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.
On arriving at the field a few miles east of Denver, I discovered the plane I was to fly to be the same Lincoln Standard that Lynch and I had flown to Montana three years before. We did a little barnstorming along the eastern slope of the Rockies preliminary to the start of our flying circus. We had contracted to exhibit before a number of fairs in Colorado and there was nothing barred in the exhibitions. We put on everything the committee was willing to pay for. At the smaller places we used only one plane, but at the more important exhibitions two were required.
We flew to the town where a fair was taking place about one day before we were to exhibit. In that way everything was in readiness for the circus and the next morning there was no delay in our performance.
We started with wing-walking. The performer would climb out of the cockpit and walk along the entering edge of the wing to the outer bay strut, where he climbed up onto the top wing, and stood on his head as we passed the grandstand. After finishing his stunts on the wing he would go to the landing gear and from there to the center section, where he sat while the plane looped and did Jenny Immelmans. From the center section he went to the tail and then, unless it was an unusual occasion, the wing-walking exhibition was over.
After wing-walking came the breakaway. This was accomplished by fastening a cable to the landing gear. The performer went out to the wing tip, fastened his harness to the loose end of the cable and to all appearances fell off the wing. No one on the ground could see the cable and a breakaway always produced quite a sensation. Iron loops were clamped along the cable for use in climbing back up.
One of our feature attractions was the plane change. A rope ladder was attached to the wing of a plane and as one ship flew past the grandstand with the performer standing near the tip of the top wing, a second plane with the ladder attached, passed over the first, so that the ladder was in easy reach of the performer. We usually made two fake attempts to effect the change and actually counted on the third for success. In this way the feat looked more difficult.
A parachute was attached to the opposite wing from the rope ladder. After the plane change was completed, the performer jumped off with the chute and the show was over.