went to Chanute Field to take the entrance examinations for a Flying
Cadet.
On one occasion while at Lambert Field I had made a short flight into
the Ozark foothills with Leon Klink, an automobile dealer who had
bought a Canuck that fall and was just learning to fly it. After I
returned from Chanute Field and was waiting for the results of my
examinations, we decided to make a pleasure flight through the south,
barnstorming only enough to make current expenses, if possible. Klink
wanted to learn to fly, and at the same time take a vacation, while
my only objective was to keep flying and at the same time be ready
to enter the next class at Brooks Field which commenced in March,
providing my examinations had been passed satisfactorily.
Accordingly on the twenty-third of January we took off from Lambert
Field in five below zero weather and headed for the Sunny South.
Our first stop was at Perryville, Missouri, where we visited with some
of Klink’s friends for several days, and carried nineteen passengers.
After leaving Perryville we flew to Hickman, Kentucky, and landed in
a soft field east of town. We had passed out of the extremely cold
weather and the wheels of our plane sank several inches into the
southern mud. When we had refueled and attempted to take-off, it was
impossible to get enough speed to lift the tires out of the mud. So
Klink got out and I tried to take-off alone. On the third attempt the
ship gained enough speed for the wings to begin to carry a portion of
the load and keep the wheels from sinking so deeply; then it was only a
matter of a few more feet before I was off.
I picked out a hayfield a little further from town, which appeared to
be a little more solid than the first, and landed. By that time it was
too late to make another hop before dusk, and as even the new field
was too soft to make it advisable to carry any passengers, we left the
Canuck tied to a fence and went into Hickman for the night.
The first effort to take-off the following morning was unsuccessful,
also the second. We could not gain a speed of over five miles an
hour over the soft ground. Finally, with the assistance of several
men pushing on each wing, we got the ship to the top of a gentle
rise which gave us enough of a start to take-off without serious
difficulty. We stopped once in Tennessee for fuel; then at Friar Point,
Mississippi, where we landed in an old cotton field and tied down for
the night.
The Canuck had only one fuel tank with a capacity of twenty-three
gallons or enough to last for two and a half hours. By leaving half an
hour for locating a landing field, which was quite difficult at times,
we had enough gasoline remaining for about one hundred and twenty-five
miles in still air. If we were bucking a head wind it would be just
that much less.
We spent the night with one of the plantation hands near the field
and the next day in seeing the country and carrying a handful of
passengers. In the evening we visited a “hanted” house with a party of
the younger residents but were unable to find any “hants.”
Our next stop was at Hollandale, then Vicksburg, where we landed in a
little field six miles north of town by slipping in down the side of a
small mountain and ground-looping before striking a stump. After a day
seeing Vicksburg we flew to Clinton where the passenger trade was quite
lively and another day passed making sightseeing flights.
We refueled at Hattiesburg and Mobile, then landed at the Naval Air
Station near Pensacola, Florida, where the Commanding Officer showed us
every courtesy during our visit.
At last I received notice from the War Department to the effect that
my examination had been satisfactorily passed, along with an order to
appear at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas, in time to enter the March
fifteenth class of Flying Cadets.
Klink and I decided to cut short our stay at Pensacola and to work our
way as far west as time would allow before it was necessary for me to
leave for Brooks Field.
We had promised to take one of the ladies of the post for a short hop
before leaving, and on the morning of our departure I took off for
a test flight before taking the lady over Pensacola. Just after the
ship had left the field and was about two hundred feet high over the
bay, the motor “reved” down to about five hundred. I banked around in
an attempt to get back to the field but lacked by about fifteen feet
enough altitude to reach it, and was forced to land in the sand hills
less than a hundred feet from the edge of the flying field. The first
hill wiped off my landing gear and one wheel went up through the front
spar on the lower left wing, breaking it off about two feet from the
fuselage.
A quick survey of the plane showed that we would require a new landing
gear and propeller in addition to the material required to splice the
spar.
The Navy hauled the plane into one of its large dirigible hangars
and allowed us to make use of its equipment in repairing the damage.
We purchased a spare landing gear and a propeller, then built a box
frame around the broken spar and after gluing all the joints, screwed
it in position and wound the splice with strong cord, which was then
shrunk tight by several coats of dope. In this way the splice was made
stronger than the original spar had ever been.
When we were not working on the ship we made several trips to the
old Spanish forts which protected the city during the days when
Florida still belonged to Spain. These are in an excellent state of
preservation and contain a number of passageways, one of which is
supposed to lead underground between the two fortifications, but
although we searched carefully for the opening to this tunnel we never
found it.
In all we spent about a week repairing the plane and when it was ready
to fly once more I tested it with an Irving parachute borrowed from
one of the officers of the station. That was the first service type
of chute I had ever worn and I experienced the unique feeling of not
caring particularly whether the ship held together during the tests
or not. I put that Canuck through maneuvers which I would never have
dreamed of doing with it before, yet with the confidence of absolute
safety.
The advent of the service parachute was a tremendous step forward in
the advance of aviation. It gave the test pilot a safe means of escape
in most cases when all else had failed. It permitted formations to
fly closer in comparative safety and in short allowed flyers to learn
more about their planes than ever before. All this contributed to the
ever-increasing knowledge of practical flying which makes possible the
safety of present air commerce.
The airplane parachute has developed with the rapidity of the planes
themselves. For years descents with chutes were made from balloons, but
the first jump from a plane was by Capt. Berry at St. Louis, Missouri,
in 1912. His parachute was a comparatively crude affair and of no use
in an emergency. Ten years later, service type parachutes had been
perfected which were strong enough to stand any strain the weight of
a man’s body falling through the air could place on them, no matter
how many thousand feet he fell before releasing the parachute from its
pack; and today, fifteen years after Capt. Berry made the first jump
from an airplane, every army and air mail pilot is required to wear a
parachute.
The test flight over, we lashed a five gallon can of gasoline on each
wing and followed along the Gulf of Mexico to Pascagoula, Mississippi.
There was a small crack half-way down the back of the Canuck’s gasoline
tank and when the gas no longer oozed out through the crack we knew
that the tank was half empty. By carrying the two gas cans we obtained
an extra hour’s cruising range, and when the main tank became low I
would pour their contents into it through a short length of steam hose.
In this way we expected to make longer flights between landing fields
and partially make up for the time lost at Pensacola.
From Pascagoula we went to New Orleans, landing in the race track north
of the city. Then to Lake Charles and from there to Rice Field at
Houston, Texas. At Rice Field we installed three fuel tanks under the
top wing and center section, which gave us twenty-seven gallons extra
capacity, or, in addition to the five gallon cans lashed on the wings,
a cruising range of about four hundred miles.
The field was covered with water and as our next stop was to be Brooks
Field, which is just a few miles south of San Antonio, we only filled
the wing and main tanks, leaving the five gallon cans empty.
At Brooks I obtained definite instructions to report not later than
March fifteenth.
It was then the end of February but we decided to push on as far west
as the intervening time would allow. Then I would return by rail and
Klink would continue alone.
We filled all of our tanks and after running along the ground for half
a mile, stalled into the air; but after three circles of Brooks Field
were completed and the plane was less than fifty feet high we landed
and left one of the cans. Klink held the other in his lap in the rear
cockpit.
We had no more trouble in attaining several hundred feet of altitude
with the lessened load and greatly lessened resistance, which counted
for much more than the weight of the gasoline, but an hour later, when
the elevation of the ground below us increased as the mountains were
approached, we were again just skimming the mesquite and cactus. At
last it was necessary for Klink to heave his gas can over the side and
for me to turn the ship down a ravine to keep from striking the ground.
It was disappointing enough to leave the first can at Brooks Field but
I do not believe Klink will ever forget the sight of the second as it
burst on the ground below us.
Sometime later we came to the West Nueces River and, mistaking it
for the Rio Grande, turned north. We had been cutting across country
but had hardly flown long enough to have reached the Rio Grande. The
Rio Grande was the only river, according to my map, with a railroad
running along the northeast bank. We followed the West Nueces to Camp
Wood where the rails ended. By that time I knew that the map was in
error and we were on the wrong course, but as there was insufficient
fuel remaining to warrant our cutting across the mountains to the west,
we landed in a small sheep pasture near Barksdale. This pasture was not
large enough for us both to take-off together so I flew the ship over
to Camp Wood alone and landed in the town square. With the wind blowing
from the right direction, and by taking off under two telephone lines
and over one road, the square afforded a long enough runway, provided
the wind was blowing from the proper direction.
The next day conditions were ideal but Klink wanted to go to a dance
that evening, and the day after, the wind was blowing from the opposite
direction. Our remaining time was passing rapidly and we were both
anxious to get to California before my return to Brooks Field. If we
could get the plane to a larger field six miles south of Camp Wood we
would have room to take-off with a full load of gasoline.
One of the town streets was wide enough to take-off from, provided I
could get a forty-four foot wing between two telephone poles forty-six
feet apart and brush through a few branches on each side of the road
later on. We pushed the ship over to the middle of the street and I
attempted to take-off. The poles were about fifty feet ahead and just
before passing between them there was a rough spot in the street. One
of the wheels got in a rut and I missed by three inches of the right
wing tip. The pole swung the plane around and the nose crashed through
the wall of a hardware store, knocking pots, pans and pitch-forks all
over the interior.
The merchant and his son thought that an earthquake was in progress
and came running out into the street. He was highly pleased to find an
airplane half-way into his place of business and not only refused to
accept anything for damages, but would not even allow us to have the
wall repaired. He said the advertising value was much more than the
destruction.
[Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_
CURTISS FIELD, L. I.--POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS” ON ITS
WAY TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE TAKE-OFF]
[Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_
CURTISS FIELD, L. I.--CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK]
The greatest damage to the plane was a broken propeller, although
from that time on it always carried left rudder. We wired for a new
propeller and a can of dope from Houston and in a few days were
hedgehopping the mountain tops in true Canuck fashion on our way west.
A Canuck, or J.N.4C is nothing more or less than a Canadian Jenny and
while it is lighter and performs a little better than a Jenny, it is
subject to the same characteristic of being able to just miss most
everything it passes over.
We passed over the Rio Grande and cut through a corner of Mexico, then
landed on one of the Army emergency fields at Pumpville and induced the
section boss to sell us enough gasoline to continue our flight.
Dusk overtook us near Maxon, Texas, and we landed between the cactus
and Spanish dagger west of the town, which consisted of a section
house and three old box cars of the type used throughout the Southwest
for housing the Mexican section hands.
The section boss was living alone. He was soon to be relieved and
stationed in some more populated locality. We spent the night with him
and in the morning cleared a runway for the ship. Maxon was quite a
distance above sea level and as the air was less dense, an airplane
required a longer distance to take-off in. There was a small mountain
on the east end of the field and the land sloped upwards toward the
west. We worked until midday cutting sagebrush and cactus. There was a
light breeze from the west and the air was hot and rough. After using
three-quarters of the runway the Canuck rose about four feet above the
ground but stopped there, and when the end of the runway was passed
the wings and landing gear scraped along on the sagebrush. As soon as
we picked up a little extra flying speed, another clump of sagebrush
would slow the ship down again until, after we had gone about two
hundred yards, a large Spanish dagger plant passed through the front
spar of the lower left wing. After being cut off by the internal brace
wires, it remained firmly planted in the center of the outer bay. We
landed immediately and found the plane to be undamaged except for a
fourteen inch gap in the spar and a number of rips in the wing fabric.
The engineer on a passing freight train had seen us go down and stopped
long enough for Klink to climb on board. It was agreed that Klink
would go to the nearest place where he could get the material to make
repairs, while I remained with the plane. We were thirty-two miles from
the nearest store and as the section boss was leaving that day for his
new location, I walked a mile and a half to a ranch house, where I
arranged for accommodations until we were ready to fly again.
Klink went all the way to El Paso before he could get any dope and wing
fabric. Meanwhile I spent the day with the plane, and a large part of
the night following the ranchers’ hounds in their search for wildcats
and panthers. They had treed a large cat the night before while we
were staying in the section house, but were unable to duplicate their
performance for my benefit. About all I succeeded in accomplishing
after following them for hours, was to pull one dog out of a wire fence
which had caught his foot as he jumped over.
Klink returned with a can of pigmented dope, two lengths of crating
board, some nails and screws, a can of glue, several balls of
chalkline, and enough fabric to replace the torn wing covering. We
borrowed a butcher knife, a needle and thread, and an axe from the
rancher, and set in to make the Canuck airworthy once more. We hued the
crating down roughly to size, cut it into proper lengths with an old
hacksaw blade from our toolkit, and finished it off with the butcher
knife. In a short time we had constructed a second box splice similar
to the one at Pensacola, but a few feet farther out on the spar.
We had just enough dope to cover the splice, so the fabric in the outer
bay was left undoped; and after we had sewed up the longer rents caused
by the sagebrush, we were once more ready to take the air.
It was too near the fifteenth of March to continue west, so we decided
to take the Canuck back to San Antonio where we would finish off the
repairs and Klink would continue on to California alone.
V
TRAINING AT BROOKS FIELD
I arrived at Brooks Field on March 15th, 1924, but was not enlisted
as a Flying Cadet until March 19th. Ordinarily a cadet enlists at the
nearest station to his home and is given free transportation to his
post of service and back to the enlistment point after his discharge.
By enlisting at Brooks I was entitled to no transportation allowance
except possibly bus fare back from Kelly where I graduated a year later.
There were one hundred and four of us in all, representing nearly every
state in the Union. We filled the cadet barracks to overflowing. There
were two cots to each window and some of us were even quartered in the
recreation hall. We were a carefree lot, looking forward to a year of
wonderful experiences before we were graduated as second lieutenants
and given our wings. Nearly all of us were confident that we would
be there to graduate a year later. We had already passed the rigid
physical and mental entrance examinations which so many of the other
applicants had failed. We had no doubt of our ability to fly although
most of us had never flown before, and we had yet to get our first
taste of the life of a flying cadet.
By the time we had been in the barracks a few hours stories began
circulating around which originated from conversations with the last
class of cadets who were waiting to be transferred to the advanced
flying school at Kelly.
Rumors of “Benzine Boards” and “washouts,” “academic work” and
“eight-hour examinations,” “one eightys,” and “check pilots,” “walls
with ears” and “cadet etiquette”--these and a hundred other strange
terms were condescendingly passed down to us by the old cadets of six
months experience. Someone remarked that less than forty per cent of us
could expect to finish the primary training at Brooks and that probably
half of those would be washed out at Kelly.
By bed check that night we had already begun to feel the apprehension
which is a part of a flying cadet’s life from his first day at Brooks
until he has received his pilot’s wings at Kelly.
Our actual flying training was to begin on the first of April. Two
weeks were required to become organized and learn the preliminary
duties of a cadet. During these two weeks we were inoculated against
typhoid and small-pox at the hospital, taught the rudiments of
cadet etiquette, given fatigue duty, required to police the grounds
surrounding our barracks, inspected daily, and instructed and given
examinations in five subjects. In our spare time we were allowed to
look around the post or take the bus to San Antonio, provided, however,
that we were back in bed not later than ten o’clock on Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. At all other times we
could stay out as late as we desired.
When we did have a few spare moments in the afternoon, they were
usually spent in trying to “chizzle” a hop from one of the instructors
on the line.
Early one morning we were allowed to take the training ships out and
push them to the line for the old cadets to fly. But when one of the
planes nosed over after eight husky rookies heaved up on the hundred
and fifty pound tail, it was decided to put us to work moving hydrogen
cylinders for a balloon ascension.
As the first of April approached we were looking forward to the start
of actual flying with great anticipation. Coupled with this was the
anxiety of waiting for the returns from our examination papers, the
failure of any two of which would be sufficient cause for their owner
to be washed out from the courses.
The flying instruction was carried on from two stages or different
sections of the field. I was assigned to B stage which was about a
half mile out in the field from the cadet barracks. Each instructor had
about six cadets assigned to him, and early in the morning on the first
day of April, our instruction commenced. I was assigned to Sergeant
Winston, together with five other cadets. We pushed his instruction
plane out from the hangar to the line. Sergeant Winston picked out one
of us, told him to get into the rear cockpit and was off. The rest of
us walked over to B stage, watching for tarantulas along the road on
the way.
In 1924, the Curtiss Jenny was still used by the Army for a training
plane, although the 90 H.P. Curtiss OX-5 engines had been replaced by
150 H.P. Hispano-Suizas. The more modern types of planes for training
were still in the experimental stage. The Jennies had been designed
during the war and they were becoming obsolete, but it is doubtful
whether a better training ship will ever be built, although undoubtedly
the newest type is much safer. Jennies were underpowered; they were
somewhat tricky and they splintered badly when they crashed hard;
but when a cadet learned to fly one of them, well, he was just about
capable of flying anything on wings with a reasonable degree of safety.
I had been particularly fortunate in my assignment of an instructor.
Sergeant Winston held the record for flying time in the army with about
thirty-three hundred hours. He was an excellent pilot and knew how to
instruct if he wanted to. When my turn came he asked me how much flying
time I had had and after I told him about three hundred and twenty-five
hours he turned the controls over to me with orders to take the ship
around and land it. I had some difficulty in flying with my right hand.
The wartime ships which I was accustomed to were built to be flown
with the left, but after the Armistice it was decided to change the
throttle over to the other side on the theory that the right hand was
the natural one to fly with. After three landings, however, Sergeant
Winston got out of the cockpit and told me to fly around for thirty
minutes and try to get used to right handed piloting.
When we were not flying we were gathered around the stage house
watching the progress of our classmates and learning how to turn the
propellers over in starting the engine without placing ourselves in
a position to be struck in case it kicked backwards. To a pilot, the
propeller is the most dangerous part of his plane, and is a constant
source of worry to him when his ship is on the ground among people who
vie with each other in seeing how close they can stand to the whirring
blade while the motor is still running. Then there is usually a contest
to see who can be first to move it up and down after it stops turning
over.
A cadet is usually given about ten hours of dual instruction before
he is allowed to solo. The instructor first takes him up and after
flying around for a few minutes, allows the student to take hold of
the controls to get an approximate idea of the amount and direction
of movement necessary for gentle banks and turns. Then the instructor
throws his hands up in the air in full view of the student--the signal
that he has turned over entire control of the ship. The cadet is
given the opportunity suddenly to realize that flying is not a simple
operation of pulling the stick back to go up and pushing it forward to
come down, but that an instinctive and synchronized movement of all
controls is necessary even to keep the machine in level flight.