He turned over and started down. Straight down, closer and closer to the ground, wide open, he roared. He yanked back on the stick to just clear the ground and discovered there were several little considerations he had overlooked. One was that he had just stepped out f a Cyclone-powered Hawk, much lighter than the Conqueror-powered one he was desperately trying to clear the airport in at that moment. The other was that he was accustomed to flying the lighter ship out of a sea-level airport, much heavier-aired than the 2,500-foot-high airport that he was at that moment trying to avoid. The heavier ship squashed in the thinner air and hit the ground in the pull-out. Just kissed it and skimmed into the air again.
Jimmie wondered if his landing gear had been swiped off, came around, landed, and discovered that it hadn’t.
The Dutch officers rushed out to him when he crawled out of his cockpit. “My God, Jimmie,” they chorused, slapping him on the back, “that was the most delicate piece of flying we have ever seen!”
“Huh,” Jimmie grunted, still thinking how lucky he had been to get away with it, “delicate piece of flying, hell! That was the dumbest piece of flying I ever did in my life!”
They knew it too, of course, despite the polite way they had put it. So from then on Jimmie was ace-high with them, because he had admitted the boner instead of trying to lie out of it.
[GONE ARE THE DAYS]
George Weiss, one of the boys that kick the Daily News photographic ship around into position for the aërial photographs that appear in New York’s picture paper, told me this funny one he experienced with the late Commander Rogers of the navy:
Commander Rogers had flown way back in the early days of Wright pushers. He saw George in Washington several years ago and asked him if he could fly him up to his home at Havre de Grace, Md. He assured George that there was a field there right beside his house that they could land in. He said that he had landed in it himself.
George took him up in his Travelair cabin ship. He arrived over the Commander’s house and the Commander pointed out the field. “It’s full of cows,” George objected. “That’s all right,” the Commander told him, “just buzz the field a couple of times and somebody will come out and chase the cows away.”