Category Flying and Gliding

Wild Mustangs: The P-51 Fighter Plane and Chuck Yeager

There may never have been an airplane more dashing and deadly than the P-51 Mustang, and the same can be said of a young pilot named Chuck Yeager. A naturalborn pilot with eagle – sharp eyesight, Y eager also possessed a cool head in the most dire emergencies.

Wild Mustangs: The P-51 Fighter Plane and Chuck Yeager

The sleek, growly P-51 Mustang was among the most beloved airplanes of World War II. It continues to thrive today in the form of restored “war birds” and air race planes.

Born Charles Elwood Yeager in Myra, West Virginia, Yeager grew up a few miles down the Mud River in Hamlin. In the West Virginia hills, young Chuck developed the unmistakable accent that has been imitated by thousands of American pilots who came to idolize everything about Yeager.

Though he went on to fly virtually every military airplane that the Air Force flew, Brigadier General Chuck Yeager began his flying career as the pilot of a P-51 Mustang. Yeager and the P-51 Mustang rose to fame together. His 357th Fighter Group was among the first units to fly the new fighter, a sleek silver streak with a deep-throated growl.

Yeager began his military flying career in the days when American pilots still followed their propellers into dog fights, well before jets became common for U. S. pilots. Yeager shot down his first enemy airplane in March 1944, and the next day was shot down himself behind enemy lines. The French Resistance smuggled Yeager to Spain, a neutral country, and finally back to his unit.

By the war’s end, Yeager shot down 13 enemy airplanes, including one German jet fighter that could outspeed the Mustang but not outmaneuver it. And of Yeager’s 13 kills, 5 came in a single day!

Wild Mustangs: The P-51 Fighter Plane and Chuck YeagerPlane Talk

Several models of P->l Mustangs were built during the war, and with 14,200 of them rolling off assembly lines, the fighter served the U. S. military into the Korean War and beyond. The fastest Mustangs could fly at speeds of 487 miles per hour with a range of

Подпись: 755 miles. The fightern mission was to guard clusters of bombers from attack by

enemy aircraft while en route to their targets. There wasn’t a more welcome sight for a nervous formation of bombers than the distinctive arrow-sleek Mustangs flying high and alert for danger.

Подпись: Chuck Yeager's fame grew larger than ever after Tom Wolfe's 1979 book. The Right Stuff, was published. Yeager and a small band of California desert test pilots might have been the best flyers ever, and this book turns the spotlight on them and the first astronauts, the men of the Mercury missions. An excellent read!

The X-l

On Course

After the war, Yeager turned in his P-51 wings for a test pilot’s helmet. He began working on secret airplane projects that were meant to give the United States a head start on the Russians. One of the races between the two rival nations was to fly faster than the speed of sound. A number of pilots had already flown faster than the speed of sound, but had done it in steep attack dives that often ended in disaster. Researchers worked to develop an engine powerful enough to overcome the dense compression of air molecules, called the “pressure wave,” that built up ahead of a fast-traveling plane. Yeager, working as test pilot of the X-1 rocket plane, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis after his wife, finally broke the sound barrier in level flight in 1947—and survived to tell the tale. Researchers had found the right engine, and in Chuck Yeager, they had the right pilot.

Chuck Yeager retired from the Air Force, but he is still the most visible and respected symbol of a time when daring men risked their lives to push the boundaries of flight. Yeager continues to embody what author Tom Wolfe called The Right Stuff.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

When the key antagonists in World War I faced off again in World War II, the airplane had matured into a formidable weapon of war.

And what a weapon those new airplanes were! The United States relied primarily on two types—the bombers and the fighter planes. The bombers were massive and majestic, able to carry more bombing power in a single flight than was dropped from World War I planes in months of flying. And the fighter planes were deadly killers, with enough strength and stamina to get back home, even if they were often shot full of holes and carrying a few pounds of enemy antiaircraft shrapnel.

The “Flying Fortress”: The B-17Bombe

The greatest air legends of the war grew out of the B-17 bomber, dubbed by Boeing the “Flying Fortress” but known by the men who flew and fixed it as “The Queen of the Sky.” And the best known B-17 of them all was the Memphis Belle, a plane that its pilot, Capt. Robert K. Morgan, named after his sweetheart back home, Margaret Polk.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

The Memphis Belle and its crew, headed by Capt. Robert K. Morgan, were the first B-17 and crew to make it through 25 combat missions without losing a life. The Belle now rests on display in Memphis.

Apparently, Margaret Polk was good luck for Morgan and his crew. Memphis Belle was the first B-17 to complete its quota of 25 combat missions in Europe without a single crewman being killed. Hoping to capitalize on that good luck, the Army Air Corps (as the Air Force was then called) sent Morgan and his very fortunate crew on a publicity

tour to talk to civilians and soldiers and to arouse public enthusiasm for U. S. involvement in the war. We have mostly forgotten it now, but before the war most Americans, including flying hero Charles A. Lindbergh (see Chapter 5, “Lindbergh, Earhart, and the Rise of the Airlines”) and industrialist Henry Ford, opposed the U. S. involvement. So, in terms of building the United States resolve to continue fighting the war, Morgan’s mission as a booster might have been even a more important one than his bombing tour over Germany.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

Plane Talk

Margaret Polk was only one of the hundreds of hometown sweethearts who were remem­bered with airborne namesakes during the war. Pilots routinely named their planes, often after their wives or girlfriends, and adorned them with colorful—and sometimes risque— "nose art^ The practice has fallen out of favor with the more sensitive modem Air Force, which prefers brutish nicknames to romantic—and potentially sexist—ones.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

From raucous to racy, “nose art” adorned the noses of most World War II aircraft. The themes comforted pilots, who missed home and loved ones.

Morgan and his men also became matinee idols, thanks to a documentary called The Memphis Belle by Hollywood director William Wyler. Wyler later made his name as a wartime filmmaker by directing the acclaimed The Best Years of Our Lives, and the Oscar®-winning documentary The Fighting Lady.

World War II: The Planes That Won the WarPlane Talk

When Boeing delivered a stripped-down B-17 to the Air Force in 1941, the price tag was a rock-bottom $252,000, not including the engines. By the time the government loaded the "Flying Fortress’ with all optional equipment—luxuries like guns and propellers and so on—the sticker price, even in 1941 dollars, was a bit more shocking: about $350,000 (or in 1999 dollars, about $3.4 million). Boeing delivered 6,981 of the planes before the pro­duction line shut down.

But even after flying 25 European missions and getting all his men back safely, the war wasn’t over for Morgan. A stroke of fate sent him back into battle in a different kind of airplane and in a whole different kind of war.

The B-29 “Superfortress” Bomber

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

On Course

Morgan and the Memphis Belle were the subject of a 1990 movie, also called The Memphis Belle. It was a modest success by Hollywood’s yardstick, but a blockbuster for World War II vet­. era ns and flying buffs. Matthew Modine played the part of Robert Morgan, but the film’s true star was the fabulous bomber, a stand-in for the real Memphis Belle. Check it out if only to see the accurately recre­ated plane.

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During a tour through a Wichita, Kansas, factory, Morgan was given a peek at a secret new airplane that military officers hoped would reverse the nasty beating the Japanese were giving the Allies in the Pacific. The plane was the B-29 “Superfortress,” and Morgan instantly fell in love with the big, blunt-nosed behe-moth.

Like the B-17, the “Superfortress” was made by Boeing. It was a monstrous four-engine, 140-foot bomber that could fly almost across the United States and back on a single load of fuel. It carried 20,000 pounds of bombs, about the same as the B-17, but the “Superfortress” could fly over 5,800 miles at 220 miles per hour, while the older B-17 could only manage 3,800 miles at 150 miles per hour. In other words, the B-29 was made for missions across the Pacific to Japan, while the B-17 was best suited for the closely fought European war.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

The B-29 “Superfortress” was the “Big Iron” that helped mop up the war in the Pacific. Like the B-17, it was made by Boeing, which would thrive after the war as an airliner manufacturer.

The military brass now gave Major Morgan his own command, and in the months between October 1944, and April 1945, Morgan flew his airplane, Dauntless Dotty, on another 25 bombing missions, including the deadly firebombing of Tokyo. In April, having survived 50 combat missions in two theaters of war, Morgan finally left the service.

The Memphis Belle survived the war and now is on permanent display on Memphis’s Mud Island. But Dauntless Dotty didn’t fare as well. Lt. William Kelly was flying Dotty home to the United States when he and the crew landed on Kwajalein Island for a bite to eat before starting the long trip to the mainland. When he took off, though, something catastrophic happened that no one has fully figured out. Dotty crashed into the Pacific, killing ten of the thirteen crewmen on board.

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

After flying 25 missions in the B-17 Memphis Belle, Robert Morgan asked for another tour of duty, this time in the war in the Pacific against Japan. Morgan piloted Dauntless Dotty, a B-29, and again completed 25 missions before the war ended.

World War II: The Planes That Won the WarPlane Talk

with the help of the B-17, the war in Europe ended May 8, 1945. But the Pacific

Подпись: it wasagainst Japan took months longer to win. When victory against Japan finally came

shortly after President Harry S Truman ordered atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In both cases, it was B-29 “Superfortresses" that deliv ered America s secret weapon. Col. Paul W. Tibbets dropped the first atomic bomb

August 6, 1945, from a B-29 called Enola Gay that was based on Tinian Island. Three day later, another B-29, Bockscar, piloted by Maj. Charles W. Sweeney, dropped the second

World War II: The Planes That Won the War

atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The war ended on September 2, 1945

The End of the Red Baron

Before the Allies managed to shoot down their nemesis, Richthofen felt premonitions of his fate. He was shot with a glancing blow to the head during a July 1917 dog fight with a British two-seater. Richthofen blacked out, but recovered just in time to bring the plane to a safe landing. During his hospitalization from that wound and after his return to combat duty, he suffered bouts of depression and became convinced that his number was almost up.

Sure enough, on April 21, 1918, one day after recording his eightieth kill, Richthofen got into a dog fight near the front lines. Seeing the chilling sight of the Red Baron’s bright red triplane on his tail, the frightened pilot dove toward the ground. Against his own teaching, Richthofen followed the plane, giving Canadian pilot Roy Brown a chance to maneuver the German into his gun sights. At the same moment, Australian foot soldiers in the trenches turned their rifles toward the sky and began shooting at Richthofen’s plane.

No one is certain whose bullet was responsible for killing the dreaded Red Baron because souvenir hunters picked the crashed plane clean. To this day, Canadians claim the honor of downing the most feared pilot of that, or any other, war. But the Australians dispute the claim and have made a strong argument that it was one of their sharpshooters who felled the Red Baron.

The Dreaded Red Baron

“Eddie” Rickenbacker’s World War I kill total ranked him as America’s top pilot. But even a tally of 26 enemy aircraft kills places him far down on the list of pilots that includes aces from other countries. For example, England’s Maj. Edward Mannock downed 72 enemy aircraft, and Belgium’s Capt. Willy Coppens posted 36 kills.

But the greatest aces of the war, by far, were German flyers. Ernst Udet, who was immortalized in the Robert Redford film The Great Waldo Pepper, shot down 62 enemy aircraft, then went on to play a major role in leading Germany’s air force during World War II. And when he wasn’t writing the rules of air combat for German fliers, Oswald Boelcke found time to shoot down 40 enemy aircraft.

But by far the deadliest ace of them all was Manfred von Richthofen, the renowned “Red Baron.” Richthofen (pronounced MKT-hoffin) was a dashing character who became so famous in Germany during the war that he outshone even the brightest stars of the theater and cinema. And he flew in the face of modern stealth tactics by painting his Fokker triplane a bright, menacing red.

The Dreaded Red Baron

Manfred von Richthofen was the deadliest pilot in the skies during World War I.

From White-Knuckle Flyer to Red Baron

Richthofen didn’t start out as the dashing aviator he eventually became. As an airborne observer early in the war, he was a white-knuckle flier. Richthofen overcame his fear and asked to be assigned to flight training, where he proved relatively inept and crashed several times. He barely managed to graduate from the training program. His instructors undoubtedly expected that he would be machine gun fodder for enemy pilots.

After his first combat mission, his instructors worst fears seemed destined to come true. Richthofen took off for a mission over the Western Front, but the untested pilot got turned around and became lost. To find his way home, he was forced to land and ask directions!

The Dreaded Red Baron

Turbulence

Those long silk scarves looked dashing as they trailed in the wind behind the danng young men in their flying machines. But the gallant accessory was actually bom of necessity. As pilots swiveled their heads to keep their eyes on the enemy, the scarf pre­vented the heavy fabric of their flight suits from chafing their necks. Flying scarves continued to be used as standard pilot issue і even past World War II.

The Dreaded Red Baron

Turbulence

The Red Baron might not have been in fighting condition during the weeks before his death. In addition to shattering his sense of invincibility, his head injury affected his reflexes, perhaps contributing to his demise.

Richthofen soon flourished in the air, however. Under the tutelage of German air hero Oswald Boelcke, Richthofen gained confidence and quickly began to amass an impressive kill total. Later, when Boelcke (pronounced BELL-key) perished in a midair collision, Richthofen took over the flying unit, which had earned the nickname “Flying Circus” because of the gaudy markings and colors of its planes.

Richthofen’s winning dog fight strategy was simple and twofold: shoot down the planes that would cause the enemy the greatest loss, which Richthofen put into practice by targeting mostly two-seater planes;and never follow the enemy too close to the ground in range of soldiers in the trenches. The second rule was one he later broke, with fatal consequences.

The Fastest Gun in the Sky

Rickenbacker might have racked up his kills at a faster pace than anyone who flew in the Great War. His first combat mission was in March 1918, and his first kill came the following month. Between April and the end of the war in November, Rickenbacker

The Fastest Gun in the Skyshot down 22 airplanes and 4 balloons, a remarkable tally in a seven-month stretch. But the total is even more amazing when you take into account the two months that Rickenbacker spent in the hospital after surgery on his shoulder. Had he started flying earlier in the war, and had he been able to keep up that amazing pace, Rickenbacker probably would have been the highest – scoring ace in the war. As it was, Rickenbacker was promoted to commander of the “Hat in the Ring” squadron, and earned the title of America’s “Ace of Aces.”

The Fastest Gun in the Sky

Bifly Mitchell may have sensed the seeds of aviation greatness in "Eddie" Rickenbacker. After all, Mitchell had a gift for seeing the future. In the early 1920s, he predicted the Japanese would strike America with an attack at Pearl Harbor. He forecast that the blitz would come from the north using fighters that had been launched from aircraft carriers. He even predicted the attack would come on a Sunday morning. All of it unfortunately, came true.

The Fastest Gun in the Sky

Rickenbacker’s heroics led to peacetime fame once the Armistice was signed in November 1918. Because he was one of the few combat aces to survive the war, Rickenbacker returned to the United States to a hero’s welcome. He bought the Indianapolis Speedway and managed it from 1927 to 1945.

Plane Talk

for his heroism in attacking a formation of five German planes, downing two and chasing the others away. Rickenbacker received the Congressional Medal of Honor. He also received the Distinguished 5ervice Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.

He put his automotive know-how to work when he created the “Rickenbacker car,” which featured a brake for each wheel. No competing carmaker offered this feature and it led one of them—no one has proven which company was responsible—to

spread rumors that the brakes led to crashes. In reality, the cars didn’t crash, but Rickenbacker’s company, thanks to the malicious rumors, did. It took Rickenbacker years to pay off the debts that had piled up, but he eventually paid back every penny.

The Fastest Gun in the Sky

Turbulence

World War I pilots suffered some indignities along with the adora­tion they received from the star – struck public. For example, airplane mechanics found that the only reliable way to thin the engine oil in the bitter European winters was to mix it with cod liver oil, a popular folk remedy for constipation. In flight, as the oil mixture vaporized in the engine cylinders, pilots inhaled the fumes. The result was pre­dictable, and one which hum­bled the wa К s greatest flyers.

In 1938, Rickenbacker became president of Eastern Airlines, and in his very first year on the job he made the company profitable—something that no airline executive had yet managed to do. He moved into the chairman’s seat in 1953, and stayed there until he left the airline—and left it profitable and respected—in 1963.

“Captain Eddie” Becomes Captain of Industry

When “Captain Eddie” became a captain of industry, his life of adventure was far from over. Early in America’s participation in World War II, Rickenbacker signed on for two secret government missions, one to Russia and the other to the South Pacific. The Russian mission was uneventful, but Rickenbacker’s October 1942 B-17 flight to New Guinea was a hair-raiser. En route, his airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and he and the crew were forced to scramble onto life rafts. Rickenbacker, who was now in his early 50s, drifted in the middle of the ocean for 22 days before being rescued. On his arrival back in the States, he received the same welcome he enjoyed in 1918 when he returned from Europe as America’s greatest airman.

Rickenbacker died October 24, 1973, in Switzerland, and is buried in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

The Fastest Gun in the Sky

Plane Talk

In yet another piece of good luck, in May, 1918, ’‘Eddie* Rickenbacker managed to get back to his home base in one piece after the fabric covering the upper wing of his Neuport 28 biplane peeled into shreds during flight. The flight was a testimony to his expertise in the cockpit and to his ability to keep a cool head in the face of disaster.

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Rickenbacker: From Chauffeur to Fighter Ace

Some American pilots, eager to put themselves to the ultimate test of airmanship, the dog fight, were growing weary of America s reluctance to enter World War I. The most famous of the impatient group was a champion auto racer named Edward V. “Eddie”

Rickenbacker. He and other mercenary flyers helped the French battle the German aces who were cutting a bloody swath through Allied skies. Their deadliest enemies were a sharpshooting band of German pilots called the “Flying Circus.” We ll get back to them shortly.

Rickenbacker: From Chauffeur to Fighter Ace

“Eddie” Rickenbacker, loved by millions as “Captain Eddie,” emerged from World War I as America s greatest hero, and went on to become a corporate leader.

Rickenbacker—born Richenbacher, he Americanized it in response to anti-German wartime propaganda—arrived in Europe in 1918. His expertise with auto engines won him a job as General John “Black Jack” Pershing s personal chauffeur. In a moment of historic happenstance, Rickenbacker s mechanical skills were also the key to getting him into the cockpit of a fighter plane, launching him on a career that made him one of the greatest of American heroes.

One day in 1917, Rickenbacker stopped to help the driver of a Mercedes that had stalled on the side of a French road. The driver was legendary military firebrand Col. Billy Mitchell, an officer in the infant Air Service. In thanks for the roadside help, Mitchell agreed to transfer Rickenbacker to a flying squadron where he could learn to fly.

Подпись: By the Book What is a dog fight? When two packs of enemy pilots battled to the death in aerial combat it reminded observers of a fight between savage dogs. After alt in both cases combatants circle for advantage, chase and dodge, and tear into each other with every weapon they have. The term "dog fight* perfectly described the chaos of an air battle, so it stuck.

Rickenbacker Throws His “Hat in the Ring’

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Rickenbacker and a small group of daredevils joined the “Hat in the Ring”squadron. The name reflected the cavalier attitude many pilots took toward their deadly adventures. As if barnstorming—or in Rickenbacker’s case, auto racing—wasn’t dangerous enough for these flyers, they were about to go nose to nose with pilots who had years of combat flying experience and who had mastered the art of airborne sharpshooting.

Rickenbacker didn’t take to the sky naturally. In his early months as pilot, he battled severe airsickness, and when it came to shooting down enemy planes, he was not an overnight success. But he had a competitive spirit and he worked harder than other pilots. He was one of the few pilots who liked to fly solo missions along the front lines, something that most flyers regarded as akin to a death wish. His independent habits served Rickenbacker well and contributed to his kill total of 26 enemy planes by war’s end.

Подпись:f

Plane Talk

The First Military Planes

In one of America’s least-remembered conflicts, in April 1914, President Woodrow Wilson ordered navy seaplanes into action in a military dust-up with Mexico. The planes were lowered from ships into the Gulf of Mexico and taken aloft on mine-spotting missions.

Later, generals put the planes to work in reconnaissance missions over the mainland. Enemy soldiers took pot shots at the lumbering craft, but didn’t manage to bring any of them down. Still, story – hungry newspaper reporters covering the hostilities quickly transformed the bullet holes in the floatplanes skin into the first “shots fired in anger” against an American air force.

Airplanes were flown into action again in March 1916, when General John “Black Jack” Pershing went gunning for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had

invaded New Mexico. Wooden propellers cracked and peeled in the dry desert heat, fuel was frequently contaminated, and the horse-savvy officers in charge of the campaign had no idea how to put the airplanes to work. You might say the airplane had failed its first real military test. Nevertheless, the experiences of the First Aero Squadron gave the military its first taste of airborne war tactics.

World War I: Aviation’s Fiery Trial

The First Military Planes

By the Book

Shortly after pitots and designers learned how to build and fly air­planes from dry ground, they turned their attention to the wa­ter. Clenn Curtiss (see Chapter i, “The 8ishop’s Boys: Wilbur and Orville Wright”) designed a sea­plane in 1911 that could take off and land on water; it didn’t require dry land at all. The idea was a natural for Curtiss, who grew up near New York’s Finger Lakes, which became miles-long runways for his daring inventions.

At about the same time Pershing’s men were trying to keep planes in the air in the American Southwest, a more serious confrontation was taking place in Europe. In the eighteen months since the start of World War I in July 1914, air battles between warring European pilots had turned from gentlemanly encounters between enemy scouts—in the first days of the war, enemy reconnaissance pilots often waved greetings at each other as they passed over each others front lines—into battles to the death.

When the first defensive flights took to the air, pilots and backseat observers were armed with only pistols and rifles, but soon pilots were mounting machine guns in front of the cockpit. The machine guns were fixed in place, however, so the pilots had to use the whole airplane to point the machine gun.

At first, pilots thought they could use the wing – and – a – prayer method of machine gunning through the spinning propeller, relying on the odds that most bullets would miss the wooden blades. In the first experiments, the few bullets that did strike the wooden blades were enough to do considerable damage. So engineers attached a strip of metal to the leading edge of each propeller blade in hopes that most of the bullets would be deflected. The idea worked well enough for a time. Then an engineer for the British – and French-led Allies and the German-led Central Powers devised a timing device for machine guns that enabled the machine guns to fire between the blades.

The Birth of the Airlines

Though pilots sometimes carried sacks of mail that were “more sack than mail,” visionary airline executives like “Pop” Hanshue of Western Air Express—later Western Airlines—and Juan Terry Trippe of Pan American World Airways took leaps of faith on an industry that seemed to have no chance of success. After all, carrying two passengers at a time in temperamental airplanes that seemed to crash as often as they managed to reach their destinations was no way to run an airline.

Подпись: Passengers endured the same dangers and discomforts as pilots, braving accidents and frostbite in icy flights over dangerous territory, all while seated atop lumpy sacks of mail with no more than a sandwich and a Thermos bottle of orange juice.
Подпись: Turbulence

Most modern airlines have their roots in those early days of seat-of-the-pants air mail flying. The airline that can trace its roots back the farthest in a direct line is Western Airlines, the company that coined the term “The only way to fly.” Legend has it that 1920s air mail pilots for Western also coined another phrase:“He bought the farm.” The reference was to the practice of paying for crop damage or damage to a barn caused by an airplane crash. If a crash was bad enough to kill a pilot, his friends sometimes said he had “bought the farm.”

Daring pilots who died while plying their dangerous trades have become the stuff of legend. The barnstormers, both of yesteryear and today, seem to thrive on life- and-death risks. Through its first few decades of growth, aviation was the right hobby for men and women who craved danger: It would be years before the send-off “Have a safe flight” would be much more than whistling in the graveyard.

The Least You Need to Know

Ж From its earliest days, aviation has attracted thrill-seekers and others who crave danger.

► Despite huge risks to life and limb, barnstormers introduced aviation to a curious America.

V Air mail piloting in the early days of the air mail service was sometimes a deadly profession.

Chapter 4 Great Flyers of the World Wars

The Birth of the Airlines

In This Chapter

V Aviation enter* World War I

^ “Eddie" Rickenbacker: America’s Ace of Aces

^ The bloody Red Baron

>■ The bombers that won World War II

^ The P-51 Mustang and Chuck Yeager: two aviation legends

—■ і |—*—. :»■ і ■ ■■ I ■ ■—I—————————————————————————————————————————————————- ———- ——— ■

In the years between the Wright brothers first flight in 1903 and the spark that ignited World War I, aviation grew through an awkward adolescence. Fragile American biplanes that had been viewed mostly as adventurers playthings were, after barely more than a decade of refinement, gradually being pressed into military service.

Flying by the Pound: Air Mail

The letter-writing public didn’t think much of air mail when it was first offered. In the early 1920s, airlines consisted of oil-streaked planes flying mostly empty mail sacks, which often contained only a smattering of letters and a smuggled brick used to tip the scales a little heavier when it came time for the Post Office to pay—by the pound. But the federal government and a few entrepreneurs were convinced they were onto a winning way to move mail, as well as a host of other goods, by air, and Washington, D. C., offered enough financial incentives to keep the fledgling airlines from drowning in red ink.

Подпись: How deadly were the early days of the air mail service? Out of the first 40 pilots hired by the U.S. Post Office to fly the new “air mail," 31 were killed in crashes. : І '

Air Mail Pilots

Turbulence

When reading about the early history of flying, it sometimes seems as if no one who did it for very long managed to make it out alive. If we look closer, we find that most pilots lived through those heady days long enough to join the nascent air mail business—where those who survived barnstorming often perished.

Flying hastily built airplanes that leaked gasoline and reading road maps that usually led pilots off course, the United States Aerial Mail Service took off with
mixed success. The pilot of the first flight didn’t quite make it to a refueling stop in Philadelphia before he ran out of gas. In the crash landing that followed he rolled his biplane onto its back and was forced to lug his bag of airmail back to Washington to await the next day’s flight. It was an inauspicious start, but the experiment was a success.

Flying by the Pound: Air Mail

George L. Boyle (left) flew the first air mail shipment between Washington and New York via Philadelphia.

Air mail pilots were a colorful bunch, and Fred Kelly of Western topped them all. He was a college football and track star who set a world record and won a gold medal in the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. In 1916, while learning to fly near New York City, he buzzed President Woodrow Wilson’s yacht, then flew under every bridge along the Hudson River before returning home to a seething commander. “I just wanted to say good-bye to the President,” a sheepish Kelly said.

Flying by the Pound: Air Mail

By the Book

Buzzing i’$ a dangerous business that has claimed hundreds of pilots through the decades. Against ail warnings, pilots con­tinue to tempt fate by flying at treetop level. Even my father, in a moment of youthful indiscre­tion, once buzzed the tiny town of Hermosa, South Dakota, in a Korean War-era military jet, scattering frightened cattle and becoming a part of local legend.

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Defying Death

Rodgers was cut from the same cloth as hundreds of other daredevils who criss-crossed the country in those early days of aviation, wowing crowds with dangerous stunts and taking thrill-seeking passengers on $15 sight-seeing jaunts. If a passenger plunked down another $10, a barnstormer might perform a loop-the-loop, where the pilot pulled the nose of the plane higher and higher until it was upside down before continuing in a vertical circle back to level flight.

Defying Death

On Course

Want a "crash" course on barn­storming and the days of flying circuses? Rent or buy a videotape called The Great Waldo Pepper, starring Robert Redford. The film, co-written with director George Roy Hill, may capture the rip­roaring spirit of the day better than any other movie. Watch for the real-life Irfe-and-death wing walking stunts by stunt flying leg­end frank Tallman.

But when there were no passengers aboard, nothing was too dangerous for daring barnstormers to try at least once. Photographs from the era show wing walkers trotting cavalierly about the airplane and scrambling from bottom wing to top wing and from cockpit to tail. One publicity photo even shows two wing walkers facing each other along the length of the top wing of a vintage biplane, each brandishing a racquet and pretending to play tennis. It was common for wing walkers to not only move around the wings during flight, but also to dangle beneath the wings and even drop from the bottom wing of one plane to the top wing of another while flying thousands of feet in the air—all without a parachute.

It was also typical for pilots to fly without a parachute. In those days parachutes were bulky contraptions that were as likely to tangle as to open safely, and even if the canopy did open, the descent speed was still fast enough to break a few bones. Besides, barnstormers and stunt pilots had more daring than sense.

Defying Death

Plane Talk

• Barnstormers weren’t the only daring flyers in the sky during aviation’s early years. Holly­wood’s hunger for cinematic thrills gave birth to a new specialty vocation—the movie stunt pilot One group of pilots who specialized in onscreen flying thrills called themselves “The 13 Black Cab." They published a ‘‘menu" of stunb they would perform on film along with, a price for each:

“Crash ships into trees or houses: $1,200

Loop with man standing on center section: $150

Drop from airplane to train: $150

Blow up plane in mid air, pilot parachutes out: $500."

“The 13 Black Cab" were expensive, but so was life insurance.

Defying Death

The golden era of barnstorming started coming to a close in 1927. That year, a former barnstormer shed forever the carefree life of thrill flying to break a geographic boundary that some thought would never be breached: Charles A. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean nonstop, and in the process achieved worldwide fame that “Lucky Lindy’ could never shed, no matter how he tried. Lindbergh also proved to a skeptical world that the continents were no longer separated by impenetrable barriers but now could be easily visited by friends—or menaced by enemies.

Also that year, air mail began to enter the American lexicon as government backing helped spur the very earliest airlines toward profitability. Starting as early as 1918, Congress and Washington bureaucrats foresaw that the future of transportation lay in the skies. It was in 1918, when America was fighting World War I, that the first government air mail route was inaugurated between Potomac Park in Washington, D. C., and a makeshift landing field at Long Island’s Belmont Park race track.