The Spirit of ST Louis (31 page)

"I want to see what it's like -- I want to learn how to do it -- I -- I might want to buy a parachute." (Yes, I might even become a parachute jumper myself. Maybe that was the best way to get out on barnstorming trips and really learn to fly.) "I've read about the multiple jumps you make. It isn't more dangerous with two 'chutes than with one, is it?"

Charlie Harden's handbills said that he had used as many as ten parachutes in one descent, and claimed the utmost reliability for the products he made and sold. My questioning of his parachutes' safety, and the prospect of a sale, had the effect I was after.

"It's not the danger. I just never knew anybody want to start with a double jump. All right; if Page will give you a plane, I'll let you use my 'chutes."

"How much does a parachute cost?" I asked.

"A hundred and twenty-five dollars for the twenty-eight-foot type. But if you really want to buy one, you can have it for a hundred dollars cash -- harness, bag, and all."

Is that a small boat on ahead? No, of course not—just a shadow on a chunk of ice.

I watched with amazement the transition of my daydream into the reality of me, my mind, my body, in the front cockpit of an airplane climbing up through empty space into which I was to throw myself against the instincts of a thousand generations. The stiff, double-canvas straps of the harness dug into my legs and pressed down on my hipbones. The big parachute bag lay awkwardly out on the right wing, its top lashed to the inner-bay strut's steel fitting. To the uninitiated eye, it might have contained a bushel of potatoes. It was a long way out along that panel, but you had to be sure the parachute would clear the plane's tail surfaces as you jumped. How secure the cockpit of the airplane seemed! How strong wings, struts, and wires had become, now that I was giving up their citadel of safety for cords and cloth!

The sun was low in the west, the sky clear, the air smooth. The day's puffy wind had dropped. The plane's nose mounted high on the horizon, climbing. I looked down at the group of minute figures on the field—the president of the Corporation, the parachute maker and his wife, Bud Gurney, and a half dozen passers-by who had stopped to watch us prepare the 'chutes. How carefully that preparation had been made -- just to think about it gave me confidence. We'd stretched the parachutes out full length on grass, their shroud lines running straight from skirt to ring. The canopies, were packed in free, accordion folds. Each reversing turn of cord was separated by a paper sheet. Each lip of cloth was laid to grab the wind. Tangle? -- there was no chance for those lines to tangle; once loosed, the 'chute must unfold, string out, billow on the air..

Those parachutes had been used before, time and time again, and they'd always brought their human freight to earth in safety. I should have confidence in them. I must have confidence in them, for I'm to jump when we reach two thousand feet. But it's hard to see safety inside that dirt-smeared canvas sack bulging on the wing. My heart races. My throat is dry. Minutes are long.

The nose drops, the wing lowers, the plane banks toward the field. The nose dips, rises, dips again. That's my signal. I look back. The pilot nods. Thank God, the waiting time is over! Unbuckle the belt -- get a firm hold on center-section struts -- rise in cockpit -- leg over side -- lean into the slipstream's blast -- Air wedges between my lips, rushes down my sleeves, presses against the forward motion of my arm -- A too-long strap on my helmet whips my throat --

The pilot throttles back a little more; that's better -- Careful of the wing -- I must keep my feet on the morrow walk next to the fuselage --- Now, out along the spar -- Give up the safety of center-section struts -- Nothing but wires to hold onto -- their slenderness gives no substance to the hand's grip, no confidence to flesh leaning over space -- Heels off nose ribs -- Follow the spar with soles -- fabric dents with a touch. The blast of air drops down -- that's the slipstream's edge -- I reach the inner-bay strut -- Remember to hang on at top or bottom -- never at the center, lest it snap.

The pilot opens his throttle. We've been losing altitude too fast -- Pressure of air builds up again -- I sink down on the wing -- buttocks on spar -- legs dangling on top of patchwork fields -- I unsnap a parachute hook from the landing wire -- snap it onto my harness -- now the other -- The parachute bag shifts forward on the wing -- I look back -- the pilot nods -- I let myself down on drift and flying wires -- they bite into my fingers --Nothing but space -- terrible--beautiful -- swinging free beneath the wing.

Now I must jump. It's impossible to get back on the plane. The flying field -- I'd forgotten about it crawling out -- is more than a mile ahead. It's too soon to jump. I'll have to wait till the pilot cuts his engine -- that's to be the signal. I dangle under the varnished, yellow wing panel. Two ropes from my harness run up above my head and disappear into the parachute bag. A bowknot holds the bag's canvas lips together. It's like the knot I tied this morning on each boot. It's all that holds me to the plane. Eyes dry in wind. Clothes flutter against skin. I slant tailward over space, leaning on the turbulence of air.

The roar of the engine dies -- the nose drops slightly -- Now! -- no hesitation -- I force my band to reach up and pull the bow's end -- Tightness of harness disappears -- the wing recedes -- white cloth streaks out above me -- I'm attached to nothing -- I turn in space -- I lose the sense of time -- My body is tense in a sky which seems to have no place for tenseness ---

Harness tightens on legs -- on waist. My head goes down -- muscles strain against it -- tilt it back --The canopy is pear-shaped above me -- It opens round and wide -- There's the plane, circling -- There's the field, below -- I swing lazily, safely on the air. The sun is almost setting. Clouds have reddened in the west.

But there's a second jump to make. I must leave plenty of altitude. The ground has already risen -- fields are larger. I reach over my head for the knife-rope; a pull, and it will cut the line lashing the second 'chute to the first. I glance at the earth -- back at the 'chute -- and -- - yank --The white canopy ascends -- I'm again detached from old relationships with space and time -- I wait --I turn -- but my body is less tense -- I have experience -- I know what to expect -- The harness will tighten -- and -- But why doesn't it tighten? -- It didn't take so long before -- Air rushes past -- my body tenses -- turns -- falls -- good God --

The harness jerks me upright -- My parachute blooms white -- Earth and sky come back to place -- I'm controlled by gravity once more; I'd never realized the security of its oriented pressure. "Mother Earth" had been only a figure of speech to me before, a tongue's lightly tossed expression. Now, in a sense, she holds me as the arms of a mother hold a frightened child. I have disobeyed her laws, strayed too far, and yet I find a welcome on return.

Now, danger is behind. There are no more parachutes to open. And the ground is still several hundred feet below. I swing gently, the white canopy above me rippling, indenting, refilling with the air. I have a small camera in my pocket; I pull it out and photograph my 'chute's silhouette against the sky. There's still a little time to practice gliding. You must learn how to glide a parachute so you can miss trees and buildings. I reach up and take two groups of shroud lines in my hands -- Pull -- The skirt drops -- the big canopy deforms and slips ahead -- I swoop down -- let go the shroud lines -- cords burn across my palm -- I swing up the other side --The ground is rising -- must stop the swing -- Pull down on top lines -- glide the 'chute back overhead -- too much -- the other lines -- too much again -- no more time -- I'm going to miss the flying field -- I'll land on the golf course -- so fast, these last few yards -- Sod rushes up -- I brace to meet it -- It clumps against my feet -- I crumple sidewise -- thigh and shoulder hit -- earth presses hard against me -- I feel its security, its strength.

Harden, Gurney, and two strangers come running up. Page is a little way behind.

"Slim! That was
some
jump!"

"Did you get much of a jerk?" Harden asks, out of breath.

"Not too bad," I reply, trying to appear calm.

"I sure didn't like the way that second 'chute came out," he continues. "I was afraid the break-cord was too light -- but it's all we had. Well, it turned out all right. That's the longest fall I've ever seen one of my 'chutes take."

I learned later that Harden's usual procedure was to tie the vent of the second 'chute to the shroud ring of the first with a piece of twine. The idea was that the 'chute would string out its full length before the twine snapped; then it would leave the plane in the best possible position for a quick opening. But he'd forgotten to put twine in his pocket, and a hunt around the field produced only a piece of old white string. He used that, doubled two or three times, but it apparently broke during the packing. When I pulled the knife-rope, the second parachute came free in a wad, and several hundred feet of air were required to straighten it out.

"Slim, that was just grocery string," Bud told me as we rode back to Lincoln. "It was so rotten you could pull it apart with your finger. I cut off a piece to try."

How soundly I slept that night -- as I always have after a Jump! I simply passed out of mortal existence a few seconds after my head hit its pillow; and when I became conscious again, the sun had risen. There wasn't a dream in memory.

I push up, with legs and elbow, enough to shift my rubber seat-cushion an inch forward. Even this slight movement turns the Spirit of St. Louis eight degrees, off course.

I believe parachute jumping had an effect on my dreams as well as on my sleep. At infrequent intervals through life I had dreamt of falling off some high roof or precipice. I'd felt terror and sickening fear as my body sank helplessly toward ground. It wasn't like that in a real parachute jump, I discovered. Real falling didn't bring horror to your mind or sickness to your belly. Such sensations stayed behind with the plane, as though they were too cowardly to make the final plunge. Strangely enough, I've never fallen in my dreams since I actually fell through air. That factual experience seems to have removed completely some illogical, subconscious dread.

Life changed after that jump. I noticed it in the attitude of those who came to help gather up my 'chute -- in Harden's acceptance of me as a brother parachutist, in Page's realization that I'd done what he didn't dare to do. I'd stepped suddenly to the highest level of daring -- a level above even that which airplane pilots could attain.

"Hi, Slim! Did you do it?"

"What was it like?"

The next morning I was giving information to the same experts who had previously been teaching me -- I'd left my role of apprentice far behind. Saully might scrape his con-rod bearings to a thousandth of an inch, but I could tell him how it felt to pull the bowknot, to glide the canopy, to simmer down through air on a muslin bolt.

Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life? Aviation combined all the elements I loved. There was science in each curve of an airfoil, in each angle between strut and wire, in the gap of a spark plug or the color of the exhaust flame. There was freedom in the unlimited horizon, on the open fields where one landed. A pilot was surrounded by beauty of earth and sky. He brushed treetops with the birds, leapt valleys and rivers, explored the cloud canyons he had gazed at as a child. Adventure lay in each puff of wind.

I began to feel that I lived on a higher plane than the skeptics of the ground; one that was richer because of its very association with the element of danger they dreaded, because it was freer of the earth to which they were bound. In flying, I tasted a wine of the gods of which they could know nothing. Who valued life more highly, the aviators who

spent it on the art they loved, or these misers who doled it out like pennies through their antlike days? I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary lifetime.

I needed much more experience before I could fly a plane of my own with reasonable safety; but now I had found a way to get it. There were pilots barnstorming through the country who needed mechanics for their engines and parachute jumpers for their exhibitions at the county fairs. Surely some of them would be glad to carry a man who'd be as willing to climb out on a wing or make a parachute jump as to change a fouled spark plug. All these services I decided to render in payment for hours in the air.

By that time, the Corporation had assembled "the silver job." As Bud had warned me, it was already sold -- to a wheat rancher from Bird City, in northwestern Kansas; "Banty" Rogers was his name. He hadn't learned to fly yet himself, but he'd teamed up with a pilot he introduced as "Cupid" Lynch -- a jolly, chunky man who handled Lincoln-Standards with extraordinary skill. Page paid Lynch for giving me a few more instruction flights before the plane was taken away.

"I'd turn you loose for solo," Lynch said, "but Ray Page won't take a chance on your cracking up the plane. Say, how'd you like to go barnstorming with me this summer?"

"I can start any day," I replied, eagerly. Lynch was just the type of pilot I wanted to fly with.

Lynch grinned. "Well, I'll see what it's like when I get out to Bird City. My guess is that Banty'll be tied up with the harvest in a few more weeks. You know it's a tough job to pull a Hisso's bank alone, and you need somebody to help you taxi in those Kansas winds. You and I could put on a real show with a little wing walking and a parachute jump. Don't count on it, but I think I'll be sending you a telegram before long."

The school owed me about two more hours of instruction. In a three-cornered deal between Page, Harden, and myself, I traded these, the wages due me, my claim to the right to solo, and twenty-five dollars in cash, for a new muslin parachute.