The Spirit of ST Louis (51 page)

I'd thought our problems would be over for a time after we got in the air; but the Canuck just couldn't climb. I made three wide circles around the field without getting as much as fifty feet above ground. There was no use going on that way. Like Alice through the looking-glass, we were doing all the climbing we could do "to keep in the same place." I landed, and we removed the five-gallon cans from the wings. We left one behind. Klink carried the other on his lap, to save air resistance.

The Canuck labored upward slowly, after our next takeoff. Within fifteen minutes we were several hundred feet high, and making about fifty miles an hour against a quartering westerly wind. But a rising sun lowered the density of air, and the ground sloped upward faster than we could gain altitude through using up our fuel. An hour after leaving Brooks Field, our engine at full power, we were skimming mesquite and cactus in a country that had changed from plains to eroded, stony hills. Finally I had to nose down into a ravine, and signal Klink to heave his gas can overboard to eep us from running out of altitude completely. How he hated to give up the fuel we'd worked so hard to lift! I had to shout and motion twice before he'd let it go. After that, we struggled up over the hills in front of us.

Right rudder, ten degrees.

There were no good fields around, Camp Wood, Texas, so being low on fuel, we landed in the town square. In spite of its poles, wires, and rows of stores, it was the largest open area we could find that was smooth enough to land on. People came running from all directions as we taxied to a corner. Horses were hitched to posts; stores were locked; school was let out. A crowd surrounded the Canuck in no ,time at all. What was wrong? Why were we there? Where were we going? Where had we come from? What were the wings made of? Was there anything they could do to help?

All would have gone well if the wind hadn't veered southeastward through the night; but the next morning, buildings blocked our take-off from the square. There was a possibility that I could use one of the adjoining streets as a runway. Once in air, I could fly six miles south and land on a clear and level strip of ground some "old-timers" had told us about the night before.

I looked over the street carefully, walking up and down its center. There was a depression a few hundred feet from the point where I'd have to start; but my wheels should be clear before I reached it, if I took off alone and with a light fuel load. After that I'd have to brush my wing tips through some tree branches that overhung the road, but they were little more than twigs. Then, there'd be open miles of air in which to climb. But to get off before the depression in the road I'd have to pass between two telegraph poles, about fifty feet from my starting point, and only two or three feet farther apart than the span of the upper wings.

Take-off conditions were certainly not favorable. But they might not improve for days. After all, one drove a car regularly between objects with only a few inches clearance. Why shouldn't one do it with an airplane? I could mark the exact center of the street between the poles, and imagine that I was in an automobile. We pushed our Canuck into position, and warmed up the engine.

I thought I was rolling precisely along the center of the street, but I failed by three inches to clear the right-hand telephone pole. I jerked the throttle shut, but it was too late. The pole held my wing, while the plane's momentum carried the fuselage around and poked its nose right through the board wall of a hadware store. The propeller was shattered, of course, and the engine stopped at once. But pots and pans kept on crashing down inside the store for several seconds.

That did bring people running. The hardware dealer told us that he and his son thought an earthquake was taking place. But instead of being angry, he appeared quite pleased. When we tried to pay for the damage we'd done, he refused to accept a cent. It had been an interesting experience, he said, and the advertising value was worth much more than the cost of the few boards needed for repairs.

To my surprise, I could find nothing broken on our Canuck aside from the propeller and wing tip. We wired Houston for a new prop and a can of dope to be expressed to Camp Wood c.o.d. With the help of the crowd, we pushed our plane back into the square.

Three days later, we were ready to start again. The wind blew in the right direction that morning, and we took off with two of our wing tanks full. The Canuck flew as well as ever, except that it carried a little extra left rudder. By leaving the throttle wide open and following the valleys, we were able to hold an average altitude of several hundred feet.

A half-hour before sunset, we began looking for a place to come down for the night. There wasn't a town within sight; but beside the railroad ahead of us we saw a section house and three old boxcars which, we learned later, were dignified by the name of Maxon, Texas. A quarter-mile to the west lay a long, sloping, irregularly-shaped area of relatively smooth ground. It contained scattered clumps of cactus, but there was room for our wheels and wings to pass between them. There we landed, with an east wind.

The section boss and most of the Mexicans from the boxcars rushed over to meet us. They helped tie down our plane, and the "boss" invited us to stay at his house.

Sure, there's an extra bed, an' y’ell be welcome company," he said. "I'm livin' here all alone -- except fur the Mexleans. Don't see many people to talk to. It's thirty-two miles to the nearest store. Good thing ye stopped today, though; I'm goin' off fur a week t'morrow."

When we woke at Maxon, a westerly breeze was blowing down the slope of our prairie strip. A hill to the east prevented taking off downwind. There were no high obstructions toward the west; but rolling uphill, and without a stronger wind, it would take so long to get flying speed that we'd be in sagebrush and cactus before our wheels left the ground.

We hired some Mexicans to help us, and spent the entire morning cutting out a longer runway for our Canuck. There was room enough when we had finished, but the air was hot, and the wind still light. We decided to attempt an up-slope take-off with only the main fuel tank full. I got the Canuck to break free all right, with fifty yards to spare. But it had no extra power for climbing. The lower wings just rode on their ground cushion and held the wheels about four feet high. If I could have gotten up to eight feet and stayed there for a half-mile, we'd have been clear of obstructions and past the upward roll of earth. After that, the terrain slanted down. But our wheels began scraping through sagebrush. I couldn't get an extra foot of height.

We stalled over a gravelly wash, and slapped through a clump of cactus leaves on the far side. Then -- I saw it coming thirty yards away -- a Spanish bayonet stretched up above the foliage ahead. It was too late to land. I was too low to bank. I tried to zoom; but pulling the stick back did no good. As wing and trunk collided, I jerked my throttle closed, to crash. The six-inch trunk smashed fabric, nose, and spar. I'd expected it to shear right through, our wing; but the bayonet planted itself in the middle of the panel, and rode on with us through the brush -- green blades rising from the parchment-colored fabric like an orchid on a limb. The internal cross-brace wires had cut through the trunk like a machete.

There was no further shattering of structure, and our landing gear bumped along without collapsing. Sage and cactus brought us to a stop quickly. I'd already cut the switch. We climbed out to find our damage extraordinarily light. The propeller wasn't cracked; neither tire had blown out; struts were sound; the tail skid hadn't broken. Some turnbuckles needed tightening, and we had a few long tears in the fabric on the under surfaces of the wings; but except for the area the bayonet went through, no a single rib was shattered.

Our attention had been so concentrated on the crack-up and the plane that we didn't notice a freight train stopping on the tracks, a hundred yards away.

"NEED ANY HELP THERE?"

The fireman was running toward us, jumping over cactus. "We were afraid somebody got hurt," he added breathlessly as he came closer.

"Thanks, but I guess there's not much help you can give us," I said. "We'll just have to patch the plane up again, that's all."

"Won't you need to go to the city for repairs? Can't get anything out here, you know. We'll take you along in the cab if you like. But we gotta start right off -- gotta get the track clear."

"Thirty-two miles to the nearest store," the section boss had said. And "the nearest store" certainly wouldn't have airplane dope on its shelves.

"You climb on board and get what material you can," I told my partner. "I'll stay and work on the plane."

Klink went all the way to El Paso to get a small can of pigmented dope, two lengths of crating board, some nails and screws, a can of glue, several balls of chalk line, and enough cotton cloth to repair our wings. We borrowed an axe, a butcher knife, a needle, and a spool of thread from the rancher, and started to make the Canuck airworthy once more. We hewed the crating boards down roughly to size with the axe, cut them into proper lengths with an old hacksaw blade from our engine's tool kit, and whittled off edges, thick spots, and splinters with the butcher knife which we'd whetted to the keenest edge its mediocre steel could hold. In a few hours we had the box splice completed. But in shrinking the cord wrapping we used up most of our dope. There was barely enough left to hold down the edges of the big cloth patch we put over the wing where the bayonet crashed through; the body of the patch, and the long rents in wing fabric which I'd sewed together while my partner was away, had to be left flabby and untreated.

I scraped up over the cactus on my next take-off attempt at Maxon. It was close, but a steady east wind helped, and the front cockpit was empty. We'd been on the ground for eight days. Our time had ran out. Klink had decided to continue on to California by train, while I flew back to San Antonio and the Army Flying School's classes.

Right rudder, seven degrees.

The Canuck was in pretty sorry shape when I landed on Brooks Field. Undoped cloth had been unable to stand the air stream's whipping. It had worn away until several square feet of skeletal ribs and spars were exposed to view. The wing tip we'd repaired at Camp Wood drew one's eye like an awkwardly bandaged finger. The rips I'd sewed up were frayed and sagging. Box splices bulged on the spar. And one of the wheels had no tire -- I'd pulled it off after a cactus-punctured inner tube had ripped beyond repair.

Crewmen on the line were amazed that the plane would fly, and still more amazed that anyone would fly it.

"How much right aileron do you have to hold to keep that wing up?"

"Does the resistance have much effect on your rudder?"

"Don't she want'a ground-loop with that tire off?"

Each mechanic had a different question. They'd never seen anything like it before, they said, as they tailed the Canuck into a back corner of a wooden, war-built hangar.

I'd hoped to repair and recondition our plane in spare hours, but the Commanding Officer held a different view. I was sitting on my barracks bunk when his messenger arrived. There were a dozen other cadets in the "bay." We were folding blankets, hanging up clothes, and packing newly issued equipment into our footlockers.

"Which one o' you fellers flies that plane that's out in the hangar?" he demanded.

"I do." I stood up as I spoke. All eyes turned on me -- here was a cadet who was actually a pilot. I felt wise and proud.

"Major says, get that damn thing out'a his sight 'fore ya do

anythin' else! Says he don't care what ya do with it, but git it off Brooks Field." The stern-faced corporal wheeled and left, heels clicking on the oiled-wood floor.

Army mechanics obligingly pushed the Canuck out on the line, and stopped their work to watch while I took off again on a tireless wheel, with aileron drooped to make up for missing fabric. Fortunately, there was a commercial airfield only a mile or two away, and at Stinson they were glad to have our plane. It meant more activity, more business, more income. There, any aircraft that could land was welcome -- and any that wished to take off was encouraged to try.

On March 19, 1924, I enlisted in the Army. On that day, I became Cadet Lindbergh. I had to enlist for three years; but, I was informed, a cadet could resign at any time he wished, and receive his discharge within two weeks. It was implied, in fact, that you had to be pretty careful or you'd receive your discharge without resigning.

At Brooks Field "Pop" Sims, our barracks sergeant, told us they "separate men from the boys. We make ya into a soldier. If ya haven't got it in ya, we wash ya out." A huge man, tough in talk, kind in action, he put us to bed at night and woke us close to sunrise by methods of his own device, but with the firmness of a childhood nurse.

"R-R-R-I-I-I-I-S-E AND SHINE! R-R-R-I-I-I-I-S-E AND SHINE!" His voice came booming through our barracks every weekday morning, smothering the bugle notes. "Out of those bunks, you fellows, or I'll -- Scrape, thud --

"Pop" Sims waited on none of his charges. Any bunk stilt occupied when his clumping feet arrived was inverted with envied strength and skill. The resulting bumps, jibes, and bed-making argued strongly against a lazy head.

"Rise and shine!" I wish his voice would boom through my cockpit now. I wish he could dump me on the floor to bump my flesh and jar my bones. I need his firm insistence. If he could stand beside me, I think I'd wake –

Right rudder, three degrees
.

Our flying training started in April of 1924. Along with iir other cadets, I was assigned to a lanky sergeant named Bill Winston -- good-natured, skillful, cautious -- one of the fine pilots on Brooks Field. The Hisso-Jennies the Army used for training were like the civil aircraft I'd been piloting, except that they were heavier and carried their throttles on the fuselage's left side. Since the war, I learned, all Army planes had been standardized with left-hand throttles.

A new plane, and changing hands on the stick, threw me off a little. My first landing was not three-point, as I'd expected it to be. But Master Sergeant Winston turned me loose for solo after three rounds of the field, and -- a special honor --let me use his personal plane, JN6-H Number 326.

"You know how to fly all right," he said. "You've just got to get used to this Jenny. Later on I'll try you out in acrobatics."

Master Sergeant Winston had a human touch, wisdom, and humor that held the respect of his students aside from his pilot's skill. He usually gave us short talks before flying started in the morning -- seven cadets grouped around him on the dew-wet grass:

"Now pretty soon you fellows are going to think you're I pretty good. It happens to every pilot. Usually starts when I he's had about twenty-five or thirty hours solo. I just want you to remember this: in aviation, it may be all right to fool the other fellow about how good you are -- if you can. But I don't try to fool yourself."

When the marks from our examination in property accounting were posted, there was a 72 beside my name. Skimming through by two points wouldn't have worried me in high school or college. But at Brooks Field, that narrow margin was disturbing. Before, I'd always gone to school because I had to go, because it was considered the proper thing to do. Here, I realized, I was going to school because I wanted to learn, to complete the course, to gain my Air Service bars and wings. I studied after classes, through the week ends, often far into the night. At times I slipped into my bunk with swimming head, but I had the satisfaction of watching my grade average climb slowly through the 80's and into the 90's, until I graduated second man at Brooks and first at Kelly.

In Texas, I was in the unique position of being both an army student and a civilian instructor. As soon as Klink returned from California, I began showing him the techniques he would have to use in getting the Canuck back to St. Louis. First came the solo flights; next, cautious sideslips and stall landings; then, picking out strange fields. I would spend .