The Spirit of ST Louis (50 page)

Eleven different schools I've gone to, from the District of Columbia to Redondo Beach in California, and there's not one that I've enjoyed. Their memory chafes like a slipping rope against the flesh of childhood. A-B-C -- make straight lines straight and curved lines smooth. D-E-F -- copy big capital letters from the paper strip above the blackboard. G-H-I -- I'm eight years old; it's my first week of school. After tutoring with my mother, I've started in Force's second grade. K-L-M -- it's twenty minutes till lunch time. I stretch cautiously in the seat, and practice wiggling my ears. N-O-P -- for each twelve breaths, one minute passes. Q-R-S-- I can hold one deep breath for three full minutes. T-U-V --

Ten years of school were like that -- mining for knowledge, burying life -- studying in grade school so I could pass exam-nations to get into high school -- studying in high school so I could pass examinations to get into college -- studying in college so -- but there I broke the chain. Why should I continue studying to pass examinations to get into a life I didn't want to lead -- a life of factories, and drawing boards, and desks? In the first half of my sophomore year I left college to learn to fly.

Oh, I know that civilized progress depends on education. Without it, I'd have had no motorcycle to ride, no tractor to run on our farm; I wouldn't now be flying in an airplane above the North Atlantic Ocean. Of course one must have knowledge. But why can't we partake of it in moderation, balance it with other qualities in life? Why learn the mathematics of the planets if we lose appreciation of the earth?

But maybe if I'd been a better student I'd know what to do with the number "23". Maybe this is my punishment for not studying harder, for not training my mind on Latin verse, and memorizing those formulae of physics. "23" may be the key to Paris, and I don't know how to use it. "Failed his examination because he couldn't solve the problem when X equals 23."

Right rudder, fifteen degrees.

There was one exception. From the Army flying school in Texas I graduated top man in my class. There, I'd really gotten down to business, worked on my studies as I'd never worked before. I hadn't been much impressed by university diplomas. They seemed advantageous but essential bits of paper, not worth the sacrifices their award required. But an Air Service Pilot's wings were like a silver passport to the realm of light. With them went the right to fly all military airplanes. With them went a second lieutenant's bars. In pursuit, in bombardment, in observation, in attack, their owner could --

The sunbeams blink off in my cockpit. The waves are sheened with misty light between shadows of fast-drifting clouds. I must stop daydreaming -- get back to navigation -- I'm more than halfway across the ocean, still flying a haphazard course. I shift sideways in the seat, move joints, tense muscles, hunt for a pad of flesh my bones haven't half pushed through. Any change in feeling, any stimulation to the senses helps. It's less a question of pain or pleasure, than of attaining any feeling at all. I drink deeply from the canteen. Why conserve water for a forced landing when I need it so badly on the flight? I'll stake this water on getting through to Paris, rather than keeping alive a few extra days at sea. The best safeguard against disaster is to take what I need, now. Besides, I have a whole gallon put away for emergency.

It's much too hot in the cockpit. I zip open my flying suit, and cup a hand into the slipstream again to bring air against my face. I fly first with one arm and then with the other, stiffen and relax my body, shake my head and brain. These things I can do without taking my feet off the rudder pedals.

Now I’ll start agian. I left St. John's at 7:09. It's 7:20 on the clock. I'm 12 hours out from Newfoundland. At 100 miles an hour, that would put me less than 700 miles from the Irish coast. But the tail wind is stronger than I planned on. Suppose I've averaged 120 miles an hour since St. John's. 12 hours at 120 miles an hour --10 hours at 120 miles an hour would be 1200 miles - 12 hours would make 1440 miles. 1440 from 1860 is about 400 miles. I may be within 400 miles of the Irish coast at this moment.

I may be closer! The wind aloft during the night might have been stronger. It might have been blowing 60 miles an hour. Suppose I averaged 150 miles during the night and 120 miles afterward. No, that's too much. I can't work it out. I don't want to bother with any more figures. It's better not to count on the wind. I'll calculate my course at an even 100 miles an hour and stay with my original estimate of navigation. I've got to be prepared for discouragement if I don't strike the coast of Ireland when my arrival time comes due. I have no reserve for disappointments. I can't afford to indulge in hopefulness and tail winds.

But what correction shall I make for drift, for the detours around thunderheads, for the hours I've been veering north of my headings? I'll rest a few more minutes and then figure out a solution for this problem too.

Right rudder, ten degrees.

It was in the Army flying schools that I learned the elements of navigation—how to swing a compass; how to lay a course. There, such words as "Mercator," "gnomonic," "polyconic," and "variation," lost their mystery -- became clearcut pictures in my mind. Those schools had been a little like this flight -- seemingly unattainable at first, then filled with obstacles too great for me to pass. But somehow I got through.

I was barnstorming in southern Minnesota when I first heard about the training fields of Brooks and Kelly. It was a summer evening in 1923. I was wiping off my Jenny's cowlings when a touring car drove up. The people in it were not passengers, as I had hoped. They came to watch, and talk of flying. The men wanted to show off a bit before the girls. Their voices were high and clearly pitched for me to hear that one of them had been in the Army Air Service. Finally two of the men stepped out and sauntered to the fence.

"How's business?"

"Not too good," I answered, going on with my work.

"This town's barnstormed out," one of the men continued. "There were three planes here last year. Where you going to stop next?"

"First town with a good field near it."

"It must be a hard way to make a living. Say, why don't you enlist in the Army as a flying cadet?"

"I've got a plane of my own. Why should I want to be a cadet?" I'd replied, laughing, but inwardly annoyed by the implication that I lacked experience as a pilot.

"Oh, you can barnstorm around with OX-5 Jennies all right; but the only way you'll get to fly the big ones is to join the Army. They train you on DHs with Liberty engines. You don't know what flying's like until you hold four hundred horses on your throttle. And you don't have to clean off your plane every night. The crew chiefs do that for you."

He'd used the right bait. Who wouldn't want to fly a Liberty engine? I hung my gasoline-soaked rag over the drift wire. "If a commercial pilot enlists, can't he fly army planes without going to cadet school?"

"No; you have to go through the whole course. Takes a year, but it's worth it. You get a lieutenant's commission if you graduate. Well, we've got to be going." They climbed back into the car. "Write a letter to the War Department. They'll tell you all about it."

I went on cleaning the fuselage. Think of zooming through the sky on the power of four hundred horses! Think of flying always on freshly covered wings with new and drum-tight fabric! An Army pilot had no makeshift splices in his spars, no bowed struts between them. His equipment was always up to date, and inspected every morning. And he didn't have to worry about the cost of repairs or gasoline. The government paid for that.

Of course when you joined the Army you lost the independence of a barnstorming pilot. You couldn't unlash your plane in the morning and point it north, south, east, or west. You didn't have the freedom of the birds, couldn't choose your pasture for the night, or drift across country with the seasons. You might gain freedom from financial worries, but you didn't you have to follow orders all the time?

Right rudder, four degrees.

The lure of DeHavilands and Liberties won out. I'd written the letter, obtained two recommendations through my father, reported at Fort Snelling for an interview, and taken my entrance examinations at Chanute Field. How my heart had beaten under the flight surgeon's stethoscope. I couldn't hold it down at all. Suppose he found something wrong with my body? Suppose I failed to line up those little sticks that test the eyes? What about the mysterious Schneider Index, which all pilots seemed to fear? And the personal interviews with officers -- would they judge my character as warranting a lieutenant's commission in the Air Service Reserve? Fortunately, my year and a half at the University of Wisconsin exempted me from taking academic examinations. I couldn't have passed them. I was much too rusty.

That was the month Leon Klink and I flew south with his Canuck. It was a trip of many stops, for the fuel tank held only twenty-three gallons -- enough to fly for two and a half hours. If we left a half-hour in reserve for locating a field, which was often a difficult task, our plane had a range of a hundred and fifty miles in still air. But we had plenty of time. Klink wanted to gain experience in cross-country flying, while I wanted to learn the results of my examinations before making future plans.

We landed in Missouri, in Kentucky, in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Barnstorming was poor all over the south that winter. We hardly took in enough money to pay our expenses.

"Why don't we try the West?" I suggested one evening. "We could work our way to the Atlantic coast, and then fly right across the United States to the Pacific. Whenever we find a place where a lot of people want to ride, we'll hold over and make some money."

Klink was always ready for adventure. The idea of a transcontinental flight appealed to him. "Do you think we can get across the mountains?" he asked.

"It won't do any harm to try," I said. "The mountains are lowest in the south, and we can hit the passes."

The following morning our project was under way. But Pensacola, Florida, turned out to be our farthest east. We landed on the Naval Air Station near that city. At the post office, I received my mail -- the first since we left Lambert Field. In it was the long-hoped-for War Department envelope with its brief and stilted letter. I had passed my examinations satisfactorily. I was to report for enlistment in time to enter the March 15, 1924, class of flying cadets at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas.

It was a full month to the middle of March. Klink and I decided to cut short our stay in Florida. Then, if we averaged only one flight a day, there was time to make California. I could enlist on the coast, and take a train back to Texas.

The next morning, we started our engine with the intention of spending the night in Georgia. Before heading west I was to make good a ride we'd promised to the sister of our host. I followed my usual practice of taking off for a solo flight before putting the day's first passenger in the front cockpit. It didn't take much time or fuel, and gave me a chance to test sod, air, and engine. If anything weren't working properly I preferred to discover it when I was alone, with a lightly loaded plane.

My take-off direction was over the Bay. At two hundred feet, the engine cut out. We never found out why -- probably a little water in the fuel line, although we'd checked the screen and drained the trap. I nosed down, banked left, and made shore. With another fifteen feet of altitude, I could have reached the field. As it was, I had to stall onto sand hillocks at its edge. The first mound crushed the landing gear, splintered the propeller, and drove the left wheel up through the lower wing's front spar.

I was hardly out of my cockpit when the Navy's sirens started screaming. That was a new experience for a barnstorming pilot. It was bad enough to crack up, without having sirens tell everybody about it. I stood, humiliated, and watched fire and wrecking trucks race toward me from the line of buildings.

There wasn't a great deal of damage done, and the Navy was grand about it. The station commander sent a crew of sailors to help move our Canuck back to the balloon hangar, ordered them to handle it with special care, and let us use parts from salvaged naval aircraft for repairs. We built a box splice around our broken spar, and the crew chiefs gave us enough dope and linen to patch up the wing's torn covering.

It was the twentieth of February before we were again ready to start west. That left just over three weeks to make the Pacific coast, and for me to get back to Texas. But with good breaks in weather, it was time enough. We decided to make longer flights after we left Pensacola. Landing for fuel sometimes wasted hours. At the Naval Air Station, we added ten gallons to our Canuck's gasoline capacity by lashing a cylindrical can, bought at a local hardware store, next to the fuselage on each lower wing. That gave us an hour more in the air. It cut down our speed, but added to our total range.

It was quite a job leaning out of my cockpit, into the slipstream, and unlashing one of those cans; and then, empty, lashing it back again. But with the aid of a steamhose slipped over the nozzle, I hardly spilled a drop. This improvised method extended our range so greatly that we were able to follow the Gulf of Mexico's coast all the way to Pascagoula, Mississippi, before we landed. On the next flight we made New Orleans; then Lake Charles; then Houston, Texas. At Rice Field, outside of Houston, we found a hangar full of surplus Army equipment. We bought three nine-gallon wing tanks, and attached them to our Canuck. With the regular fuselage tank and the two five-gallon cans, this gave us a cruising range of about four hundred miles.

At Brooks Field, San Antonio, our load-carrying troubles began. We'd filled both our cans and all our tanks with gasoline, and started our engine soon after sunrise. I never had a plane stick to the ground so long. Our Canuck must have run across a half-mile of sod before the wheels broke free. Fortunately, the field was both large and smooth.