his plans leaked out Thursday night.
"That Thursday night was pretty awful. It was raining, and the weather
could be cut with a knife. But once people found out that Slim was going
to start, they began to come around to Curtiss Field, and at two o'clock
in the morning there was a big crowd of them standing around in the rain
and mud. Slim wasn't leaving from Curtiss, though, and they towed his
plane by truck over to Roosevelt. They got there just about when it was
getting light.
"There was a crowd over at Curtiss, too. But Slim didn't care. Crowds
never mean much to him. He saw a whole lot more of them later on, too,
but he never was one to strut or show off. He just got into his
fur-lined suit, and waited for the men to start his engine. Somebody
asked him if he had only five sandwiches and two canteens of water.
'Sure,' he said. 'If I get to Paris, I won't need any more, and if I
don't get there, I won't need any more, either.' It was just like him to
say that, but the real reason he didn't take any more was because he had
too much weight already. He had over 200 gallons of gas, and the load
was heavy. He had to cut down on everything that wasn't absolutely
necessary.
"Well, they started his motor for him. The plane was standing on the
Roosevelt runway, which is pretty smooth, and five thousand feet long.
The weather had cleared up a little. And there was the monoplane looking
all silver and slick, roaring away for all it was worth. Lindy said
goodbye to his mother, and to Byrd and Chamberlin and Acosta, who were
planning their own trips across the Atlantic, and then he stepped into
the cockpit, and closed the door.
"He raced his motor a little bit. She must have sounded pretty sweet to
him, because he gave her the gun, and off he went. That start must have
been one of the hardest parts of the whole trip. The Spirit of St. Louis
bumped along that muddy runway, and the people watching thought she'd go
over on her nose any moment. She was over-loaded. Her motor was pulling
for all she was worth, but it didn't seem as though they'd ever make it.
She went off the ground a few feet, and bounced down again. But then the
crowd held its breath. She was leaving the ground. They were up about
fifteen feet. And there were telegraph wires in their path. If they hit
those, the trip to Paris was over right then. But they didn't. The
landing gear cleared by a few inches. That crowd simply roared. But Slim
didn't hear them. He was on his way to Paris."
Bob paused for breath. He had been talking very fast, carried away by
his story. The others did not speak, but sat waiting for him to go on.
They had all heard the story before, but as the Captain had said, it
bore repeating, and they could hear it again and again. There was
something agelessly appealing in the tale of that young man's feat.
Bob was talking again. "I'm not much at poetry," he said.
"You bet you're not," said Captain Bill. "I've read some of yours."
Bob glared at him. "I never wrote a poem!" he said defensively.
The Captain looked contrite. "It must have been Hal," he said. "I beg
your pardon. Go on with your story. Where does the poetry come in?"
"I was going to tell you, before you interrupted, so rudely, that
there's somebody who's written a poem--a lot of poetry, to music--a
cantata I think they call it. It's about Lindy's flight, and it tells
the story of the flight across the Atlantic. I guess it's pretty
thrilling. Maybe that's the only way the story can be told--in poetry and
music, because it always sounds pretty flat when you just say Lindy flew
across the Atlantic in a monoplane. It needs music, with a lot of
trumpets--"
"Go on, go on, my lad. More words, less music." Pat seemed to be getting
impatient. The sun was pretty high over their heads now, and bees were
buzzing drowsily in the tall grass all around them. Hal had stretched
out on his stomach, facing the little group, which was seated now in a
semi-circle. "I'll be falling asleep if you don't get on."
Bob laughed embarrassedly. "All right, you just stop me if I get to
rambling. You keep me straight, Irish."
Captain Bill leaned back on a hummock of earth, his arms folded behind
his head. "I'm so comfortable, I could listen to anything, even to Bob
telling a story. Go on, Bob."
"One more crack, and you don't hear anything," said Bob. "Remember the
rules, no interruptions from the gallery."
"We stand corrected. Go on."
Bob settled himself once again into the grass. "Well, we've got Lindy
into the air. No sooner had he set out when people began reporting that
they'd seen him. Some of them had. A lot of them were just excited
individuals who'd heard a motorcycle back-firing. But somebody actually
did see him flying over Rhode Island, and about two hours, nearly, after
he had set out, they flashed back that he'd been seen at Halifax,
Massachusetts. Then he dropped out of sight. Nobody reported seeing him.
That was because he took an over-water route, and was out some distance,
flying along the coast of New England.
"They saw him next over Nova Scotia, running along nicely, and then
Springfield, Nova Scotia saw him. It was about one o'clock, and he was
going strong. But he was getting into a dangerous region, cold and
foggy. They had watchers looking for him everywhere. Lindy left Nova
Scotia at Cape Breton, headed for Newfoundland. It was pretty stiff
going, about 200 miles without sight of land, and over a pretty
treacherous sea. But at 7:15 they saw him flying low over St. John's, in
Newfoundland. They could see the number on the wings, and sent back word
to the world that he had passed there. And that was the last word that
anybody received that Friday.
"The going had been pretty good until then. The weather was clear, and
the ceiling pretty high. But as soon as it got dark, Lindy and his plane
hit some pretty bad weather. It grew mighty cold, and a thick swirling
fog came up and swallowed up the plane. This was mighty tough, because
if he flew low, he was bound to run into one of the icebergs that were
floating in the icy sea. So he climbed up to about 10,000 feet, and
stayed there. Flying high was all right, but it added another danger.
Ice was forming on the wings of the Spirit of St. Louis, and if it got
thick enough, it would break off a wing of the plane, and send the plane
and Lindy into the sea.
"Lindy could have turned back, but he didn't. He kept right on, through
fog and sleet and rain. His motor never missed. It was a good pal, and
no wonder he included it in his feat, and said later that 'we crossed
the Atlantic.'
"When morning came, a whole flock of cables came, too. It seems a whole
lot of ships had sighted Lindy's plane, or somebody's plane, anywhere
from 500 to 100 miles off the coast of Ireland, where he was headed.
Nobody knew who to believe, but at 10:00 o'clock came the real news,
that he was over a place called Valencia, Ireland.
"Lindy wondered where he was, himself. Flying blind as he had, he didn't
know just where he had come out. So he decided to ask the first person
he met. Now you can imagine the air roads weren't full of planes flying
to Ireland, and Lindy had to wait until he sighted a fishing schooner.
He swooped low and shouted out, 'Am I headed for Ireland?' The fishermen
were so astounded that they couldn't answer, so Lindy flew on his
course, depending as he had all night, on his compass. Pretty soon he
came in sight of land, and knew that it was Ireland."
"Because it was so beautiful," said Pat.
"No, because it was rocky, and his maps indicated that the land would be
rocky," said Bob.
"Oh, no doubt he could tell it was Ireland," insisted Pat. "His mother
was Irish, you know, and it needs mighty little Irish blood to make a
man long for the ould sod."
"Well, anyway, there he was over Ireland," put in Bob, pointedly. "And
from Ireland, on to England, and from England, on to France. Along the
Seine, and then Paris. They were waiting for him at Le Bourget, and sent
up flares and rockets, long before he got there. Maybe they weren't
excited when he flew into range! It was about 8:30, that is, French
time, but about 5:30 New York time, when Lindy and the Spirit of St.
Louis circled around the landing field at Le Bourget and landed. Golly,
I wish I'd been there. The first man in the world to fly the Atlantic,
landing before my very eyes! He'd gone 3,640 miles, and had made it in
33-1/2 hours. Some going!
"Well, he was there. And he got out of the plane. And you all know what
he said when he got out. I--"
"I am Charles Lindbergh," said Captain Bill and Pat, not quite in
unison.
"Yup," said Bob, "'I am Charles Lindbergh.' He thought that they
wouldn't know who he was. He'd been flying pretty low over Ireland and
England, and so far as he could see, nobody had paid much attention to
him. So he introduced himself, just as though every man, woman and child
in every civilized country wasn't saying that very name all through the
day. Remember when we heard the news over the radio, Hal? We were so
excited we nearly upset the furniture. Golly, that was a day.
"Well, that was Slim Lindbergh's flight, and now about Slim himself. He
was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 2, 1902, and that means that
he was only twenty-five years old when he made his greatest flight,
which is pretty young to become the most famous man in the world.
"His dad was Charles A. Lindbergh, and he died in 1924, when he was
running for governor of Minnesota on the Farmer-Labor ticket. He'd been
a Representative in Congress before. Lindy and he were great pals, and
played around together a lot. Lindy's mother was Irish, and taught
school in Detroit.
"Lindy went to school in Little Falls, and to Little Falls High School.
He graduated from there when he was 16. He was good in Math and in other
things he liked, but not in grammar.
"Lindy didn't go right to college. In fact, he didn't go until three
years after he'd graduated from high school, and then he went to the
University of Wisconsin, to take up mechanical engineering. He was good
at that. He'd always liked to tinker, and he got his chance there. He
did at college just what you'd expect him to do. He had some friends and
acquaintances, but mostly he kept to himself. He was the same quiet, shy
person that everybody got to know later, when he became famous.
"Slim didn't stay at Wisconsin very long, so we don't know what he would
have finally done there. He went over to Lincoln, Nebraska, where they
had a flying school, and asked them to teach him to fly. They taught him
the beginnings of flying, and from the moment his hands touched the
controls, he knew that this was what he was cut out for. He just took
naturally to those levers and gadgets, and could handle his plane like a
toy.
"It seems that Lindy was born to be a pilot. He's built for one, in the
first place. Long and rangy, and slim. No extra weight, but plenty of
muscle and endurance. He's got a lot of nerve and never gets excited He
showed that when he got himself elected to the Caterpillar Club. But
I'll get to that later." Here Bob paused, and looked up at the sun,
which was just slipping a little westward. "Say," he said. "Would you
folks mind if I continued my story later? I feel just a little empty.
How about the food?"
"I've been thinking that for a long time," said the Captain. "But rules
are rules. I didn't want to interrupt you."
Bob snorted. "Say, for food you can interrupt me any time. Let's go."
He jumped up, stretched himself, and made for the car, to get out the
huge hamper of lunch. "Say," he called back, "Lindy may have been
satisfied with five sandwiches all the way to Paris, but darned if I
couldn't eat five right now." He carried the hamper over to the knoll
where the others were. They were all standing now, limbering up,
stretching, sniffing the good air, and looking eagerly toward the food.
"Here, lend a hand," said Bob. He plumped down the basket so that they
could hear the rattle of forks and tin cups within, and sat down beside
it.
"You're the host," said Hal, seating himself comfortably on the grass
and looking on. "It's your party. We have to listen to your story, so
the least you can do is feed us."
Bob had opened the hamper, and was viewing its contents eagerly. He
dived into the basket. "Say, anybody who doesn't help himself, doesn't
eat. Fall to."
They fell to, doing much eating but little talking. Finally Bob sat
back, a sandwich in one hand, a cup of steaming coffee out of the
thermos bottle in the other. "I have a suspicion," he said, "that you
don't like my story."
"Don't get ideas like that, Bob, my lad," said Pat. "We love your story.
We just like sandwiches better."
"All right, then I won't finish," said Bob. "I'm going to be
independent."
Hal looked up. "Not finish? You've got finish any story you start."
"One of the rules? There aren't any rules. You just made that up."
Hal was cajoling now. "Aw, come on, Bob. We want to hear the end. Come
on, tell us the rest."
Bob bit into a huge slice of cake. He shook his head. "Nope, no end."
"Well, at least about the Caterpillar Club. At least you'll tell us how
Lindy saved his life by bailing out. We've got to hear that."
But Bob was adamant. "I've been insulted. I'm not going on. Anyway,
Lindy didn't save his life once by bailing out of a plane."
"He didn't? You said a little while ago that he did."
"I didn't say once. He became eligible to the Caterpillar Club four
times."
Hal looked at Bob with disgust. "I must say that you're being very
disagreeable."
Captain Bill, who had been looking on in amusement, suddenly laughed
very loudly. "Don't coax him, Hal. He doesn't need coaxing. He's going
to tell the rest of the story, don't you worry. Wild horses couldn't
keep him from finishing the tale. Could they, Bob, old man?"
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 ships 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 ship, 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.
"He tried flares again, but it was no use. When he had just a few
minutes of gas left, he saw the glow of a town. He didn't want to take a
chance on landing in a town and killing somebody, so he headed for open
country. In a few minutes his engine died. Lindy stepped out into the
blind fog and jumped. After falling a hundred feet, he pulled the
rip-cord, and left the rest to chance. Every once in a while his ship
appeared, twirling away in spirals, the outside of the circle about 300
yards away from Lindy. He counted five spirals, and then lost sight of
the bus. He landed in a corn field, shaken, of course, but all right. He
found his way to the farm house, and told the farmer who he was. The
farmer, who had heard the crash of the plane as it smashed to earth
wouldn't believe that this safe and sound man was the pilot of it.
Finally Lindy convinced him, and they went in search of the plane, which
the farmer was sure had landed close to his house. They found it two
miles away, looking not much like a plane, but a heap of rubbish. The
mail wasn't hurt. They got it to a train for Chicago, and the mail went
through. It always does, you know."
"Yup, it always does," said Captain Bill.
"That reminds me of a story," said Pat.
"Hold it," said Bob. "I've got another parachute for Lindy."
"Fire away," said Pat. "But remember to remind me not to forget to tell
you my own story."
"All right," Bob put in. "Now the fourth time Lindy jumped was not long
before his big flight. He was still flying for Robertson's, carrying
mail to Chicago. Just south of Peoria he ran into rain that changed to
snow. Lindy flew around, waiting for the fog to lift, until he heard his
motor sputter and die. He was up about 13,000 feet when he stepped out
of the cockpit and jumped into the air. He landed on a barbed wire
fence. Tore his shirt, but the plane was pretty much of a wreck. He
grabbed the air mail; hurried to a train for Chicago, got another plane,
and flew the mail through. A little late, but still, it got through. And
he didn't bat an eye. Not one of the jumps fazed him a bit.
"But it wasn't as though Lindy jumped at the slightest sign of anything
going wrong. He stayed with his plane until the very last minute, doing
everything he could to save it. He hated worse than anything to have a
plane smashed up. Look how long he stayed with that new plane he was
testing out--until he was just 300 feet above the ground.
"Well, Lindy was one of the best mail pilots that the Robertson
corporation had, in fact, he was their chief pilot. They could depend on
him to go out in weather that no other pilot would think of bucking. He
didn't show off. Just knew that he could fly through anything, and he
did.
"At this time there was a lot of excitement in the air. Orteig was
offering his $25,000 prize for the first man to cross the Atlantic, and
there were a lot of aviators who would have liked the prize, and were
trying for it. Of course, the money wasn't the whole thing. There was
the honor attached to it. And besides, there was the fact that crossing
the Atlantic would make people sit up and take notice that flying wasn't
as dangerous as they thought. If a man could fly all that distance in a
plane, maybe planes weren't the death traps that some people had an idea
they were. Lindy must have been thinking of this when he first decided
that he'd like to try for the Orteig prize. Because everything that he's
done since his flight has been to get people interested in aviation.
"But it takes money to fly across the ocean. You've got to get a special
plane and all that. Lindy had to have backers. He couldn't get them at
first. Everybody tried to discourage him. In the first place, he looked
such a kid. He was twenty-five, and that's young, but he didn't even
look twenty-five. The men he asked to back him all but told him to run
home and wait until he had grown up.
"Then Major Robertson, Lindy's Big Boss, tried to get backers for him.
He knew that Lindy could fly and finally got some influential men to put
up $15,000 for his flight. Maybe Lindy wasn't glad! He tucked his check
in his pocket and went on a shopping trip for a plane. He tried the
Bellanca people in New York, but they didn't have what he wanted, so he
skipped to San Diego to the Ryan Airways, Inc., and told them what he
wanted. They put their engineers to work on his specifications, and
designed him a Ryan monoplane, the neat stream-lined job that was
christened the Spirit of St. Louis. It's a graceful bird--but you've all
seen so many pictures of it, you know what it looks like. It has a wing
span of 46 feet, and an overall length of over 27 feet. They put in a
Wright engine--a Whirlwind, 200 horsepower. It's a radial engine. You two
probably know what a radial engine is, but Hal here doesn't." Bob paused
and turned to Hal. "Do you?"
"Uh-uh," grunted Hal. "Do you?"
"Of course I do. It's one in which the cylinders aren't in a straight
line or in a V, but arranged around an axis, like the spokes of a wheel.
Lindy's plane had two spark plugs for each cylinder, so that in case one
missed, there was another one ready. She could carry 450 gallons of gas
and twenty gallons of oil, and she was loaded to the gills when Lindy
took her off the ground at the Field.
"Suppose Lindy wasn't anxious about that plane. He hung around the
factory all the time that it was being built, and made suggestions to
help along Hawley Bowlus, who built the thing. You know Hawley Bowlus.
The fellow who held the glider record until Lindy took it away from
him--but that's later. Bowlus knows how to build planes, and Lindy swears
by him.
"Well, they got the plane finished in 60 days, which isn't bad time. Out
in New York, Byrd and Chamberlin and the others were getting ready to
fly the Atlantic. It's wasn't really a race to see who would be first,
but of course, there's no doubt that each one was anxious to be the
first man to cross the Atlantic. Because after all, nobody likes to be
second. So Lindy had to get out to the east coast as fast as he could.
He could hardly wait for the plane to be finished. But at last it was,
and all the equipment in place. Lindy climbed into the cockpit to test
her out. The cockpit was inclosed. I don't know whether I told that
before or not. Anyway, he could see out little windows on each side, but
he couldn't see ahead, or above him. So it was really flying blind all
the time, except for a sliding periscope that he could pull in or out at
the side, in case he had to see straight ahead. But Lindy doesn't mind
blind flying. He's a wonderful navigator.
"Well, Lindy turned over the motor of his new plane, and it sounded
sweet. He hadn't got it any more than off the ground when he realized
that this was the plane for him. It responded to every touch, although
it was a heavy ship, and not much good for stunting. But Lindy didn't
want to stunt. He wanted to fly to Europe.
"It was on May 10, I think, that he left San Diego. It was in the
evening, not quite six o'clock. The next morning, a little after eight,
he got into St. Louis. Took him just a bit over fourteen hours, the
whole trip. It was the longest cross-country hop that any one man had
made up to that time. His old pals at Lambert Field were pretty glad to
see him, and he spent the night at his old stamping grounds. But he
didn't stay long. Early in the morning he got on his way, and made New
York in the afternoon, in not quite seven and a half hours. Pretty
flying.
"Nobody much had heard of Lindy until he started from San Diego. Of
course, he'd been a dandy mail pilot, but they're usually unnamed
heroes. Nobody hears about them, and they never get their names in the
paper unless they crash. Not that they care. They've got their jobs to
do, and they do them. But when Lindy flew that grand hop from San Diego
to St. Louis to New York, people began to sit up and take notice. He
didn't say much after he got to the Curtiss Field.
"Out at Curtiss he spent his time seeing that everything was ready, and
all his instruments O.K. He had a lot of confidence in himself--he always
has--but there was no use in taking chances. In back of the pilot's seat
was a collapsible rubber boat, that he could blow up with two tanks of
gas that he carried with him. It had light oars, and was supposed to be
able to float him for a week in case he decided suddenly to come down in
the middle of the Atlantic instead of flying all the way across. Then
there were his regular instruments. He had a tachometer, and an
altimeter, an earth inductor compass, a drift indicator, and--"
Captain Bill interrupted. "Just a minute, just a minute. You say those
things pretty glibly. Do you know what they mean? What's a tachometer?
Pat here doesn't know."
Bob looked embarrassed. "Well, they're all pretty necessary instruments.
I've been meaning to look them up, that is, Gee, I really ought to know,
oughtn't I?"
"You ought," said the Captain severely. "Do you mind if I interrupt your
story for just a minute and give you a few pointers? This is mostly for
you and Hal. You'll never be able to fly unless you understand what the
instruments on the dashboard are for. Of course a lot of the old flyers,
like Patrick, here, flew just by instinct, and stuck their heads out
over the cockpit to see what was happening. A real pilot nowadays,
though, can be sealed in his cockpit and never see ahead of him from the
time he takes off until he lands, just so long as his instruments are
working. He can keep his course over any country, no matter how strange.
You've got to know your instruments."
"Well, tell us," said Bob.
The Captain sat up. "I guess the first thing that Lindy watched was the
tachometer. This is the instrument that shows the number of revolutions
per minute, or R. P. M.'s that the engine is making. A flyer must know
how many R. P. M.'s his engine must make to maintain a correct flying
speed, or he'll go into a stall, which is bad. I'll tell you more about
stalls later. The altimeter registers the height at which the plane is
flying. It isn't very accurate at low altitudes, but it's all right
higher up. You soon learn by the feel and the lay of the land how high
up you are. The exact height doesn't matter in ordinary flying, just so
that you keep a good altitude. Then there's that most important
instrument, the earth inductor compass. This is much more accurate than
a magnetic compass, and it keeps the ship on its course. It operates in
regard to the electro-magnetic reactions of the earth's field, and
directions are indicated in reference to magnetic north. To steer by
this compass, you have to set your desired heading on the controller,
and then steer to keep the indicator on zero. If you veer to the left,
the indicator will swing to the left, and to keep on your course you
must bring your plane back to the right. When he changes his course, the
pilot consults his maps and graphs, and makes a change in the indicator
of the compass.
"Then there is the air speed indicator, which shows the speed of the
plane in the air. This is necessary so that the engine is not
over-speeded. A pilot never runs his plane at full speed as a general
thing, because he'll wear out his engine. He keeps it at about 80 per
cent of its potential speed, which is a good safe margin.
"The turn and bank indicator also reads from zero, and deviates from
zero when the plane dips. The bubble rides up to the left when the plane
banks right, and rides up to the right when the plane banks left. When
the ship is again on an even keel, the indicator goes back to zero. The
pilot, when he isn't flying blind, can keep his plane level by noticing
the position of the radiator cap or top of the engine in respect to the
horizon. But in a heavy fog, or if he can't see over his cockpit, the
horizon doesn't exist, and a bank and turn indicator is his instrument.
"The instruments that are no less important than these are the oil
gauge, the gasoline pressure gauge, and the thermometer, which shows
whether the motor is overheating. If the oil gauge shows that the oil is
at a good cool temperature, and the gasoline pressure gauge shows that
the gas pressure is up, the pilot knows that his motor is running
nicely. The gas pressure gauge won't tell you how much gas you have
left, though. It's always best to figure how much gas you're going to
need on a trip, and then take some over for emergencies. Most planes
also have an emergency tank, so that if one tank gives out, the other
can be switched on, and will give the flyer time to maneuver about until
he finds a landing place." Captain Bill paused. "Well, those are your
instruments. I'll probably have to explain them all over to you again
when the plane comes, and I start to teach you to fly."
"Oh, no, not to me, you won't," Bob said.
Hal sat quietly looking out over the valley below, saying nothing. He
had listened intently to the Captain's instructions, but there was an
odd expression on his face.
Finally Pat snorted. Bob and the others jumped.
"Hi, what's the idea. Is there a story being told, or isn't there a
story being told? Get on with you."
"It's no fault of mine, Patrick," said Bob, looking meaningly at the
Captain, who appeared as innocent as a lamb. "I'm always being rudely
interrupted. But I'll go on. Where was I?"
"The Lindbergh lad was at Curtiss Field, waiting this long time to be
off," said Pat.
"Oh, yes. Well, when he got word that the weather was O.K., he got his
sandwiches, his canteens of water, and started off on the greatest
flight in aviation history. And I've told you about that."
"We seem to be right back where we started from," the Captain said. "Is
that the end of your story?"
Bob laughed. "By no means. You've got a lot to hear yet. What do you
suppose I've been collecting dope for all these weeks? I've got a lot to
tell you. Lindy wasn't satisfied with one great trip. He's been flying
since, and has made some pretty important jaunts. Things happened to him
after he got back to America loaded down with about every kind of medal
that one man can get. And I'm going to tell you all of them."
"I suppose we'll have to listen. It's part of the game," Pat said. "But
not now, my lad." He rose stiffly from the grass. "You're mother will be
looking for us, and wondering what's become of us. We'd better get for
home."
"How about continuing in the next issue?" laughed the Captain.
"O.K." said Bob. "You get the rest of it tonight, whether you like it or
not."
Hal looked up fervently at Bob. "Oh, we like it, Bob. I think it's a
great story. A great story." The boy's eyes shown in his pale face.
"Golly, Bob, it must be wonderful to be able to do things like that."
Bob looked uncomfortable as they walked over to the car. "Well, kid, I
don't see why anybody can't do great things if he's got grit enough.
That's what it takes--Grit."