"We" : $b The famous flier's own story of his life and his trans-Atlantic flight, together with his views on the future of aviationLindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus)
History
"We" : $b The famous flier's own story of his life and his trans-Atlantic flight, together with his views on the future of aviation
Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus)
Aeronautics -- Flights; Air pilots -- Biography; Transatlantic flights
On June second, while testing a commercial plane built at Lambert
Field, I was forced to make a second emergency jump. I had flown the
ship for a few minutes the previous week and on this occasion was
testing it for various maneuvers. I had completed everything except
tailspins, but when I attempted a right spin the plane refused even
to start, so after a second attempt with the same result I gave that
up and tried one to the left. The ship fell in easily and, when I
reversed the controls after a half turn, came out at once. I then put
it into a second left spin and held the controls in a spinning position
during two complete turns. When I reversed them they had no apparent
effect and using the engine was of no assistance. After trying for
fifteen hundred feet to bring the ship out of the spin, I rolled over
the right side of the cockpit and, since I had jumped only about three
hundred and fifty feet above the ground, I pulled the rip cord as soon
as the stabilizer had passed. The chute opened quickly but while it
was functioning, I had fallen faster than the spinning ship. On its
next revolution the plane was headed directly towards the chute. How
close it passed will never be known, for the risers leading up from my
harness were twisted and swung me around as the ship passed. However,
less than twenty-five feet intervened between the wing and my parachute.
I watched the plane crash in a grain field and turned my attention to
landing. A strong wind was drifting me towards a row of high tension
poles and it was necessary to partially collapse the chute in order to
hasten the descent and land before striking the wires. I landed rather
solidly in a potato patch and was dragged several feet and over a road
before several men arrived and collapsed the chute. In addition to the
strong wind and rough air, collapsing or “cutting” the chute so close
to the ground had caused a very rapid descent, and my shoulder had been
dislocated in landing.
In July I went on two weeks active duty at Richards Field, Missouri,
where I instructed on Jennies and D.H.-4’s. In August I flew a Curtiss
Oriole to Nevada, Missouri, to carry passengers during the Missouri
National Guard encampment.
While at Nevada I received a proposition to fly in a circus in Colorado
and, as there was no immediate prospect of starting work on the mail
route, I accepted and when the encampment ended I flew the Oriole back
to St. Louis and took a train west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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