Eddie Burgin, one of the oldest pilots on Roosevelt Field, tells me this
one about how they used the last remaining outdoor "outbuilding" on
Roosevelt Field as a homing device to lead a troubled pilot down into
the airport.
Russ Simpson, American flying instructor in the Gosport School in
England during the war and at present an airplane broker on Roosevelt
Field, took off in one of the old Jennies to fly the first electric sign
ever flown over New York City at night. While he was gone a ground fog
rolled in over the airport.
Pretty soon the fellows on the ground heard him coming back. They could
hear his motor, but they couldn't see his ship. They knew he couldn't
see the airport. He was stuck on top of the fog.
They decided to help him. They got cans of gasoline and poured them on
the old outbuilding which stood a little way out from the hangars and
set fire to the rickety structure. They tore up all the spare motor
crates they could find and piled them on top of the blaze. They got the
fire so big they were afraid for a while that the hangars were going to
catch. They were trying to make a red glow in the fog so Russ could tell
where the field was.
Finally they heard Russ's motor cut. They heard the ship glide in and
heard it hit. They could tell from the noise it made when it hit that it
had cracked up.
They jumped into a car and went rushing all over the airport in the
darkness and the fog looking for the wreck. It took them half an hour to
find it, so Eddie says.
When they did, they found Russ sitting on top of it, smoking a
cigarette. Their almost burning the hangars down had all been in vain.
Russ hadn't seen any red glow at all. He had simply mushed down through
the stuff and hit the airport by luck.