The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh by Winston Groom Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Winston Groom
spun the prop and the engine caught. Eddie quickly determined that the problem lay in the ignition system; upon further inspection he saw that a coupling had slipped off the magneto, which powered the plane’s electrical system. Eddie reinstalled the coupling and the engine performed splendidly. Rickenbacker didn’t know it but he’d made a friend who would change his fortunes at a most opportune moment.
* (re-vers-moh) “Suddenly zooming up, then throwing the airplane over on to one wing, and kicking the tail around to the rear,” i.e., reversing direction.
† In today’s money, worth $91.20.
‡ Glass blowers had an exceptionally high mortality rate, the causes of which were not well understood at the time. It was later attributed to toxic chemicals in the glass, especially colored glass.
§ Roughly $250,000 in today’s money.
‖ A cousin to the Firestone who started the motor tire empire.
a Harroun eschewed having a mechanic ride with him—a first for this race—and in his place installed a gadget that proved to be a rearview mirror, according to Eddie, “The first one ever seen.”
b Burman was killed in a racing accident in 1916.
c Wilcox did not survive a race car crash in 1923.
d Wishart died in a crash the following September.
e Chandler was killed on the racetrack in 1924.
f O’Donnell died in a racing wreck in 1920.
g It was a custom of the times that in leap years women were permitted to propose to men.
h About $1.5 million today.
i Glenn L. Martin was president of the newly formed Wright-Martin Aircraft Company, founded with Wilbur and Orville Wright. Over the years it would merge into the giant Martin Marietta and eventually the Lockheed Martin aeronautics and aerospace conglomerate.
C HAPTER 3
THE MAN WITH THE OUTSIDE LOOP
O N THE FOGGY MORNING of September 24, 1929, at Mitchel Field on New York’s Long Island, U.S. Army First Lieutenant James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, already one of the world’s most famed aviators, strapped himself into the seat of a Consolidated NY-2 U.S. Navy training plane, stuck his head under a canvas hood, and, with no view whatsoever of the outside world, taxied, took off, flew around, and landed, using nothing but the crude navigational instruments beneath his shroud. By this singular, decisive feat Doolittle advanced aviation into the modern age, in which weather would no longer be a controlling factor in flying.
Doolittle started a colossal revolution; previously, pilots had been taught to mistrust instruments and fly by their instincts, to get the “feel of the plane”—in other words, to fly by seat of the pants. Pilots invariably let bravado get the better of them, and thousands of aviators worldwide perished in fog, rainstorms, blizzards, cloud banks, and dark of night during the nearly quarter century after the Wright brothers’ historic first flight.
Those were the days when flying was among the most dangerous of occupations. For example, thirty-one of the forty pilots hired by the U.S. Postal Service to deliver airmail between 1919 and 1926 were killed in crashes. “It was pretty much a suicide club,” one of them remarked later. Charles Lindbergh was one of these airmail pilots, but somehow he escaped death or serious injury, though he had to bail out of a crashing plane more than once. The most perilous aerial affliction was vertigo, which often comes on when a pilot cannot see the ground, usually because of fog or clouds. It confuses the senses, leading the flier to mistrust his instincts and his instruments (if he has them) and become unbalanced, sometimes thinking he is turning right when he is turning left, or climbing when he is actually losing altitude or stalling. * By 1929 a handful of farsighted flight pioneers had concluded that “aviation could not progress until planes could fly safely day or night in almost any kind of weather.” Foremost among these was Dr. Jimmy Doolittle, recently armed with a PhD in aeronautical
* (re-vers-moh) “Suddenly zooming up, then throwing the airplane over on to one wing, and kicking the tail around to the rear,” i.e., reversing direction.
† In today’s money, worth $91.20.
‡ Glass blowers had an exceptionally high mortality rate, the causes of which were not well understood at the time. It was later attributed to toxic chemicals in the glass, especially colored glass.
§ Roughly $250,000 in today’s money.
‖ A cousin to the Firestone who started the motor tire empire.
a Harroun eschewed having a mechanic ride with him—a first for this race—and in his place installed a gadget that proved to be a rearview mirror, according to Eddie, “The first one ever seen.”
b Burman was killed in a racing accident in 1916.
c Wilcox did not survive a race car crash in 1923.
d Wishart died in a crash the following September.
e Chandler was killed on the racetrack in 1924.
f O’Donnell died in a racing wreck in 1920.
g It was a custom of the times that in leap years women were permitted to propose to men.
h About $1.5 million today.
i Glenn L. Martin was president of the newly formed Wright-Martin Aircraft Company, founded with Wilbur and Orville Wright. Over the years it would merge into the giant Martin Marietta and eventually the Lockheed Martin aeronautics and aerospace conglomerate.
C HAPTER 3
THE MAN WITH THE OUTSIDE LOOP
O N THE FOGGY MORNING of September 24, 1929, at Mitchel Field on New York’s Long Island, U.S. Army First Lieutenant James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, already one of the world’s most famed aviators, strapped himself into the seat of a Consolidated NY-2 U.S. Navy training plane, stuck his head under a canvas hood, and, with no view whatsoever of the outside world, taxied, took off, flew around, and landed, using nothing but the crude navigational instruments beneath his shroud. By this singular, decisive feat Doolittle advanced aviation into the modern age, in which weather would no longer be a controlling factor in flying.
Doolittle started a colossal revolution; previously, pilots had been taught to mistrust instruments and fly by their instincts, to get the “feel of the plane”—in other words, to fly by seat of the pants. Pilots invariably let bravado get the better of them, and thousands of aviators worldwide perished in fog, rainstorms, blizzards, cloud banks, and dark of night during the nearly quarter century after the Wright brothers’ historic first flight.
Those were the days when flying was among the most dangerous of occupations. For example, thirty-one of the forty pilots hired by the U.S. Postal Service to deliver airmail between 1919 and 1926 were killed in crashes. “It was pretty much a suicide club,” one of them remarked later. Charles Lindbergh was one of these airmail pilots, but somehow he escaped death or serious injury, though he had to bail out of a crashing plane more than once. The most perilous aerial affliction was vertigo, which often comes on when a pilot cannot see the ground, usually because of fog or clouds. It confuses the senses, leading the flier to mistrust his instincts and his instruments (if he has them) and become unbalanced, sometimes thinking he is turning right when he is turning left, or climbing when he is actually losing altitude or stalling. * By 1929 a handful of farsighted flight pioneers had concluded that “aviation could not progress until planes could fly safely day or night in almost any kind of weather.” Foremost among these was Dr. Jimmy Doolittle, recently armed with a PhD in aeronautical
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