A friend of mine was once chased and rammed in midair by a drunken
pilot. If you have ever been approached on the road by a drunken driver
you have some idea of the predicament he found himself in when this
drunk started chasing him. Of course, he didn't know this guy was drunk,
but he knew he was either drunk or crazy.
My friend was an army pilot. He was flying an army pursuit ship from
Selfridge Field, Mich., to Chicago and was circling the field at Chicago
preparatory to landing when he was set upon by the drunk, who, evidently
still living in the memory of his war days, was trying to egg my friend
on to a sham battle, trying to get him to dogfight.
He saw the DH, which was a mail ship of those days, approach him first
from above and head on. He had to kick out of the way at the last
moment, or he would have been hit on that first pass the guy took at
him. The guy pulled up and took another pass at him. He kicked out of
the way again and started wondering since when had they turned lunatics
loose in the sky. He didn't have much time for wondering, because the
guy kept taking passes at him. Finally, the guy took to diving down
under him and pulling up in front of him. He seemed to think that was
more fun than just diving on my friend, and he kept it up.
My friend saw him disappear under the tail of his ship this time, and he
didn't know what to do about it. He didn't know which way to turn,
because he didn't know which way the goof was going to pull up.
Suddenly he saw the nose of the other ship. It came up directly in front
of his own nose. He knew the guy had overdone it this time and come too
close. He pulled back on his stick, but felt the jar of the collision
just as he did. It threw him up into a stall, and when he came out his
motor was so rough he had to cut his switches. He had raked the tail of
the other ship with his propeller, and it was bent all out of shape. He
had also cut the tail off the drunk's ship.
The drunk was evidently too drunk to get out of the cockpit because he
cracked up with his ship. My friend managed to get his ship down without
jumping. It was only a wonder, plus some neat flying on my friend's
part, that he wasn't killed too.