Famous Flyers and Their Famous Flights Read online

  CHAPTER X--Hawks and Doolittle

  The next day was spent in a pleasantly muddled state, getting Hal readyto go with them, and putting the finishing touches to their ownequipment. Stout boots, fishing lines, flies, everything on their listswas gradually being checked off. Late in the afternoon they had abreathing space, and Bob remembered that it was Pat's turn to tell hisstory.

  "Come on, Pat, you might as well get it over with," said Bob. "Wehaven't anything else to do, anyway."

  "You're mighty impudent for a young one, Bob, my lad," said Pat. "Justbecause you've made a solo flight doesn't mean that you're wings are dryyet. You might know that any story I'd tell would be good."

  "Oh, Patrick, you'll have to prove that," said the Captain. "I've heardsome pretty awful ones from you. Haven't I?"

  "It must have been two other fellows," said Pat. "But I'll begin. And Iwon't take so long, either. I'm not one of these long winded storytellers," he said significantly.

  "Get on, get on." This from Captain Bill.

  "My two boys are the speedy two, all right," began Pat. "Speed was theirmiddle name. Their real names were--well, you probably have guessed. It'snot a secret--Frank Hawks and Jimmie Doolittle. Beg pardon, maybe I hadbetter say Lieutenant Commander Frank Hawks of the United States NavalReserve, the holder of some 30 inter-city aviation records, etcetera,etcetera; and maybe it would be more proper to talk about JamesDoolittle, M.S.; D.A.E.. But what's the use of the titles? They're justFrank and Jimmie, two of the squarest shooters in the game.

  "Frank was born, of all places for a flyer to be born, in Marshalltown,Iowa, on March 28, 1897. Iowa's flat, you know. Wouldn't think thatthere'd be much inspiration for flying out there. But maybe all thatflat prairie was just so much inspiration to get away from it all, andget up into the air. Anyway, young Frank put plenty of grey hairs in hismother's head with his love for climbing. Just crazy about high places.Always up a tree, so to speak.

  "Little Frank was mighty pretty, I guess. Maybe he wouldn't like mysaying it, but he must have been a smart kid, too. At a very tender age,my lads, our friend Frank Hawks was playing children's parts inMinneapolis. But then the family moved to California--maybe to live downthe scandal of a performing son, and Frank got serious, being mightlybusy just going to high school.

  "Maybe it was fate, but something happened that changed Frank Hawks'ideas about what he wanted to be when he grew up. The Christoffersonbrothers, who were pretty great shakes in those days, and pioneers inflying, set up a shop on the beach outside Frank's home town. They tookup passengers. But they charged plenty for it, and Frank, while he hungaround a lot, never had the money to go up, although he was mightyanxious to fly.

  "Finally he got an idea. If he couldn't get up in the usual way, he'dfind a way he could go up. So young Frank got himself a pencil, anotebook, and a mighty important look, and approached one of theChristoffersons. 'I'm from the newspaper, Mr. Christofferson,' he says,'and I'd like an interview with you.' And he interviewed him just asserious as you please, with Christofferson pleased as could be, thinkingof the publicity and the new passengers he'd get. Then young Frank askedif he couldn't go up, in order to write his impressions of an airplaneride. Of course, of course.

  "So Frank Hawks got his first ride in an airplane, and decided on hisfuture career. Aviation got a recruit and Christofferson waited a longtime for his interview to appear. In fact, he waited indefinitely.

  "The problem for Frank then was to get another ride. He finally went tothe flyer, and told him what he had done. He was forgiven, and workedout his passage for that ride and other rides by working around theflying field. It was then he learned to fly. But business was not toogood, and the brothers moved on. Frank Hawks went on with his highschool work, and was graduated in 1916. Thought he ought to have morebook learning, so he went on to the University of California.

  "But the war stopped that. When he was twenty, Hawks joined the army,the Flying Corps. He was too good, though. Too good for his own good.They never sent him to France, where he wanted to go. Instead, they madehim an instructor, so that he could teach green recruits how to fly. Atthe end of the war he was discharged, with the title of Captain.

  "The five years after that were hectic ones. Aviation was stillnew--interest in it had been stirred up by war flying, and all sorts ofmen, young, old, every kind, bought up old planes from the governmentand went barnstorming around the country, taking people up on flights,stunting, flying in air circuses, balloon jumping, and doing anythingthey could to make money with their tubs. Some of these planes were nomore than old junk, and the flyers no more than the rankest amateurs.But there were some of them who were good, and one of these was Hawks.He went dizzily stunting around the country, until' he got himself thereputation of being just plain crazy, but a great flyer.

  "There were ups and downs, to be sure. And I don't mean to be funny,either, my lads. The people in the United States were getting just alittle weary of going up in airplanes just for the fun of the thing--theywere getting too common. But--there were people down in Mexico who hadnever seen a plane, much less flown in one, so down to Mexico wentHawks. He gave. Mexico plenty of thrills, and Mexico gave him some, too.The country was unsettled at the time, upset with revolutions. Hawks gota job flying a diplomat from Mexico City to his ranch, because they'd besafer in the air than going by automobile through the mountains. Hawkseven tried ranching for a while, but it didn't work.

  "He decided to go back to the United States, and when he went back hemarried Edith Bowie, who hailed from Texas. Down in Texas Hawks flewover the cotton fields with arsenic to kill the boll weevils. He workedin the oil fields, too, as a driller. It was good experience for him.They found out that he could fly, and he got a job piloting officials ofthe oil company from place to place in the oil country. They found thatthey were saving time and money.

  "At this time Lindy flew over the Atlantic. Hawks bought the Spirit ofSan Diego, which was the sister ship to the Spirit of St. Louis, andflew across the country to greet Lindbergh when he came back. He flew4,000 miles on a National tour with the Spirit of San Diego, and then7,000 miles criss-cross.

  "Luck was with him. He was going to reap his just rewards. He became amember of one of the country's richest oil companies, as their technicalflying expert. He advised them in buying planes, and chose their pilotsfor them, and in addition, had to sell flying to the country.

  "And maybe he didn't set out in earnest to make the country sit up andtake notice then! There was a Wasp-motored Lockheed Air Expressmonoplane at the manufacturers' in Los Angeles, and it had to be flownto New York. Hawks got the bright idea that he could fly it across thecountry without a stop. And he did.

  "It was his first cross-country flight, and his hardest. In the firstplace, it was February, and the weather was pretty bad for flying--souncertain that they couldn't predict what he'd run into. But he decidedto take his chance. This was in 1929. Of course, its being 1929 didn'tmake it any harder, but I just thought I ought to tell you what year itwas. The start from Los Angeles wasn't bad. He had a mechanic with himto keep filling the gasoline engines, a fellow by the name of OscarGrubb. They hadn't flown for very long when they ran into a fog. Hawksthought he'd try flying below the ceiling--but he ran into a snow storm.Then he tried climbing above it. He couldn't get over it.

  "And in the midst of all this terrible strain of flying through fog sothick that he couldn't see the nose of his plane, the engine began tomiss. The tank was empty. He switched on the other tank. It was empty,too. Why hadn't Oscar warned him that the fuel supply was out? What hadhappened to it? Hawks looked back. There was Oscar, sprawled out, fastasleep. But he woke up. Pretty lucky for Oscar Grubb that he did, andtypical Hawks luck. The tanks were filled, and on they flew through themurk and fog. The fog cleared a little when they got to Kentucky, butHawks didn't know where he was, anyway. It wasn't until they got toWashington that he recognized his position, by the Capitol dome. Fromthere he sped to New York, where everybody was glad to see him
. Nowonder. This speedy gentleman had made the trip in 18 hours, 21 minutes,breaking all speed records then existing for non-stop cross countryflight.

  "It got to be a habit, this record-breaking. His next venture was NewYork to Los Angeles and back. He left Roosevelt field at 8 o'clock inthe morning, and was in Los Angeles in the evening. Seven hours later heturned back and in 17-1/2 hours more he was back again at Roosevelt field.It was dark coming down, and he broke a wing, but he escaped unhurt.He'd broken the east-west, west-east, and round trip records, all ofthem, making the round trip in 36 hours and 48 some minutes.

  "Hawks never let people forget him for long. He was out to sell speed tothe country, and he knew that the way to do it was by speeding. In Julyeverybody began to hear about the 'mystery ship' that was being builtfor him. It was a monoplane. On August 6th, it was a mystery no longer.Hawks was going to race with the sun. The sun had always beaten him sofar, and he wanted a return match, for revenge.

  "So he lifted his monoplane into the air in New York, just as the sunwas rising, at about 6 in the morning. He flew right with that sun andgot into Los Angeles before it had set, or just about 10 minutes before6 o'clock in the evening. He'd beaten dat ol' davil sun, all right. Oneweek later, and he was on his way back across the continent again, andgot to New York in less than 12-1/2 hours.

  "Well, he'd proved how quickly you could get across the United States inan ordinary plane. Then he showed how you could cross with a glider,towed by an engined plane. Why, you ask. Well, in the first place, itattracted attention to gliders. And gliders are important in aviation.And then, if towed gliders are practical, they might solve the problemof carrying pay loads in cross-country flights. The glider could beloaded up, hitched to an airplane, and go from New York to any pointwest. That was the idea. Well, Hawks did attract attention. It took himsix and a half days to get from San Diego to New York, stopping off at alot of cities, and just generally bumming around the country.

  "In 1930 about the only spectacular flight that Frank Hawks made was thetour with Will Rogers, when they flew around the country seeking helpfor the drought victims. They covered 57 cities in 17 days, which meanta lot of work, because they put on a show wherever they stopped. Hawks,with his stage experience behind him, fitted in perfectly with the plan.He not only could fly, but he developed a patter, modeled after WillRogers' and came out chewing gum and swinging a lariat.

  "In 1931, having about exhausted record-breaking in the United States,our friend Mr. Hawks left these shores, and went off to Europe to sellspeed and airplanes to that continent. No sooner had he landed than hestarted to break their records, too. The first one to fall was the speedrecord from London to Berlin, a distance, of 600 miles, which he made in2 hours and 57 minutes. This was just about half the time that theregular passenger planes take. He had a light tail wind behind him, tohelp him, and a bad fog over the channel to hinder him. He flew thewhole distance by compass.

  "About a week later the United States again heard from Frank Hawks. Theyheard that he'd dined in three European capitals on the same day. LeftBourget before breakfast, had breakfast in London, kippers, I suppose,or kidneys, at the Croydon Field. That was about 9:30. He left Croydonfor Berlin, and got there 3 hours and 20 minutes later, in time forlunch at the Tempelhof Airdrome. He flew back to Paris, for tea at LeBourget, and then motored into the city for a good dinner. The dinner hedidn't pay for. It was on some friends who had bet him that he couldn'tmake it. He did. Don't bet against Frank Hawks. It isn't good business.

  "The next month, on June 17, Frank felt hungry again, and maybe tired ofthe food he'd been getting, anyway. So he got into his plane, at London,just after breakfast; had luncheon in Rome, and got back in time for teain London. He'd made the round trip in 9 hours and 44 minutes, actualflying time. Of course, a man has to take time out to eat. Getting toRome and back meant that he'd beaten the Alps twice. He enjoyed thattrip. He'd had a head wind with him all the way, and was pretty gladabout beating the Alps. They look less mighty and dangerous when you'relooking down at them from a safe plane, in the cleat sunshine. Almostgentle.

  "Speedy Hawks decided to come back to America. But he didn't come backto rest. He went right on breaking records, and making up new ones to bebroken. In January of 1932 he flew from Agua Caliente to Vancouver,British Columbia, in 13 hours and 44 minutes. That was called his famousthree-flag flight. It was a grand flight, too, and the first of its kindto be flown in one day. It wasn't non-stop; he'd stopped at Oakland,California and Portland, Oregon, both on the way up and the way back,for fuel. The trip was about 2,600 miles long, and he'd averaged about180 miles per hour.

  "Hawks is certainly accomplishing what he set out to do. He's never hadto bail out, and he's never had a serious accident. He was pretty wellbanged up when he didn't clear the ground and crashed into some wiresearly in 1932, but he pulled out of that all right. Flying fast was nomore dangerous than flying slowly, if a man could handle his plane. Whatthe country needed was speed and more speed, and Hawks gave it to them.It helped, too. The whole commercial system in the United States hasspeeded up. Two hours have been cut off the transcontinental trip, andmore will undoubtedly be cut off. In June of '32 Hawks was madeLieutenant Commander Hawks. And it's no more than he deserves. He's agreat lad.

  "And so is Jimmie Doolittle. There's some say that Jimmie is thegreatest flyer of them all, but he says he isn't. I don't know whetherwe should take his word for it or not. He may be prejudiced. Anyway,he's one of the best liked flyers in the country. James Doolittle is alittle fellow. That is, he's short. Just 5 feet 2, but every inch ascrapper, and every inch nerve.

  "Anybody who talks about Doolittle likes to tell the story of the timehe went down to Chile for the Curtiss Company to demonstrate a new typeof flying plane to the government. The Chilean government was prettyparticular. It wanted only the best, so it decided to have fivecountries compete in a mock fight, England, France, Germany, Italy andthe United States, and the plane that won the battle would be the onebought for the Chilean army.

  "Well, Curtiss asked the Army Air Service if they could borrow theArmy's crack test pilot, Jimmie, and the Army lent him. Doolittle wentdown there all set to win. But there was a party for the aviators beforethe battle, and the aviators, all being young, and good fellows, gotvery jolly, and decided that each of them would have to put on a stuntto entertain the others. Now Doolittle decided that his best bet wasacrobatics, so he balanced on the window ledge, to show his besthandstands and other tricks that he'd learned in college. A brace orsomething on the window gave way, and down went James into the street,landed on both feet, and broke both ankles. Just before the big show!Well, they took him to the hospital and put both ankles in a plastercast.

  "The show went on, and the hero wasn't there. But was he restingpeacefully at the hospital? He was not. With the help of a friend, hecut off the plaster cast, had himself hoisted into an ambulance, andtaken to the field. When he got there, they strapped his feet to therudder bar, and he was all set to go into his act. Only the German planewas in the air. Doolittle zoomed up, and there followed one of theprettiest dog fights that anyone there had ever seen. Doolittlemaneuvered and bedeviled that German plane until it turned tail andretired. James circled around once or twice to show that he was cock ofthe walk, and then came down to get the Chilean contract for the Curtisspeople. That's the way James Doolittle does things.

  "How did he get so scrappy? Well, he was a born fighter. And then, hegrew up in a gold camp in the Klondike, and if there was any placeharder than a gold camp in Alaska in those days, it would be hard tofind. Jimmie was born in Alameda. California, in 1896. His father was acarpenter and miner, and left for the Klondike in '97, the year beforethe big rush to Dawson in '98. Well, two years later he sent for hiswife and the boy James.

  "Jimmie's first scrap was with an Eskimo child. He drew blood, and wasso frightened that he cried as loudly as the Eskimo warrior. But henever stopped fighting after that first fight. Maybe it was because hewas so small that
he had to fight. Anyway, he usually was fighting boysbigger than himself, and he got so good that he'd whip them to a frazzleevery time. It gets to be a habit, you know, and any way, he was bornscrappy. Ask anyone.

  "The Doolittles left the Klondike, and moved back to California withtheir obstreperous son, and I imagine the Klondike parents breathed alittle easier. In California Jimmie went to school, and on the sidebecame Amateur Bantamweight Champion of the Pacific Coast.

  "When he'd been graduated from High School Jimmie went on to theUniversity of California, same college that Hawks had attended. He wenton fighting, still in the bantamweight class. But one day down in thegymnasium, the boxing coach put him in the ring with a middleweight forsome practice. Jimmie knocked him out. And he knocked out the secondmiddleweight, and the third middleweight. So the coach, seeing that hehad struck gold, entered Jimmie in the match with Stanford, but in themiddleweight class. The crowd roared when they saw the little bantamgetting into the ring with a pretty husky middle. The middleweightthought that it was a joke on him, and was careful not to hit hard. Buthe needn't have been so kind. Jimmy Doolittle retaliated by knocking himstiff and cold in a few minutes.

  "Jimmie didn't graduate. In 1917 he married Jo, and settled down toserious things, such as going out to Nevada and becoming a gold miner,and later a mining engineer. I might say a word about Jim and Jo.They're known as the inseparables. They're always together. They've gottwo kids, who are thirteen and eleven years old, and who can fly intheir daddy's footsteps. The family leads a gypsy life, flying from onearmy field to another, but they have a great time.

  "Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. Let's get back to the War. Becausethe war broke out then, you know, and Jimmie joined the air service. Hisfirst lesson, they turned him over to an instructor by the name of Todd.They were still on the ground, when they heard a crash, then anothercrash. Two planes had collided in the air. First one dropped, then theother, close to Jimmie's plane. One of the pilots was killed; the otherpilot and his passenger were badly hurt. Doolittle helped them out, andwent back for his first lesson.

  "Jimmie, like Hawks, was just too good. They didn't send him to Franceat all, but made him an instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, wherehe became known as one of the star aviators in the air service. He waspretty angry when he found that he couldn't go to France. He went out torelieve his feelings. He picked out an innocent soldier walking down theroad, and made for him. He didn't have any grudge against that soldier,just against the world. But that soldier had to bear the brunt. Jimmieswooped down on him. The soldier wouldn't move out of the way or flattenout. Jimmie swooped closer and closer. The soldier stood his ground.Finally Jimmy came so close that his wheels nicked the soldier, and downhe went. And away flew Jimmie, but so low that he couldn't rise again intime to clear a barbed wire fence at the side of the road. He got caughtin the fence and smashed up. They gave him a month in the barracks tothink over how smart-aleck he'd been, and then Jimmie was out again. Thesoldier had a bump on the head to remind him that he'd been in the waywhen Jimmie Doolittle was mad.

  "Jimmie had other crashes. One was just before he made his famous flightin 1922 across country from Pablo Beach to San Diego. On his firstattempt at a take-off one of his wheels struck some soft sand, and overhe turned, being thrown into the water, plane and all. His secondtake-off was more successful--in fact, it was perfect. He got to SanDiego in 22-1/2 hours.

  "Jimmie's greatest achievements have been in testing and experimenting.After the war he went to the Army technical school at Dayton. He got anhonorary degree from the University of California, and then he went toBoston with Jo, and entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.With Jo's help he did four years' work in three, and got the degrees ofMaster of Science, and Doctor of Aviation Engineering--the first flyer toget the D.A.E. degree there.

  "He resigned from the army to join the Shell Petroleum Corporation,Curtiss borrowed him again, though, and he went to Europe to demonstratespeed planes for Curtiss to 21 European governments. He's a marvelloustester. He got the D.F.C. for his transcontinental flight. In 1925 hegot the Schneider Cup in the International races, and in 1929 the medalof the Federale Aeronautique Internationale for his outstandingachievements in aviation.

  "I haven't told you the most outstanding, feats, Doolittle was one ofthe pioneers in blind flying. He experimented for the GuggenheimFoundation, testing instruments to be used for blind flying. He alsotested the stress and strain that flying has on the human body. He wouldgo into right spirals, risking his life, in order to see under whatpressure a man becomes unconscious. It's a dangerous business, but greatfor aviation.

  "In September, 1931, Doolittle won the air derby, flying from LosAngeles to New York to establish a new transcontinental West to Eastrecord on 11 hours and 15 minutes. He won at the same time the LosAngeles-Cleveland Bendix trophy when he crossed the finish line of theNational Air Races at the Cleveland airport. His time to Cleveland was 9hours and 10 minutes, an average speed of 223 miles per hour. As if thatwasn't enough, he flew back to St. Louis to sleep, making a trip of3,300 miles in 19 hours. He'd broken Hawks' record then standing. Boththe boys are still going strong. You never knew when you're going towake up and find that one of them has flown across the country so fastthat he ended up right where he started from, only two hours earlier.But now I'm getting fantastic," said Pat. "I must be getting tired, andno wonder. It's time we were getting to bed, if we want to leave at anyhour tomorrow."