The Spirit of ST Louis (3 page)

Well, if I can get a Bellanca, I'll fly alone. That will cut out the need for any selection of crew, or quarreling. If there's upholstery in the cabin, I'll tear it out for the flight. I'll take only the food I need to eat and a few concentrated rations. I'll carry a rubber boat for emergency, and a little extra water.

Now I've got to stop thinking about it. I must get a few hours' sleep.

3

The alarm clock's shattering ring seems to reach down through a dozen layers of blankets. It's a drugged awakening. This is the worst part of the air mail—getting up before daybreak. For a few moments I almost believe that flying isn't worth such a terrific effort to overcome bodily desire. If I reset the clock, maybe I could sleep for ten minutes more. I reach out for it. But this morning there's something of exceptional importance, something that should make me jump quickly out of bed to start the day. It's not like other mornings. Consciousness wakes first, then memory. Oh, yes, this is the dawn of a new lfie, a life in which I'm going to fly across the ocean to Europe!

While I'm dressing, on the drive to the mail field, and all during my southbound flight to St. Louis, I turn over one plan after another in my. mind. Where can I get a modern airplane? How can I get accurate figures on cruising speed, take-off run, and fuel consumption? Who can give me information about the Wright-Bellanca—how soon can one be bought, how much will it cost, how many gallons of gasoline can it lift?

I probably won't be very successful if I simply go to the Wright Corporation and say that I want to use a Bellanca airplane for a flight to Paris. They'd ask immediately what references I could furnish. Without either cash in hand or well-established references to show, they'd have little interest in my ideas. Aviation is full of promoters and people looking for a job. Ideas are free for the taking, and almost every pilot has some plane he'd like to carry out—if someone else will furnish the money. An aviation executive has to look at banking references. If he doesn't, his company will soon go broke. Even if I could persuade the Wright Corporation that the value of a New York-to-Paris flight would justify taking the chance involved, they'd probably want to have their Bellanca flown by a better-known pilot. After all, there are lots of pilots much more experienced than I.

No, I’ll have to present the Wright Corporation, something more substantial than an idea. I'll have to get other people to go into the project with me—men with both influence and money. Then I'll be in a different position when I negotiate for a plane. I can say that I represent a St. Louis organization which intends to purchase an airplane for the New York-to-Paris flight, and that we are considering, among others, the Bellanca. That ought to impress the Wright Corporation. That would just reverse our positions: then they'd be trying to sell their product to me instead of my trying to sell an idea to them. If I have proper backing, maybe I can get a reduction in price. Possibly the Wright. Corporation would go into partnership with us. And if they won't, I can try other manufacturers—Fokker, and Huff-Daland, for instance.

Above everything else looms the question of finance. I have a few thousand dollars, invested for me by my mother in Detroit. This includes childhood savings, small amounts sent home from my pay as a flying cadet, and profits from my years of barnstorming. It's a reserve I've built up slowly and carefully to safeguard my flying career—to cover a crashed plane, or a bad season. I've depended on that reserve to let me stay in aviation. If I spend it on an unsuccessful venture – – Well, a financial reserve isn't quite as important as it used to be. Now that I'm an experienced pilot, I can always get some kind of a job flying. I can afford to take some risk with that money. But all my money put together would pay for only a fraction of a Bellanca. How does one organize a major flying project? How did Commander Byrd get money for his polar expedition? Who finances De Pinedo on his flights?

For the St. Louisians who might be interested in taking part, I have two major arguments. First, I'll show them how a nonstop flight between America and Europe will demonstrate the possibilities of aircraft, and help place St. Louis in the foreground of aviation. Second, I'll show them that a modern airplane is capable of making the flight to Paris, and that a successful flight will cover its own costs because of the Orteig prize. Then, of course, as additional talking points, there are all the records one could break and the places one could fly with a plane like the Wright-Bellanca. But where shall I start? To whom shall I go with my project? I have friends in the city, but most of them are aviators too, and men in aviation seldom have much money.

As I cruise back over the route to St. Louis, practical thinking alternates with a feeling of awe toward a project of such magnitude—a flight over the whole Atlantic Ocean—a flight through, air, between the very hemispheres of earth! How can I do, why should I dare, what others, more experienced and influential, have either failed to do or not attempted? Difficulties seem insurmountable. Wasn't my classmate, Lieutenant Gathercoal, lost on a flight across Lake Michigan last year? That's a minute body of water compared to the Atlantic Ocean. According to the last news I had, they never found a trace of him But of course he was flying an OXX-6 engine. For reliability, you can't compare an OXX-6 with a Whirlwind.

4

Lambert Field lies in farming country about ten miles northwest of the St. Louis business district. A pilot, flying high above its sodded acres, sees the Missouri River in the distance, bending north and then east to spew its muddy waters into the clearer Mississippi. The city nestles vaguely in its pall of smoke, a different textured patch contrasting with fields and forests. Southward, wooded foothills step up toward the distant Ozark Mountains.

Lambert Field is named after Major Albert Bond Lambert, who commanded a school for balloon pilots during the World War, and who is among the most active leaders in Midwestern aviation. Selected for the site of the National Air Races in 1923, it was enlarged to present size by planking over a little stream which cut through the eastern end. There are no runways, but the clay sod is good surface for any size of aircraft during summer months. In freezing weather, gusty winds and deepening ruts make operation difficult.

Lambert Field's major commercial activity is carried on by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation, built and managed by the Robertson brothers, Bill, Frank, and Dan. A little, stove-heated office, two frame warehouses for airplane and engine parts, and half of a civilian hangar, house its operations. The Corporation's major income results from the sale of reconditioned Army training planes, engines, and spares—all placed on the market at extraordinarily low prices.

Except on week ends, when the National Guard Squadron comes out in force, there are seldom more than a half-dozen pilots on the field, and the chief activity consists of training students. One can always make a few extra dollars and build up flying time by instructing. Besides there is no better way to learn the tricks of air and aircraft.

Those of us who instruct know Lambert Field as a child knows the details of his home and yard. We know the erosions on its shallow slope, the downdraft over Anglum, the depressions where drain tiles have caved in. In every azimuth there's a reminder of some past incident of flight. One pushes his plane out a hangar that housed the Curtiss Navy racer. (It left is source of sound somewhere in the air behind as it flashed around the pylons.) At this spot, just beyond the line, George Harmon was killed when his pilot stalled on a left chandelle. (I helped cut him out of the wreckage—unconscious but still alive. He died on the road to the hospital.) Against an east wind, one takes off over the cornfield where Captain Bill spun in after his National Guard Jenny's engine failed. (By some miracle he wasn't hurt, and climbed out of the crash before we reached him.) There's where Smith and Swengrosh died when they lost a wing in a loop. There's where Frank Robertson and Pres Sultan clipped the top from a big cottonwood tree, without even cracking a spar. (The trunk was eight inches in diameter where their Jenny snapped it off.) On the side of that ditch is where Bud Gurney broke his arm in a parachute spotlanding contest. The pigpen by the white farmhouse is where 0. E. Scott once nosed over.

How Scotty loves to tell that story! His engine cut on take-off. He wasn't high enough to turn. Straight ahead lay the pigpen, and in it he landed. Muck caught his wheels and whipped him upside down. He found himself hanging on the safety belt, his head two or three feet above a stinking wallow, "with all those pigs squealing and nudging in around me, just as though I was one of 'em!"

Scotty is manager of the field, and its oldest and most cautious pilot. He owns an OX-5 Standard with wings that haven't been re-covered for so many years that you can poke your finger through their varnish-stiffened fabric. When weather is good his plane is always on the line, ready to carry any passenger who'll pay five dollars for a ride. Scotty is also pilot of the new Travel Air which was bought last year by Harold Bixby, a St. Louis banker who became interested in aviation. With an OXX-6 engine, deep blue fuselage, and shining, nickel-plated struts, it's the most modern and attractive plane in our hangars.

Scotty has let me fly the Travel Air several times, and introduced me to its owner. To us on the field it's more than a symbol of better aircraft to come. It's a link with the powerful business world. Bixby is one of the men who run the great city of St. Louis, yet he looks on flyers as something more than acrobats and daredevils. Judging from a more stable viewpoint, he too believes that aviation has a future. His Travel Air, resting on the line, is like a signpost assuring us that the road we follow leads toward fertile lands.

Since Bixby bought his plane several of the city's businessmen have started flying. There's Harry. Knight the broker, who's taking lessons. And Earl Thompson the insurance executive, with his golden-winged Laird. I've given him a little instruction now and then. Thompson is the kind of man who'll listen to my ideas. I've often talked to him about aviation, and he knows that I can fly. I'll telephone tomorrow for an appointment. Meanwhile, I'll get a pad of paper and outline a plan of action.

ST LOUIS -- NEW YORK - PARIS FLIGHT

Action

1. Plan

2. Propaganda

3. Backers

4. Equipment

5. Co-operation of manufacturers

6. Accessory information

7. Point of departure

8. Advertising

Advantages

1. Revive St. Louis interest in aviation

2. Advertise St. Louis as an aviation city

3. Aid in making America first in the air

4. Promote nation-wide interest in aeronautics

5. Demonstrate perfection of modern equipment

Results

1. Successful completion, winning $25,000 prize to cover expense

2. Complete failure

Co-operation

1. Plane manufacturers

2. Motor manufacturers

3. Weather Department

4. State Department

5. Newspapers

6. Steamships

Equipment

1. Raft (sail)

2. Rockets

3. Clothing (waterproof)

4. Condensed food

5. Still (water)

Maps

1. Prevailing winds

2. Coast and interior

3. Islands

4. Steamship travel

Landmarks

1. Islands

2. List of coast towns

3. Index to towns

4. Characteristic names

5. Characteristic terrain

That list will do for a start. I'll add to it, improve it, and clarify it as time passes.

I've begun work on my propaganda, too. That shouldn't be difficult, because fact and adventure are both on my side. I feel sure there's a tremendous future for the commerce of the air. I reread the first paragraph I've drafted.

St. Louis is ideally situated to become an aviation city. — — — We have one of the finest commercial airports in the United States, and we will undoubtedly become a hub of the national airways of the future. Some day airliners on their way from New Orleans to Chicago, and from Los Angeles to New York, will be landing on our airport. — — —

That should interest people, especially the businessmen. And I've started working on the schedule and cost of an air-mail line to New York by way of Indianapolis, Columbus, and Pittsburgh. Even with DHs we'd be able to make the eastward trip within twelve hours, including time for stops. With a Bellanca — — — well, that's what this propaganda's for. I must show what can be accomplished with aircraft like the Bellanca.

5

I push the bell button at No. 1 Hortense Place, and step back on the porch to wait. Earl Thompson said he could see me at once at his office or spend an evening with me at his house the next week. I chose the latter. It seemed less likely that one could sell a flight across the ocean at an office desk. Besides, time builds dignity and thought.

A maid shows me to the living room. Mr. Thompson comes in. We shake hands. He motions me to a chair. I feel uncomfortable in the soft upholstery. I don't seem to fit into a city parlor. It would be easier to talk on the flying field. There, the sound of engines and the contours of wings would surround my arguments with factual elements of flight. When one sees a plane suspended in the sky, it's more difficult to use such words as "impractical" or "can’t be done." Now I've got to sit inside a carpeted and curtained room and believe as well as convince another, that an airplane can take me, without landing, between New York and Paris.

"Mr. Thompson," I start out, "I've come to ask your advice about a project I'm considering."

He smiles and nods encouragement.

"You've heard about the Orteig prize of $25,000 for a nonstop flight between New York and Paris," I continue. "I think a modern plane can make that flight. I'd like to try it.