Test Pilot Part 12

CO-PILOT

d.i.c.k Blythe, who handled Lindbergh's publicity not only after Lindbergh came back from Paris but also, as d.i.c.k stated to me, just before Lindbergh went to Paris, is a bit of aviation folklore in himself.

I just ran into d.i.c.k over at the Roosevelt Field restaurant, and he told me this one about Dean Smith. Dean is one of the oldest air-mail pilots.

He started flying the mail 'way back in the postoffice days, just after the war. He is a lean six-foot-two, easy-going guy who would never talk much about his flying.

d.i.c.k caught him just after he had returned from one of his crackups in the Alleghanies in the old days when Roosevelt Field was called Curtiss Field and the mail went out of there instead of out of Newark as it does now. Dean was just pouring his long self into the c.o.c.kpit of another DH to take the night mail out again.

"Where in the h.e.l.l have you been?" d.i.c.k greeted him.

"Oh," Dean said, "I had a h.e.l.l of a time the other night. Just got back."

"What happened?" d.i.c.k asked him.

"Aw, I got tangled up with a load of ice after dark. She started losing alt.i.tude, and I eased a little more gun to her. She kept on losing, so I eased a little more gun to her. She still kept on losing, so I eased all the gun she had. She was squas.h.i.+ng right down into the trees. I had done everything I knew and couldn't hold her up. So I said, 'Here, G.o.d, you fly it awhile,' and turned her loose and threw my arms up in front of my face.

"I guess it must have been tough, because He cracked her up. He piled into that last ridge just outside of Bellefonte."

ORCHIDS TO ME!

The late Lya de Putti, German screen actress, paid me the nicest compliment of all.

She was up front in the two-place pa.s.senger compartment of a Lockheed Sirius. The owner of that plane was in the pilot's open c.o.c.kpit just back of her. And I was behind him in the rear c.o.c.kpit.

He had insisted, against my better judgment, upon getting into that pilot's c.o.c.kpit in the first place. But, after all, he owned the s.h.i.+p, I was only his pilot, and there was a set of dual controls in the rear c.o.c.kpit.

The motor quit cold over Whitehall, N. Y., because we ran out of gas in one of the six tanks in the s.h.i.+p. I shouted back and forth with the s.h.i.+p's owner, halfway to the ground, trying to tell him how to turn on one of the other five tanks. There was a complicated system of gas valves in the s.h.i.+p, and I couldn't make him understand what to do, and I couldn't reach the valves myself.

Finally I shouted, "You play with them. I'll land," and stuck my head out and looked around. We were already low. I picked a small plowed field, the only likely-looking one in the mountainous country, and started into it.

I was coming around my last turn into the field when I discovered high-tension wires stretching right across the edge of it. I was too low to pick another field. The field was too small to go over the wires. I had to go through a gap in the trees to get under them.

I kicked the s.h.i.+p around sidewise. The trees flashed past me on either side, and I hit the ground. The wires flashed past over my head. I used my brakes and stopped the fast s.h.i.+p very quickly in the soft ground. If we had rolled fifty feet farther we would have hit an embankment that rose sharply at the far end of the field.

I crawled out of my c.o.c.kpit and started to help Lya out of her cabin.

She was already emerging, fanning herself with a handkerchief. She spoke with a German accent.

"Oh, Jeemy," she said, "all the way down I pray to G.o.d. But I thank you, Jeemy. I thank you."

RECOVERY ACT

Johnny Wagner came up to me for his transport pilot's license test. I was the inspector for the Department of Commerce. Johnny knew I was "tough." As a matter of fact, he figured I was much tougher than I was.

I knew Johnny and liked him. He was crazy about flying and had worked hard to get his flying training. He had pushed s.h.i.+ps in and out of hangars, washed them, acted as night watchman and office boy, done anything and everything to pay for his flying time. But I didn't have the slightest idea how he flew. And after all, you may be a swell guy but not be able to fly worth a cent, and a transport test is supposed to determine whether you are safe to carry pa.s.sengers.

I found out three minutes after Johnny got in the s.h.i.+p how he flew.

Nevertheless, I made him go all through the test. When he came to steep banks I made him pull them in tight. He was reluctant to do it, so I took the s.h.i.+p to do it myself to show him. I could see right away why he was reluctant. It was the way the s.h.i.+p was rigged. It had a tendency to roll under in a tightly pulled in steep bank. But I wanted to see what he would do with it, so I made him do it. He did, and rolled right under into a power spin. He had gone into an inadvertent spin, the unforgivable sin in a flight test.

I started to reach for the controls but let him go. When he had pulled out of the spin I told him to land.

He got out of the s.h.i.+p with his face as long as a poker. He couldn't even talk, the test had meant so much to him. I didn't say anything for a moment, then with a stern face I said roughly, "Well," and waited a moment. The poor kid was getting all set for the worst. I could tell by his face.

"Well," I went on, "you pa.s.sed," and I smiled broadly at him.

His mouth fell open. "But-but-" he stuttered-"but I spun out of that steep bank!"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But you also recovered. It was the way you recovered. You stopped that spin like that and recovered from the resultant dive neatly and smoothly, with a minimum loss of alt.i.tude and still without squas.h.i.+n' the s.h.i.+p. It was a beautiful piece of work and told me more about your flying than anything else you did, although I could tell in the first three minutes that you could fly." I never saw a kid beam so much.

Johnny is now flying a regular run over the Andes in South America for Pan American Grace.

"A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME...."

I delivered a plane at a ranch in Mexico a few years ago for Joe and Alicia Brooks. I was to take back the s.h.i.+p they had been using. The ranch was about eighty miles over the border from Eagle Pa.s.s. The Brookses planned to leave with me and fly formation to New York. Both planes had approximately the same cruising speed. Alicia and I flew in one s.h.i.+p. Sutter, the mechanic, flew with Joe in the other.

The day we started didn't look too good. Thick gray clouds were rolling in from the northeast. There was no way we could check our weather till we got to Eagle Pa.s.s. We had to take a chance on the eighty miles.

Joe led the way, and everything went fine at the start, but the nearer we got to Eagle Pa.s.s the worse the weather got. We were flying on top of a jerkwater railway, just missing the tops of the trees, when we b.u.mped into a solid wall of fog. Joe disappeared into it. I stuck my nose in the stuff and pulled out: there was no percentage in two planes milling around blind. Too much chance of collision. I picked out a spot in between the cactus and landed. There was nothing to do but wait. If Joe came out he would come out on the railway and we would see him. Ten uncomfortable minutes pa.s.sed. We heard a motor. Joe reappeared. He circled and landed alongside of us.

By this time the planes were surrounded by a herd of angry shrieking Mexicans. There must have been over a hundred of them. They didn't seem to like us, but we couldn't find out why. None of us spoke Spanish.

Finally an official-looking fellow appeared with a lot of bra.s.s medals on his coat. He made us understand through the sign language that he wanted to see our pa.s.sports. We couldn't find them. The atmosphere was most unpleasant. We had visions of spending the next few days in a flea-bitten Mexican jail.

Then it occurred to me that I did know one Spanish word. Might as well use it, I thought, and see what happens. "Cerveza" I commanded. The Mexicans looked startled. "Cerveza" I commanded again. The Mexicans started to laugh.

The next thing we knew, we were sitting at a Mexican bar drinking beer with a lot of newfound friends. Cerveza is the Spanish for beer.

"YES, SIR!"

Our jenny hit the ground wheels first and bounced dangerously. My instructor in the c.o.c.kpit in front of me grabbed his controls, gave the s.h.i.+p a sharp burst of the gun, and set her down right. We were in a little practice field near Brooks Field in Texas.