The classic international seaplane race had long been the Schneider Trophy and the admiral had set his heart on winning it. The expenditure of time, money, and effort could be justified then because it always stimulated technical progress. And so BUAERO created a new class of racers and brought the trophy to America; the admiral, master that he was of the art of publicity, played up the results to the fullest. The Navy had also entered the classic land-plane races using special racers in the “free-for-all pursuit.” Then, since turn about had always been fair play, the Army entered Jimmy Doolittle in the Schneider Cup seaplane races and won them hands down. This was the same Jimmy Doolittle who would one day take off in an Army bomber from the Navy carrier Hornet in our first air raid on Tokyo. Meanwhile, the middle ’twenties were a free-swinging era of intense competition that pushed American aeronautics to the forefront of world progress. The bursting bubble of stock-market speculation in 1929 squeezed out the small fry, but the big boys went on for a while longer.
Meanwhile I found my new flying ability most useful in my billet as Chief of Design. On a training-plane competition between Boeing and Huff-Daland, I was able to check the trial-board report myself and, being fresh out of Pensacola, to do so with a fair knowledge of the latest edition of the Flight Manual. The Boeing developed a characteristic which, until then, was new to us. Pete Mitscher, the same Pete who would one day command Task Force 58 in the Pacific and earn from his mates the reputation for being the ablest air commander of them all, got into a flat spin at 6,000 feet over Washington and windmilled to a crash on the end of Haines Point, where he stepped out of the damaged plane quite unharmed. Had he known about flat spins back in the days of the “Affair Fleet,” things would have been more difficult.
Then one of these tests of mine came near to washing me out of aviation’s slipstream forever and leaving me as a part of the permanent “slip.”
There had been some discussion in BUAERO of a suggestion to equip Pensacola with some advanced combat trainers by taking the Pratt and Whitney Wasp out of the Curtiss Hawk and substituting in it the lower-power Wright Whirlwind. I had argued against this and suggested obtaining the same result by flying the standard Hawks with partly open throttles. And in order to prove the efficacy of this, I went over to the Naval Air Station, Anacostia, where we did our flight testing, to put on a demonstration. When I waddled out in my flying suit and parachute, I found the plane turning up on the line, but the mechanic was dissatisfied with the way the engine was running. It was one hundred revs short of the full-throttle crank speed. Since this might be due to a weak spark plug or some other minor fault and since I intended to fly at half throttle anyway, I got in, taxied out onto the field, and took off.
The Anacostia Naval Air Station occupied about half of a flat strip of land and had its hangars and shops along the river front. The Army Bolling Field occupied the other part of the reservation with its old wartime buildings lying under the hill on which stands St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. If the presence of an institution for the insane, overlooking the rival Army and Navy fields on the same plot, had any significance, I was not concerned with it that day. What I had to look out for, however, was the extensive regrading going on, which limited the operating area to a narrow tract.
My take-off was diagonally across the field toward the bluff, and the little Hawk, to my delight, fairly leaped into the air at half throttle, and climbed over the trees. Turning to the left, looking down on the hospital, I noticed the circle that marked the landing area, and promptly cut the switch to make a dead-stick precision landing on it. When this turned out well, I started the engine and repeated the maneuver. On the third take-off, noticing a certain roughness in the engine, I opened the throttle wide, thinking to clear a possible fouled plug. But even as I did so, I felt something let go and noticed the ears of the valve rocker box covers drop below the rim of the engine cowl.
There was a sudden “whoosh” and the cockpit filled with flames. Instinctively I cut back the throttle, slapped off the switch, and pulled the fire-extinguisher knob. As I reached behind me alongside the seat for the fuel cutoff valve, I glanced into the cockpit where the flames were licking my stick hand, and curling up around my ankles beneath my slacks. When I looked out again, we were nearing the end of the field. At such a low altitude I could not jump and now, to get the flames out of my face, I kicked into a steep slip to the left which headed us out over the Potomac River. A water landing to a sailor has more appeal than a crack-up in a thicket, and I held the heading until it was certain I could not stretch the river. Then, close to the ground, I booted the rudder to fishtail her the other way and followed this with four hard kicks alternating left and right until she had lost speed. Now as the burning Hawk touched down hard, I had an overwhelming sense of panic; the next thing I knew I was on the ground on my hands and knees and the plane was crackling behind me. Feeling the heat on the back of my neck, I glanced quickly over my shoulder and then, as the flame seared my cheek, I scrambled out of there on hands and knees.
Clear of the wreck, I got to my feet and looked around. A small car was careening toward me from the direction of the Army hangar. My first reaction was one of embarrassment at being caught by the Army in such an undignified situation. When I looked again at the airplane, it stood there without its engine, burning abaft the cockpit, but headed in a direction opposite to that in which I had landed it. Its engine lay a few yards beyond me, one propeller blade broken off near the hub.
Well, that accounted for the crack-up. When the blade had let go, several of the holding-down stud bosses had broken off, but others had held the engine in the airplane. Then the rough landing had sheared the others; the airplane, freed of its heavy noseweight, had bounced into the air, done a split S, broken my safety belt, and dropped me clear of the fire. Had it happened any other way, I must surely have burned up before I could escape the flames.
I glanced at my hands and saw that the skin was burned deep enough to expose the cords. I felt my face and found burns around my lips and eyebrows; at least I would not be disfigured for life. The careening Army car swung alongside with squealing brakes and I climbed on its running board for a fast run back to Anacostia’s sick bay. The soldier in the car said the broken propeller blade had sailed right past him, screaming like a wild thing. Arrived at the sick bay, I was hustled into a ward and told to lie down; the doctor said I was suffering from shock. I lay down on the bunk awhile, and when I looked up, Admiral Moffett stood in the door.