On one occasion while at Lambert Field I had made a short flight into the Ozark foothills with Leon Klink, an automobile dealer who had bought a Canuck that fall and was just learning to fly it. After I returned from Chanute Field and was waiting for the results of my examinations, we decided to make a pleasure flight through the south, barnstorming only enough to make current expenses, if possible. Klink wanted to learn to fly, and at the same time take a vacation, while my only objective was to keep flying and at the same time be ready to enter the next class at Brooks Field which commenced in March, providing my examinations had been passed satisfactorily.
Accordingly on the twenty-third of January we took off from Lambert Field in five below zero weather and headed for the Sunny South.
Our first stop was at Perryville, Missouri, where we visited with some of Klink’s friends for several days, and carried nineteen passengers. After leaving Perryville we flew to Hickman, Kentucky, and landed in a soft field east of town. We had passed out of the extremely cold weather and the wheels of our plane sank several inches into the southern mud. When we had refueled and attempted to take-off, it was impossible to get enough speed to lift the tires out of the mud. So Klink got out and I tried to take-off alone. On the third attempt the ship gained enough speed for the wings to begin to carry a portion of the load and keep the wheels from sinking so deeply; then it was only a matter of a few more feet before I was off.
I picked out a hayfield a little further from town, which appeared to be a little more solid than the first, and landed. By that time it was too late to make another hop before dusk, and as even the new field was too soft to make it advisable to carry any passengers, we left the Canuck tied to a fence and went into Hickman for the night.
The first effort to take-off the following morning was unsuccessful, also the second. We could not gain a speed of over five miles an hour over the soft ground. Finally, with the assistance of several men pushing on each wing, we got the ship to the top of a gentle rise which gave us enough of a start to take-off without serious difficulty. We stopped once in Tennessee for fuel; then at Friar Point, Mississippi, where we landed in an old cotton field and tied down for the night.
The Canuck had only one fuel tank with a capacity of twenty-three gallons or enough to last for two and a half hours. By leaving half an hour for locating a landing field, which was quite difficult at times, we had enough gasoline remaining for about one hundred and twenty-five miles in still air. If we were bucking a head wind it would be just that much less.
We spent the night with one of the plantation hands near the field and the next day in seeing the country and carrying a handful of passengers. In the evening we visited a “hanted” house with a party of the younger residents but were unable to find any “hants.”
Our next stop was at Hollandale, then Vicksburg, where we landed in a little field six miles north of town by slipping in down the side of a small mountain and ground-looping before striking a stump. After a day seeing Vicksburg we flew to Clinton where the passenger trade was quite lively and another day passed making sightseeing flights.
We refueled at Hattiesburg and Mobile, then landed at the Naval Air Station near Pensacola, Florida, where the Commanding Officer showed us every courtesy during our visit.
At last I received notice from the War Department to the effect that my examination had been satisfactorily passed, along with an order to appear at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas, in time to enter the March fifteenth class of Flying Cadets.