our dive from about one thousand feet, would fire short bursts into the
target on the ground. After completing our bursts we would zoom back up
into the circle while the next ship started its dive. Each plane had
its individual target.
After emptying the Browning guns we gave our observers a chance with
their Lewises by circling low around the targets. On the next flight
the pilot and observer traded places.
The Lewis gun is mounted on a turret on the rear cockpit. Two guns were
usually used together and they could be pointed in any direction.
After a few days on ground targets we were sent out over Trinity Bay
for shadow targets. One plane is flown fairly high over the water while
another fires at its shadow. The splashes from the bullets are easily
seen and the accuracy of marksmanship very apparent.
The tow targets are by far the most difficult of the three varieties,
and require skillful maneuvering and excellent marksmanship. They
consist of a cloth sleeve similar to a wind sock which is towed a few
hundred feet behind a De Haviland flying at sixty or sixty-five miles
an hour.
When the forward or Browning guns were used, the attacking ship
approached the tow target head on, firing one or two short bursts as
it passed. In this way there was no danger of the occupants of the
towing plane being struck by a wild shot. The De Havilands were much
too large to use the forward guns effectively on a tow target. Any
accurate shooting required the quick maneuverability of a pursuit ship.
The Lewis guns were used while flying parallel with the target and
were very effective. When we were close enough we could often see the
tracers pass directly through the cloth sleeve.
After returning from Ellington Field we were given a few hours in each
of the various types of service airplanes. The M.B.-3 and the S.E.-5
scouts; the Martin Bombers with their twin Liberty engines; the T.W.-5
two-place transition planes; and the little Sperry messengers. In this
way we obtained experience in each branch: pursuit, attack, observation
and bombardment. Later we were given our choice of which we desired to
specialize in. If our wishes corresponded with the judgment of the
instructors we were assigned to that branch.
Together with three other cadets and four student officers, I was sent
to the pursuit stage, where we spent the few remaining weeks of our
course, piloting the S.E.-5 and the M.B.-3 single seaters.
Pursuit combines a little of every branch of the air corps. In addition
to formation combat, dog fighting, and ground strafing, the pursuit
pilot is often called upon to make observations and do light bombing.
A great deal of our time was devoted to formation flying. Air combat
of the future will probably often be between large formations rather
than individual pilots, and it is accordingly of utmost importance for
the pursuit pilot to hold his place in formation instinctively, so that
his entire attention can be devoted to the enemy rather than to his own
formation.
We often maneuvered our flights while the individual planes were less
than ten feet apart and it was not unusual to dive vertically for
several thousand feet in a fairly close formation.
We learned the use of Lufberry circles, cross over turns, and other
formation tactics. Our formations were often tight, it is true, but
strange as it may seem, very few accidents occur from too close flying.
A pilot is constantly alert when his plane is only a short distance
from the one in front and nothing is allowed to distract his attention.
On the other hand, when there is quite some distance separating them he
is often more engrossed in lighting a cigarette or watching some object
on the ground than in his own formation.
In pursuit flying we came to have great confidence in our parachutes.
The planes we were flying were kept in excellent condition and none
ever failed, notwithstanding the fact that we placed them under every
conceivable strain imaginable. But the knowledge that we did not have
to concern ourselves about whether they did fall apart or not was an
invaluable factor in building up our morale. Our formations were
tighter, the combats faster, and our flying better as a result.
We had a number of close calls but considering the amount of flying
we had done, and that all of it was military flying, which cannot be
ever compared to commercial traffic as far as safety is concerned, our
accidents were remarkably few and none resulted seriously.
No one knows of the risk he takes better than the pursuit pilot and
no one is less concerned about it. Every move, although at lightning
speed, is made with a coolness born of experience and love of flying.
The army Air Corps is built up of men who fly for the love of flying.
Their only mission in life is to build up the finest air corps in the
world, and their greatest desire is to be given the opportunity to do
so without restriction. If an officer is lost in duty he would be the
last one to wish for resulting restrictions on his comrades.
A week of our pursuit training was spent on a gunnery expedition at
Galveston. We flew there from Kelly Field in M.B.3A. machines and
fired on tow targets exclusively. Our field was close to the Gulf, and
when the day’s operations had been completed we were free to go about
as we chose. Consequently a large part of the evening was spent along
the rocky beach.
On the night of our last day at Galveston several of us were holding
a contest to decide which could reach the most distant rock between
the breakers, before the next wave rolled in. One of the fellows was
outstanding in his accomplishments. In fact he was so dextrous that
none of us could compete, so we were all loud in our praises and
unanimously agreed that there was not a rock in the gulf too obscure
for him. There was, however, a rock a number of feet beyond the most
distant point any of us had attained, which was visible only for an
instant as the last breaker receded and before the next arrived. Even
this was possible, we confidently assured him.
He watched that rock intently for several minutes; then bolstered up
by our praise and his own confidence, he stood poised and ready. At
the proper moment he nimbly leaped from boulder to boulder after the
retreating surf but just before the final rock was touched a large
wave towered above it. Too late! The chance of retreat had never been
considered and its opportunity had passed. With do or die determination
he leaped onto the boulder and into the breaking wave. This incident
would not have been serious or its consequences important had we been
able to carry any extra equipment in our pursuit planes, but as it
was, extra clothing was a scarce article, and when we took off for San
Antonio and Kelly the following morning, it was necessary for him to
send his wet clothes back in a De Haviland and make his flight in a
bearskin flying suit without insulation against the bearskin.
In warm weather these suits acquired an odor similar to that of a
goat which has been in the barn all winter and the fur itself was far
from comfortable. On the trip back a piston froze in the engine. For
two days the cadet was alternately roasting in the southern sun and
freezing in the Texas nights while he guarded his ship and waited for a
new engine.
After our return from Galveston while we were practicing formation
attack on two seaters, I experienced one of the incidents of the
military pilot’s life. I made my first emergency parachute jump. When
an Army plane crashes, the pilot is required to write a detailed report
of the crash. My account was as follows:
“A nine-ship SE-5 formation, commanded by Lieut. Blackburn, was
attacking a DH4B, flown by Lieut. Maughan at about a 5,000 foot
altitude and several hundred feet above the clouds. I was flying on
the left of the top unit, Lieut. McAllister on my right, and Cadet
Love leading. When we nosed down on the DH, I attacked from the left
and Lieut. McAllister from the right. After Cadet Love pulled up, I
continued to dive on the DH for a short time before pulling up to the
left. I saw no other ship nearby. I passed above the DH and a moment
later felt a slight jolt followed by a crash. My head was thrown
forward against the cowling and my plane seemed to turn around and hang
nearly motionless for an instant. I closed the throttle and saw an SE-5
with Lieut. McAllister in the cockpit, a few feet on my left. He was
apparently unhurt and getting ready to jump.
“Our ships were locked together with the fuselages approximately
parallel. My right wing was damaged and had folded back slightly,
covering the forward right-hand corner of the cockpit. Then the ships
started to mill around and the wires began whistling. The right
wing commenced vibrating and striking my head at the bottom of each
oscillation. I removed the rubber band safetying the belt, unbuckled
it, climbed out past the trailing edge of the damaged wing, and with
my feet on the cowling on the right side of the cockpit, which was
then in a nearly vertical position, I jumped backwards as far from the
ship as possible. I had no difficulty in locating the pull-ring and
experienced no sensation of falling. The wreckage was falling nearly
straight down and for some time I fell in line with its path and only
slightly to one side. Fearing the wreckage might fall on me, I did
not pull the rip cord until I dropped several hundred feet and into
the clouds. During this time I had turned one-half revolution and was
falling flat and face downward. The parachute functioned perfectly;
almost as soon as I pulled the rip cord the riser jerked on my
shoulders, the leg straps tightened, my head went down, and the chute
fully opened.
“I saw Lieut. McAllister floating above me and the wrecked ships pass
about 100 yards to one side, continuing to spin to the right and
leaving a trail of lighter fragments along their path. I watched them
until, still locked together, they crashed in the mesquite about 2000
feet below and burst into flames several seconds after impact.
[Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_
PARIS, FRANCE--WITH AMBASSADOR HERRICK ON THE STEPS OF THE EMBASSY,
JUST AFTER ARRIVAL IN PARIS]
[Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_
LONDON, ENGLAND--THE WELCOME AT CROYDEN FIELD WHERE A MILLING MOB OF
NEARLY HALF A MILLION HAD GATHERED]
“Next I turned my attention to locating a landing place. I was over
mesquite and drifting in the general direction of a plowed field which
I reached by slipping the chute. Shortly before striking the ground,
I was drifting backwards, but was able to swing around in the harness
just as I landed on the side of a ditch less than 100 feet from the
edge of the mesquite. Although the impact of landing was too great for
me to remain standing, I was not injured in any way. The parachute was
still held open by the wind and did not collapse until I pulled in one
group of shroud fines.
“During my descent I lost my goggles, a vest pocket camera which fitted
tightly in my hip pocket, and the rip cord of the parachute.”
During the descent all the other planes broke formation and arched
around us. Every ship within sight proceeded at full speed to the
spot and before long the air was full of machines. Several of the De
Havilands landed in the plowing and within half an hour two planes with
extra parachutes were sent to take us back to Kelly. About an hour
after the crash we had two new S.E.-5’s and were back in the air again.
The parachute is a marvelous invention, experimented with as early as
the 16th century by Leonardo da Vinci.
The first parachute was built by a Frenchman in 1784. This parachute
was a rigid structure covered with very strong paper and fabric. It was
used in a jump from a building in Paris.
About a year later the same type of parachute was dropped from a
hot-air balloon in England. Soon jumps began to be made from balloons
with other types of rigid parachutes.
About 1880, Captain Thomas Baldwin made a name for himself by jumping
from hot-air balloons with a chute which was a forerunner of the
present type. He was the first really successful jumper, but success in
those days was judged by how long a man lived in this profession.
In 1912, the first parachute jump from an airplane was made. The
container was attached to the plane and the man who did the jumping
pulled the parachute out as he fell.
The war really proved that the parachute is a life saving apparatus
for use with airplanes. Early in 1918 the allied pilots reported
that German pilots were using parachutes to escape from their
planes whenever they were out of control or set on fire. This was
the beginning of insistent demands on the part of our allied pilots
for parachute equipment. The A.E.F. tried to produce a satisfactory
parachute by combining the good feature of several chutes already in
existence. All of these, however, were very bulky and heavy and hard to
get on the plane.
During the summer of 1918, the U. S. Air Service officials appealed
to Washington for good airplane parachutes. A large number of tests
were made. Finally, after combining all the good points of foreign and
American chutes, a satisfactory free type of parachute was developed.
By free type I mean the kind of parachute which is entirely independent
of the plane.
Stories often come out in the newspapers about parachutes that fail
to open. What probably really happens is that men who make jumps from
planes are killed before they are able to pull the rip cord which opens
the parachute. In the past there was always a great deal of danger
in testing out a new type of chute, but now they have been developed
to such a high degree of efficiency that there are practically no
fatalities. Each parachute that is used by the government is repacked
every month and tested every six months.
Altogether, about 57 lives have been saved by parachutes in government
service. In every instance the jump took place because of fog, engine
failure while flying over unfavorable country, collision of planes or
other very definite emergencies. They say in the service that any flyer
who jumps to save his life becomes a member of the “Caterpillar Club.”
This is because the parachute is made entirely of silk, and silk comes
from caterpillars. All the 57 members of this club feel that their
lives have been saved by the silkworm caterpillar!
There is a saying in the service about the parachute: “If you need it
and haven’t got it, you’ll never need it again!” That just about sums
up its value to aviation.
For two of the last days we were on tactical maneuvers with the other
branches. Half of our number were assigned to defend the bombers and
observation planes while the other half attacked them. When we met, a
lively combat ensued and the air would be full of pursuit planes in
every conceivable position, each trying to get on the tail of an enemy
plane without being first shot down itself.
At night in the barracks we would argue about which side won the war,
but whenever one of us would demonstrate to the enemy that he had been
shot down in battle, another would interpose the claim that he had put
the attacking ship out of commission several minutes previous to the
combat.
When graduation day arrived eighteen of us remained of the hundred and
four cadets who started the course at Brooks a year before. We were
presented with our wings and commissioned second lieutenants in the
Air Service Reserve Corps. That night we gave a farewell dinner in San
Antonio and for the last time assembled together.
The next day we departed from Kelly.
VII
I JOIN THE AIR MAIL
I went by rail to St. Louis and took an O.X.-5 Standard out for a
barnstorming trip in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa. The Post Office
Department had just advertised a number of contract air mail routes
for bid, one of which was between St. Louis and Chicago by way of
Springfield, Ill. I decided to barnstorm around the country until
it was determined which bidder would be assigned the contract. The
Robertson Aircraft Corp. had placed a bid and offered me the position
of chief pilot if they were successful in getting the contract.
After returning from Iowa I flew on several flying circus dates and
made a few short cross country flights to nearby cities.
On June second, while testing a commercial plane built at Lambert
Field, I was forced to make a second emergency jump. I had flown the
ship for a few minutes the previous week and on this occasion was
testing it for various maneuvers. I had completed everything except
tailspins, but when I attempted a right spin the plane refused even
to start, so after a second attempt with the same result I gave that
up and tried one to the left. The ship fell in easily and, when I
reversed the controls after a half turn, came out at once. I then put
it into a second left spin and held the controls in a spinning position
during two complete turns. When I reversed them they had no apparent
effect and using the engine was of no assistance. After trying for
fifteen hundred feet to bring the ship out of the spin, I rolled over
the right side of the cockpit and, since I had jumped only about three
hundred and fifty feet above the ground, I pulled the rip cord as soon
as the stabilizer had passed. The chute opened quickly but while it
was functioning, I had fallen faster than the spinning ship. On its
next revolution the plane was headed directly towards the chute. How
close it passed will never be known, for the risers leading up from my
harness were twisted and swung me around as the ship passed. However,
less than twenty-five feet intervened between the wing and my parachute.
I watched the plane crash in a grain field and turned my attention to
landing. A strong wind was drifting me towards a row of high tension
poles and it was necessary to partially collapse the chute in order to
hasten the descent and land before striking the wires. I landed rather
solidly in a potato patch and was dragged several feet and over a road
before several men arrived and collapsed the chute. In addition to the
strong wind and rough air, collapsing or “cutting” the chute so close
to the ground had caused a very rapid descent, and my shoulder had been
dislocated in landing.
In July I went on two weeks active duty at Richards Field, Missouri,
where I instructed on Jennies and D.H.-4’s. In August I flew a Curtiss
Oriole to Nevada, Missouri, to carry passengers during the Missouri
National Guard encampment.
While at Nevada I received a proposition to fly in a circus in Colorado
and, as there was no immediate prospect of starting work on the mail
route, I accepted and when the encampment ended I flew the Oriole back
to St. Louis and took a train west.
On arriving at the field a few miles east of Denver, I discovered the
plane I was to fly to be the same Lincoln Standard that Lynch and I
had flown to Montana three years before. We did a little barnstorming
along the eastern slope of the Rockies preliminary to the start of our
flying circus. We had contracted to exhibit before a number of fairs
in Colorado and there was nothing barred in the exhibitions. We put on
everything the committee was willing to pay for. At the smaller places
we used only one plane, but at the more important exhibitions two were
required.
We flew to the town where a fair was taking place about one day before
we were to exhibit. In that way everything was in readiness for the
circus and the next morning there was no delay in our performance.
We started with wing-walking. The performer would climb out of the
cockpit and walk along the entering edge of the wing to the outer bay
strut, where he climbed up onto the top wing, and stood on his head
as we passed the grandstand. After finishing his stunts on the wing
he would go to the landing gear and from there to the center section,
where he sat while the plane looped and did Jenny Immelmans. From the
center section he went to the tail and then, unless it was an unusual
occasion, the wing-walking exhibition was over.
After wing-walking came the breakaway. This was accomplished by
fastening a cable to the landing gear. The performer went out to the
wing tip, fastened his harness to the loose end of the cable and to all
appearances fell off the wing. No one on the ground could see the cable
and a breakaway always produced quite a sensation. Iron loops were
clamped along the cable for use in climbing back up.
One of our feature attractions was the plane change. A rope ladder
was attached to the wing of a plane and as one ship flew past the
grandstand with the performer standing near the tip of the top wing, a
second plane with the ladder attached, passed over the first, so that
the ladder was in easy reach of the performer. We usually made two fake
attempts to effect the change and actually counted on the third for
success. In this way the feat looked more difficult.
A parachute was attached to the opposite wing from the rope ladder.
After the plane change was completed, the performer jumped off with the
chute and the show was over.
In the evening we made a night fireworks flight. A series of candles,
which when lighted emitted a trail of fire for several hundred feet
behind the ship, was attached to each wing. After these candles had
burned out, two magnesium flares started burning, lighting up the
country below well enough to read a book very clearly. The display was
set off by an electric battery in the cockpit.
When the plane reached an altitude of two or three thousand feet, a
number of bombs were dropped to attract attention; then the switch was
thrown in to start the trails and colored lights, and the ship looped
and shunted around the comet-like trail of fire.
Our greatest difficulty in night flying lay in lighting the landing
fields from which to operate. Sometimes a number of cars were on the
field and I landed and took-off across the beams of their headlights.
Under such conditions the ground was well illuminated and landing
very simple. On other occasions there would not be more than one car
available and in one instance, on a dark night, I took-off and landed
by the light of a pocket flashlight which one of the men flashed
constantly while I was in the air, to enable me to keep track of the
landing field.
At one town in Colorado, we were booked for a fireworks exhibition to
be given between darkness and midnight. We had been barnstorming during
the day and on our way to this town we ran short of lubricating oil.
By the time we had replenished our supply it was too late to get in
before dark, and I had never landed at that town before. The owner of
the plane, however, was sure that he could easily locate the landing
field, even in darkness. He had been there many times and he knew that
the field was “right next to the golf links.”
We arrived over the town and after circling a few times, I throttled
the motor and shouted “Where’s the field?”
The reply was immediate and full of confidence, “Right next the golf
links.”
“Well, where are the golf links?”
“I don’t know!”
I was up against another of the very amusing but equally serious
incidents in barnstorming life. We were over strange territory on
a dark night and with a rapidly diminishing fuel supply. It was
imperative to land within a very few minutes, yet it was not possible
to tell one field from another, and even the line fences were not
visible.
I flew around until the outline of a strawstack appeared in the field
below us. This field was outlined on one side by the lighter color of
the pasture adjoining it and a number of trees were discernible along
the end. There was no way of telling whether it contained posts or
ditches, but we had no alternative, and I landed beside the strawstack
in the center.
A hasty examination of the field showed it to be suitable for night
flying and we hailed the first car passing for a ride into the town. We
had difficulty in locating our fireworks and, as the stores were all
closed, still more time was lost before we obtained the bailwire, nails
and boards used in building the framework for the flares and candles
and attaching it to the plane.