Famous Flyers Part 17

"And maybe he didn't set out in earnest to make the country sit up and take notice then! There was a Wasp-motored Lockheed Air Express monoplane at the manufacturers' in Los Angeles, and it had to be flown to New York. Hawks got the bright idea that he could fly it across the country without a stop. And he did.

"It was his first cross-country flight, and his hardest. In the first place, it was February, and the weather was pretty bad for flying-so uncertain that they couldn't predict what he'd run into. But he decided to take his chance. This was in 1929. Of course, its being 1929 didn't make it any harder, but I just thought I ought to tell you what year it was. The start from Los Angeles wasn't bad. He had a mechanic with him to keep filling the gasoline engines, a fellow by the name of Oscar Grubb. They hadn't flown for very long when they ran into a fog. Hawks thought he'd try flying below the ceiling-but he ran into a snow storm.

Then he tried climbing above it. He couldn't get over it.

"And in the midst of all this terrible strain of flying through fog so thick that he couldn't see the nose of his plane, the engine began to miss. The tank was empty. He switched on the other tank. It was empty, too. Why hadn't Oscar warned him that the fuel supply was out? What had happened to it? Hawks looked back. There was Oscar, sprawled out, fast asleep. But he woke up. Pretty lucky for Oscar Grubb that he did, and typical Hawks luck. The tanks were filled, and on they flew through the murk and fog. The fog cleared a little when they got to Kentucky, but Hawks didn't know where he was, anyway. It wasn't until they got to Washington that he recognized his position, by the Capitol dome. From there he sped to New York, where everybody was glad to see him. No wonder. This speedy gentleman had made the trip in 18 hours, 21 minutes, breaking all speed records then existing for non-stop cross country flight.

"It got to be a habit, this record-breaking. His next venture was New York to Los Angeles and back. He left Roosevelt field at 8 o'clock in the morning, and was in Los Angeles in the evening. Seven hours later he turned back and in 17 hours more he was back again at Roosevelt field.

It was dark coming down, and he broke a wing, but he escaped unhurt.

He'd broken the east-west, west-east, and round trip records, all of them, making the round trip in 36 hours and 48 some minutes.

"Hawks never let people forget him for long. He was out to sell speed to the country, and he knew that the way to do it was by speeding. In July everybody began to hear about the 'mystery ship' that was being built for him. It was a monoplane. On August 6th, it was a mystery no longer.

Hawks was going to race with the sun. The sun had always beaten him so far, and he wanted a return match, for revenge.

"So he lifted his monoplane into the air in New York, just as the sun was rising, at about 6 in the morning. He flew right with that sun and got into Los Angeles before it had set, or just about 10 minutes before 6 o'clock in the evening. He'd beaten dat ol' davil sun, all right. One week later, and he was on his way back across the continent again, and got to New York in less than 12 hours.

"Well, he'd proved how quickly you could get across the United States in an ordinary plane. Then he showed how you could cross with a glider, towed by an engined plane. Why, you ask. Well, in the first place, it attracted attention to gliders. And gliders are important in aviation.

And then, if towed gliders are practical, they might solve the problem of carrying pay loads in cross-country flights. The glider could be loaded up, hitched to an airplane, and go from New York to any point west. That was the idea. Well, Hawks did attract attention. It took him six and a half days to get from San Diego to New York, stopping off at a lot of cities, and just generally b.u.mming around the country.

"In 1930 about the only spectacular flight that Frank Hawks made was the tour with Will Rogers, when they flew around the country seeking help for the drought victims. They covered 57 cities in 17 days, which meant a lot of work, because they put on a show wherever they stopped. Hawks, with his stage experience behind him, fitted in perfectly with the plan.

He not only could fly, but he developed a patter, modeled after Will Rogers' and came out chewing gum and swinging a lariat.

"In 1931, having about exhausted record-breaking in the United States, our friend Mr. Hawks left these sh.o.r.es, and went off to Europe to sell speed and airplanes to that continent. No sooner had he landed than he started to break their records, too. The first one to fall was the speed record from London to Berlin, a distance, of 600 miles, which he made in 2 hours and 57 minutes. This was just about half the time that the regular pa.s.senger planes take. He had a light tail wind behind him, to help him, and a bad fog over the channel to hinder him. He flew the whole distance by compa.s.s.

"About a week later the United States again heard from Frank Hawks. They heard that he'd dined in three European capitals on the same day. Left Bourget before breakfast, had breakfast in London, kippers, I suppose, or kidneys, at the Croydon Field. That was about 9:30. He left Croydon for Berlin, and got there 3 hours and 20 minutes later, in time for lunch at the Tempelhof Airdrome. He flew back to Paris, for tea at Le Bourget, and then motored into the city for a good dinner. The dinner he didn't pay for. It was on some friends who had bet him that he couldn't make it. He did. Don't bet against Frank Hawks. It isn't good business.

"The next month, on June 17, Frank felt hungry again, and maybe tired of the food he'd been getting, anyway. So he got into his plane, at London, just after breakfast; had luncheon in Rome, and got back in time for tea in London. He'd made the round trip in 9 hours and 44 minutes, actual flying time. Of course, a man has to take time out to eat. Getting to Rome and back meant that he'd beaten the Alps twice. He enjoyed that trip. He'd had a head wind with him all the way, and was pretty glad about beating the Alps. They look less mighty and dangerous when you're looking down at them from a safe plane, in the cleat sunshine. Almost gentle.

"Speedy Hawks decided to come back to America. But he didn't come back to rest. He went right on breaking records, and making up new ones to be broken. In January of 1932 he flew from Agua Caliente to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 13 hours and 44 minutes. That was called his famous three-flag flight. It was a grand flight, too, and the first of its kind to be flown in one day. It wasn't non-stop; he'd stopped at Oakland, California and Portland, Oregon, both on the way up and the way back, for fuel. The trip was about 2,600 miles long, and he'd averaged about 180 miles per hour.

"Hawks is certainly accomplishing what he set out to do. He's never had to bail out, and he's never had a serious accident. He was pretty well banged up when he didn't clear the ground and crashed into some wires early in 1932, but he pulled out of that all right. Flying fast was no more dangerous than flying slowly, if a man could handle his plane. What the country needed was speed and more speed, and Hawks gave it to them.

It helped, too. The whole commercial system in the United States has speeded up. Two hours have been cut off the transcontinental trip, and more will undoubtedly be cut off. In June of '32 Hawks was made Lieutenant Commander Hawks. And it's no more than he deserves. He's a great lad.

"And so is Jimmie Doolittle. There's some say that Jimmie is the greatest flyer of them all, but he says he isn't. I don't know whether we should take his word for it or not. He may be prejudiced. Anyway, he's one of the best liked flyers in the country. James Doolittle is a little fellow. That is, he's short. Just 5 feet 2, but every inch a sc.r.a.pper, and every inch nerve.

"Anybody who talks about Doolittle likes to tell the story of the time he went down to Chile for the Curtiss Company to demonstrate a new type of flying plane to the government. The Chilean government was pretty particular. It wanted only the best, so it decided to have five countries compete in a mock fight, England, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, and the plane that won the battle would be the one bought for the Chilean army.

"Well, Curtiss asked the Army Air Service if they could borrow the Army's crack test pilot, Jimmie, and the Army lent him. Doolittle went down there all set to win. But there was a party for the aviators before the battle, and the aviators, all being young, and good fellows, got very jolly, and decided that each of them would have to put on a stunt to entertain the others. Now Doolittle decided that his best bet was acrobatics, so he balanced on the window ledge, to show his best handstands and other tricks that he'd learned in college. A brace or something on the window gave way, and down went James into the street, landed on both feet, and broke both ankles. Just before the big show!

Well, they took him to the hospital and put both ankles in a plaster cast.

"The show went on, and the hero wasn't there. But was he resting peacefully at the hospital? He was not. With the help of a friend, he cut off the plaster cast, had himself hoisted into an ambulance, and taken to the field. When he got there, they strapped his feet to the rudder bar, and he was all set to go into his act. Only the German plane was in the air. Doolittle zoomed up, and there followed one of the prettiest dog fights that anyone there had ever seen. Doolittle maneuvered and bedeviled that German plane until it turned tail and retired. James circled around once or twice to show that he was c.o.c.k of the walk, and then came down to get the Chilean contract for the Curtiss people. That's the way James Doolittle does things.

"How did he get so sc.r.a.ppy? Well, he was a born fighter. And then, he grew up in a gold camp in the Klondike, and if there was any place harder than a gold camp in Alaska in those days, it would be hard to find. Jimmie was born in Alameda. California, in 1896. His father was a carpenter and miner, and left for the Klondike in '97, the year before the big rush to Dawson in '98. Well, two years later he sent for his wife and the boy James.

"Jimmie's first sc.r.a.p was with an Eskimo child. He drew blood, and was so frightened that he cried as loudly as the Eskimo warrior. But he never stopped fighting after that first fight. Maybe it was because he was so small that he had to fight. Anyway, he usually was fighting boys bigger than himself, and he got so good that he'd whip them to a frazzle every time. It gets to be a habit, you know, and any way, he was born sc.r.a.ppy. Ask anyone.

"The Doolittles left the Klondike, and moved back to California with their obstreperous son, and I imagine the Klondike parents breathed a little easier. In California Jimmie went to school, and on the side became Amateur Bantamweight Champion of the Pacific Coast.

"When he'd been graduated from High School Jimmie went on to the University of California, same college that Hawks had attended. He went on fighting, still in the bantamweight cla.s.s. But one day down in the gymnasium, the boxing coach put him in the ring with a middleweight for some practice. Jimmie knocked him out. And he knocked out the second middleweight, and the third middleweight. So the coach, seeing that he had struck gold, entered Jimmie in the match with Stanford, but in the middleweight cla.s.s. The crowd roared when they saw the little bantam getting into the ring with a pretty husky middle. The middleweight thought that it was a joke on him, and was careful not to hit hard. But he needn't have been so kind. Jimmy Doolittle retaliated by knocking him stiff and cold in a few minutes.

"Jimmie didn't graduate. In 1917 he married Jo, and settled down to serious things, such as going out to Nevada and becoming a gold miner, and later a mining engineer. I might say a word about Jim and Jo.

They're known as the inseparables. They're always together. They've got two kids, who are thirteen and eleven years old, and who can fly in their daddy's footsteps. The family leads a gypsy life, flying from one army field to another, but they have a great time.

"Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. Let's get back to the War. Because the war broke out then, you know, and Jimmie joined the air service. His first lesson, they turned him over to an instructor by the name of Todd.

They were still on the ground, when they heard a crash, then another crash. Two planes had collided in the air. First one dropped, then the other, close to Jimmie's plane. One of the pilots was killed; the other pilot and his pa.s.senger were badly hurt. Doolittle helped them out, and went back for his first lesson.

"Jimmie, like Hawks, was just too good. They didn't send him to France at all, but made him an instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, where he became known as one of the star aviators in the air service. He was pretty angry when he found that he couldn't go to France. He went out to relieve his feelings. He picked out an innocent soldier walking down the road, and made for him. He didn't have any grudge against that soldier, just against the world. But that soldier had to bear the brunt. Jimmie swooped down on him. The soldier wouldn't move out of the way or flatten out. Jimmie swooped closer and closer. The soldier stood his ground.

Finally Jimmy came so close that his wheels nicked the soldier, and down he went. And away flew Jimmie, but so low that he couldn't rise again in time to clear a barbed wire fence at the side of the road. He got caught in the fence and smashed up. They gave him a month in the barracks to think over how smart-aleck he'd been, and then Jimmie was out again. The soldier had a b.u.mp on the head to remind him that he'd been in the way when Jimmie Doolittle was mad.

"Jimmie had other crashes. One was just before he made his famous flight in 1922 across country from Pablo Beach to San Diego. On his first attempt at a take-off one of his wheels struck some soft sand, and over he turned, being thrown into the water, plane and all. His second take-off was more successful-in fact, it was perfect. He got to San Diego in 22 hours.

"Jimmie's greatest achievements have been in testing and experimenting.

After the war he went to the Army technical school at Dayton. He got an honorary degree from the University of California, and then he went to Boston with Jo, and entered the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology.

With Jo's help he did four years' work in three, and got the degrees of Master of Science, and Doctor of Aviation Engineering-the first flyer to get the D.A.E. degree there.

"He resigned from the army to join the Sh.e.l.l Petroleum Corporation, Curtiss borrowed him again, though, and he went to Europe to demonstrate speed planes for Curtiss to 21 European governments. He's a marvellous tester. He got the D.F.C. for his transcontinental flight. In 1925 he got the Schneider Cup in the International races, and in 1929 the medal of the Federale Aeronautique Internationale for his outstanding achievements in aviation.

"I haven't told you the most outstanding, feats, Doolittle was one of the pioneers in blind flying. He experimented for the Guggenheim Foundation, testing instruments to be used for blind flying. He also tested the stress and strain that flying has on the human body. He would go into right spirals, risking his life, in order to see under what pressure a man becomes unconscious. It's a dangerous business, but great for aviation.

"In September, 1931, Doolittle won the air derby, flying from Los Angeles to New York to establish a new transcontinental West to East record on 11 hours and 15 minutes. He won at the same time the Los Angeles-Cleveland Bendix trophy when he crossed the finish line of the National Air Races at the Cleveland airport. His time to Cleveland was 9 hours and 10 minutes, an average speed of 223 miles per hour. As if that wasn't enough, he flew back to St. Louis to sleep, making a trip of 3,300 miles in 19 hours. He'd broken Hawks' record then standing. Both the boys are still going strong. You never knew when you're going to wake up and find that one of them has flown across the country so fast that he ended up right where he started from, only two hours earlier.

But now I'm getting fantastic," said Pat. "I must be getting tired, and no wonder. It's time we were getting to bed, if we want to leave at any hour tomorrow."

CHAPTER XI-Hal Comes Through

The day of their departure dawned bright and clear. There was a high ceiling, the air was crisp and cool, with a fresh wind blowing. The boys could hardly control themselves in their impatience to be off. Bob's parents and Mrs. Gregg drove down to the airport with them to see them off. In spite of the excitement of the boys, there was an undercurrent of restraint in the group. n.o.body talked very much except Bob and Hal, who never stopped talking.

The cabin plane had been taken out and warmed up by the mechanics of the port. It looked sleek and beautiful in the early morning light. Pat was going to fly her. He walked over to the Administration Building to make final arrangements with their friend Mr. Headlund. He took a short cut across the field. The port wasn't very busy. But there was some activity-activity that Pat, intent upon his business, did not notice. A student pilot, taxiing his plane across the field for his first solo flight, was coming straight toward him. Pat did not notice the student, the student was too rattled to see him.

Bob was the first to notice what was happening. "Look put!" he screamed.

"Pat, look out!"

The student pilot suddenly saw Pat. He veered his plane, but a corner of the wing just grazed Pat's head, and knocked him flat. He was already getting to his feet when the others got to him.

"Are you hurt, old fellow?"

Pat was rubbing his head. "No, I don't think so. That is, no, I'm not at all. Just nicked me. I'll be all right in a second." He shook his head to clear it. "Gave me a bit of a b.u.mp. I'll be all right."

The student pilot, white and shaking, came over to them. "Hurt badly?"

he asked anxiously.

Pat laughed. "No such luck, lad. You missed me that time. Better luck next time. You might try picking on somebody who's not so tough, next time."

Pat was himself again, and the others, thankful that he had not been seriously hurt, watched him go into the Administration Building. When he came out, Bill asked. "Do you want me to pilot?"

Pat looked scornful. "Since when did a little b.u.mp on the head put me out of commission? I'm driving the bus."