Back-seat driving is taboo in the ethics of the flying game. But
occasionally you get a case of it when you get two pilots together in
the same cockpit.
Two pilots were flying a pretty heavily loaded bomber on a cross-country
trip, one time. They were both fast friends and both equally good
pilots. Maybe that's why the thing happened as it did.
They landed at Love Field, Tex., gassed up, and taxied out to take off
again. Part of the field was torn up. They didn't have any more field
than just enough from where they began their take-off.
Their heavily loaded ship with its two Liberty motors, its acres of
wings, and its forest of struts started lumbering down the field. The
pilot who was flying the ship used most of the space in front of his
obstacles before he got the ship off the ground. He did a nice job after
he got it off the ground by not climbing it more than just enough to
clear the wires which were in front of him. He figured he was just going
to clear them nicely when apparently the other pilot, sitting alongside
him in the other cockpit, figured he wasn't although why the other pilot
did what he did at that second I could never figure out, except that it
was one of those dumb things that we are all apt to do under duress if
we don't watch ourselves.
Anyway, both motors suddenly quit cold, and the ship smacked into the
wires and piled up in a heap on the far side of the road across the
airport.
Both pilots came out of the wreck running. The one who had been flying
the ship had the wheel, which evidently had broken off in the crash,
raised above his head in his right hand. He was brandishing it wildly,
running after the other pilot and shouting at the top of his voice, "Cut
my switches, will you! Cut my switches just when I was going to make it!
If I ever catch you I'll cut your throat!"