'We' - Charles A. Lindbergh

I made my first jump one evening in June from an 1800-foot altitude over the flying field.

My first chute opened quickly, and after floating down for a few seconds I cut it loose from the second, expecting a similar performance. But I did not feel the comfortable tug of the risers which usually follows an exhibition jump. As I had never made a descent before, it did not occur to me that everything was not as it should be, until several seconds had passed and I began to turn over and fall head first. I looked around at the chute just in time to see it string out; then the harness jerked me into an upright position and the chute was open. Afterwards I learned that the vent of the second chute had been tied to the first with grocery string which had broken in packing the parachute, and that instead of stringing out when I cut loose, it had followed me still folded, causing a drop of several hundred feet before opening.

I remained in Lincoln for two weeks working in the Lincoln Standard factory for fifteen dollars a week. Then I received a wire from H. J. Lynch, who had purchased a Standard a few weeks before and taken it on a barnstorming trip into western Kansas. He was in need of a parachute jumper to fill a number of exhibition contracts in Kansas and Colorado, and wanted me to go with him in that capacity at a small fraction of its cost. Page offered me a new Harden Chute instead of my remaining flying instruction, and I took a train for Bird City, Kansas.

Lynch and myself barnstormed over western Kansas and eastern Colorado giving a number of exhibitions from time to time, in which I usually made a jump and did a little wing-walking.

In the fall, together with “Banty” Rogers, a wheat rancher who owned the plane, we set out for Montana. Our course took us through a corner of Nebraska and then up through Wyoming along the Big Horn Mountains and over Custer’s Battle Field. At one time in Wyoming we were forced to land, due to motor trouble, near a herd of buffalo, and while Lynch was working on the motor I started over towards the animals to get a picture. I had not considered that they might object to being photographed, and was within a hundred yards of them when an old bull looked up and stamped his foot. In a moment they were all in line facing me with lowered heads. I snapped a picture but lost no time in returning to the plane. Meanwhile Lynch had located our trouble and we took-off.

SHIPPING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS”