Jimmy Collins used periodically to try to change his name to Jim
Collins, but he never could make it stick. There was something
about him that made everybody call him Jimmy. He did sign his
wonderful article in the _Saturday Evening Post_ about dive
testing "Jim Collins," but his friends kidded him so much about
wanting to be a "he-man" that he went back to Jimmy in his
articles for the New York _Daily News_.
The article from the _Saturday Evening Post_, "Return to Earth,"
which is printed in this book, is the most extraordinary flying
story I have ever read, and as a newspaper and former magazine
editor I have read hundreds of them, from _The Red Knight of
Germany_ down.
Jimmy wrote his own stuff--every word of it. Not one line has
been added to or taken from any of the stories that appeared in
the _Daily News_. If a story had any unkindness in it, or
reflected on any other pilot's ability, Jimmy omitted or changed
the name of the person under reproach.
Jimmy graduated from the army training schools of Brooks and
Kelly fields, in the same class as Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh.
Collins and Lindbergh were two of the four selected for the
pursuit group, which means they were considered to have the
greatest ability in their class. Jimmy afterwards became the
youngest instructor at Kelly Field.
I was privileged to receive some instruction from Jimmy. He was
a fine teacher, making you know precisely what he wanted and
why. He told me promptly that I lacked coordination. He said,
"Every student lacks coordination, but you lack more of it than
any student I ever saw." In driving a car, you can go forward or
backward, left or right. An airplane cannot go backward. It can
go forward, right, left, up, down. The coordination that Collins
kept talking about meant that when, for instance, you were going
up and to the right, you should do it in one perfect arc between
the two desired points, not in a wavering line that sometimes
bulged and sometimes flattened itself out.
Pretty near any dub can be taught to fly some if he has patience
enough and can afford to pay for two or three times as much
instruction as the ordinary man gets. But nobody not born for it
can learn to fly like Collins. His rhythm and reflexes were like
a good orchestra. He was just a natural aviator. He had the
wings of an angel all right, and he was more at home, more
comfortable, more at peace with himself and the world in the air
than he was on the ground, where he sometimes thought himself to
be a misfit.
Jimmy talked as well as he wrote, drank less than most aviators,
and that's not so much, and smoked a considerable number of
cigarettes.
Until the last couple of years, when the depression and his
trade had deepened the lines in his face, he might almost have
been called "pretty," though it would have been better not to
say that to him. He had light wavy hair, blue eyes, fine white
teeth, smiled a good deal, and as far as his appearance went he
could have been a romantic hero in Hollywood.
He was the most fearless man I ever knew. No, I take that back.
I have known other aviators whom I considered to be without
fear. Collins was as brave as any of them. Even at best, in
spite of what its adherents say, flying is not a particularly
safe business, and Collins chose the most dangerous branch of
it, that is, dive testing. "Return to Earth," in this book,
explains that. He said he did it for the money, which was partly
true, but I don't think entirely so. I think he liked to pull
the whiskers of death and see if he could get away with it.
Anyhow, he had made a resolution that the dive that killed him
should be his last one. Whether he would have kept that
resolution, I doubt. I think he liked the thrill of having
everybody on the field say, "Jimmy is dive testing a bomber this
afternoon."
The story, as told by McCory, the photographer, who had a desk
near to him, is that he said to Collins, "Jimmy, you are making
some money now out of your newspaper articles. Why don't you
stop this test racket?" And Collins answered, "I will. I was
under contract to do twelve dives on this navy ship, and I have
done eleven. The next one is going to be my last." Then he
paused, smiled his bright smile, and said, "At that, it might
be."
--JOSEPH MEDILL PATTERSON
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