The Spirit of ST Louis (39 page)

and in class my mind was often far away from the subject being taught.

Of course if I'd been interested enough in biology, I suppose I'd have got down to business and passed my exams with better marks. After all, I came from a family of physicians on my mother's side. My grand-uncle Edwin was a doctor in attendance at my birth. He worried my mother by saying I had the biggest feet he'd ever seen. He took me for my first ride in an automobile, weaving back and forth marvelously through the streets of Detroit, between calls on his patients. He prescribed medicine for my colds, and bound up my hand when it was hurt.

My grand-uncle Gus was a doctor in Milford, Michigan. That was far enough away to make visiting difficult. But grand-uncle Albert lived only about three blocks distant, after my grandparents moved to Elizabeth Street. He was a huge man, muscular and gruff; but everybody liked him. I bicycled up to his office-home whenever I had the chance. He showed me his medical specimens, and gave me sugar pills. I never saw him when it happened, but Mother said he used to lose his temper on occasions. Once he was riding on a Detroit streetcar and the motorman didn't pay attention when he rang the bell. The same thing had happened before, too often. Grand-uncle Albert walked to the front of the car, smashed the glass face of the fare register with his gloved fist, and said -- as the astounded motorman jammed on brakes, "Maybe you'll stop the next time I ring." There was a note of admiration in my mother's voice whenever she told the story; but she usually added that it was wrong of my grand-uncle to do it.

Our family thought that Grand-uncle Albert inherited his quick temper from Great-grandmother Emma. She had been a beautiful girl, of southern Irish ancestry, whom Great-grandfather Edwin Lodge met and married in Canada.

We were all proud of Great-grandfather Edwin. He'd been one of the best doctors in Detroit, and a very active man. In addition to attending to a big practice, he ran a pharmacy, published the
Homeopathic Observer
and fathered eleven children in two marriages. He was extremely religious, our family thought. In his Bible he underlined all the words of Christ in red, and all those of the Disciples in blue. He used to write the Lord's Prayer on a piece of paper the size of a dime to entertain his grandchildren, and at the same time demonstrate his expert penmanship. Often on a Sunday he preached in a little wooden church on the shore of Orchard Lake, not far from a farm he purchased. My mother tells of seeing him wade out into the cold water to baptize new members of the congregation. No sprinkling on the head for him. He believed in ducking them right under.

Being a physician, Great-grandfather Edwin must have lived in close contact with both life and death. There didn't seem to be any conflict in his mind between science and God. His studies of biology didn't convince him that all existence ends with the flesh. He had faith in some quality that is independent of the body.

It's hard to be an agnostic up here in the Spirit of St. Louis, aware of the frailty of man's devices, a part of the universe between its earth and stars. If one dies, all this goes on existing in a plan so perfectly balanced, so wonderfully simple, so incredibly complex that it's far beyond our comprehension—worlds and moons revolving; planets orbiting on suns; suns flung with apparent recklessness through space. There's the infinite magnitude of the universe; there's the infinite detail of its matter—the outer star, the inner atom. And man conscious of it all—a worldly audience to what if not to God?

It's nine o'clock. I've reached an altitude of ten thousand feet. Clouds are still rising up to meet me, but the undulating plain they formed in early evening has given way to a foothill country of the sky. Passing over a misty summit, looking down onto a night-filled valley, I wonder what mountains lie ahead. It's cold at this altitude. I zip the flying suit up across my chest. It's cold enough for mittens and my wool-lined helmet, too, but not cold enough to put on flying boots, at least not yet—I'll let them go until later. Too much warmth would make me want, still more, to sleep.

I must straighten out my neck before it cramps permanently in this thrown-back position. I turn from the constellations of the stars to those of the instrument dials. I fix my eyes now on the glowing dots an arm's length before me, now on the points of fire millions of miles away. I travel with their vision back and forth. I feel first the compactness and detailed contents of my cockpit, my dependence on its instruments and levers, the personal proximity of its fabric walls; next, the unlimited expanse and solitude of space. Now, my plane is all-important, and life is vulnerable within it; now, neither it nor life is of any consequence at all, and consciousness seems unbound to either one.

As I fly through the body of night, haze lessens, and I discover that I'm among the cloud mountains themselves—great shadowy forms on every side, dwarfing my plane, dwarfing earthly mountains with their magnitude, awesome in their weird, fantastic shapes. Huge pillars push upward thousands of feet above the common mass. Black valleys and chasms open below me to unfathomed depth.

There's no possibility of flying above those mountains. They look higher than any clouds I ever saw before. How have I come into their midst without knowing they were there? I must have followed a great valley, blinded by the mist. Or did these sky giants draw aside to entice me among them, and close in again now that they have me hopelessly entrapped? Well, if I can't follow the valleys, I'll have to challenge the mountains themselves. Flying through an occasional thunderhead will be less tiring than spending hours on end down in the writhing body of the storm. A few minutes of blind flying followed by relaxation under a star-filled sky is nothing much to dread. It may even be a welcome change, sharpen my dulled senses, break up the monotony of routine flight.

Then I'll hold my course, stay above the stratus layer of the storm, and tunnel through the thunderheads that rise directly on my route.

A pillar of cloud blocks out the stars ahead, spilling over on top like a huge mushroom in the sky. I tighten my belt, push the nose down a bit, and adjust the stabilizer for level flight. In the seconds that intervene while I approach, I make the mental and physical preparation for blind flying.

The body must be informed sternly that the mind will take complete control. The senses must be drafted and lined up in strictest discipline, while logic replaces instinct as commander. If the body feels a wing dropping, and the mind says it is not (because the turn indicator's ball and needle are still centered), the muscles must obey the mind's decision no matter how wrong it seems to them. If the eyes imagine the flicker of a star below where they think the horizon ought to be, if the ears report the A engine's tempo too slow for level flight, if the nerves say the seat back's pressure is increasing (as it does in a climb), the hands and the feet must still be loyal to the orders of the mind.

It's a terrific strain on the mind also when it turns from long-proven bodily instincts to the cold, mechanical impartiality of needles moving over dials. For countless centuries, it's been accustomed to relying on the senses. They can keep the body upright on the darkest night. They're trained to catch a stumble in an instant. Deprived of sight, they can still hold a blind man's balance. Why, then, should they be so impotent in an airplane?

The mind must operate as mechanically as the gyroscope which guides it. The muscles must move as unfeelingly as gears. If the senses get excited and out of control, the plane will follow them, and that can be fatal. If the senses break ranks while everything is going right, it may be impossible, with the plane falling dizzily and needles running wild, to bring them back into line, reinstruct them, and force them to gain control while everything is going wrong. It would be like rallying a panicked army under the fire of an advancing enemy. Like an army under fire, blind flying requires absolute discipline. That must be fully understood before it starts.

Wings quiver as I enter the cloud. Air roughens until it jerks the Spirit of St. Louis about as though real demons were pulling at fuselage and wings. No stars are overhead now to help, no clouds are below. Everything is uniform blackness, except for the exhaust's flash on passing mist and the glowing dials in my cockpit, so different from all other lights. What lies outside doesn't matter. My world and my life are compressed within these fabric walls.

Flying blind is difficult enough in smooth air. In this swirling cloud, it calls for all the concentration I can muster. The turn and bank indicators, the air speed, the altimeter,

and the compass, all these phosphorescent lines and dots in front of me, must be kept in proper place. When a single one strays off, the rest go chasing after it like so many sheep, and have to be caught quickly and carefully herded back into position again.

Remember that flight with the mail last winter—I don't want to go through anything like that up here. I was racing nightfall and a storm to Peoria. Both arrived ahead of me. Caught, skimming treetops, in snow so thick I couldn't see lights half a mile away, I had to decide between cutting the switches and crashing onto whatever lay below, and giving up the earth to climb into the storm. The ceiling wasn't high enough to drop a flare. If I'd been over an area of fields, I might have landed by the vague outlines of late dusk—taken the risk of gullies, scattered trees, and fences. But I was close to the Illinois River, where patches of woodland are thick. And DHs have a reputation for burning when they crash—"Flaming Coffins," they're called. A pilot has about a fifty-fifty chance of living through a landing under such conditions. But to pull up blindly into the storm was almost as dangerous.

I had in my DH a new device for blind flying -- a gyroscopic pitch-and-turn indicator. One of the transcontinental pilots had been experimenting with it, and wished to replace it with a more recently constructed mechanism. I'd persuaded our Corporation to buy the instrument from him. Here was the emergency for which I'd wanted it. The trouble was that it had been installed in my plane only a few days before, and I'd had no chance to test it out.

Instrument flying was new. I'd never flown blind, except for a few minutes at a time in high clouds. Could I keep my plane under control? If I turned to the instruments, how could I make contact with the ground again? Night had closed in behind me as well as ahead, and there was a low ceiling over both Springfield and St. Louis. Besides, even if I found a hole in the clouds, even if I saw the lights of a village farther on, how could I tell where I was, how could I locate the Chicago airfield -- unless the ceiling there were much higher? "A good pilot doesn't depend on his instruments," I was taught that when I learned to fly.

All these arguments had passed through my mind – harsh impact of earth, splintering wood, ripping fabric, bruised body; versus hurtling, dizzy blindness, lost in the storm. Suddenly, the vague blur of treetops rushing past at eighty miles an hour, a hundred feet below, jumped up in a higher mass -- a hillside? I didn't wait to find out. I pulled the stick back, gave up the ground, and turned to my instruments -- untrusted needles, rising, falling, leaning right and left.

At a thousand feet, my DH was out of control -- skidding, and losing altitude. Altitude was the thing above all else I had to hold. I shoved the throttle wide open, pushed rudder toward the skid, and pulled the stick back farther. The altimeter needle slowed – stopped -- started to climb; but air still rushed sideways across my cockpit. It seemed there were more needles than my eyes could watch. There wasn't time for my mind to formulate orders and pass them on to hands and feet. Finally I got the DH headed straight and the wings leveled out. I thought I was getting my plane in hand. The altimeter went up to 1500 feet. But then -- she whipped! Loose controls -- laboring engine -- trembling wings -- the final snap as the nose dropped. I shoved the stick forward, but it was too late. While I was concentrating on turn and bank, I'd let my air speed get too low, and the wings stalled.

A whipstall at 1500 feet, with nothing but needles by which to orient myself! Stick neutral -- leave the nose down long enough to pick up control -- throttle still wide open -- let the air speed rise to 80 miles -- Stick back firmly -- not too fast -- Watch the altimeter (before the needle touches zero, you'll be dead) -- 900 feet -- 800 feet --700 feet (it steadies) -- 700 -- 750 -- it starts to climb.

By then I'd learned that above all else it was essential to keep the turn indicator centered and the air-speed needle high. But in recovering I pulled the stick back too far and held it back too long. The DH whipped again, this time at only 1200 feet. But I made my recovery a little quicker. I'd decided to jump the moment the wings trembled in the stall, if my plane started to whip a third time. But I regained control after the second whip, and climbed slowly, and taught myself to fly by instruments that night.

It's cold up here at -- I glance at the altimeter - 10,500 feet -- cold – good Lord, there
are
things to be considered outside the cockpit! How could I forget! I jerk off