In warm weather these suits acquired an odor similar to that of a goat which has been in the barn all winter and the fur itself was far from comfortable. On the trip back a piston froze in the engine. For two days the cadet was alternately roasting in the southern sun and freezing in the Texas nights while he guarded his ship and waited for a new engine.
After our return from Galveston while we were practicing formation attack on two seaters, I experienced one of the incidents of the military pilot’s life. I made my first emergency parachute jump. When an Army plane crashes, the pilot is required to write a detailed report of the crash. My account was as follows:
“A nine-ship S.E.5 formation, commanded by Lieut. Blackburn, was attacking a DH-4B, flown by Lieut. Maughan at about a 5,000 foot altitude and several hundred feet above the clouds. I was flying on the left of the top unit, Lieut. McAllister on my right, and Cadet Love leading. When we nosed down on the DH, I attacked from the left and Lieut. McAllister from the right. After Cadet Love pulled up, I continued to dive on the DH for a short time before pulling up to the left. I saw no other ship nearby. I passed above the DH and a moment later felt a slight jolt followed by a crash. My head was thrown forward against the cowling and my plane seemed to turn around and hang nearly motionless for an instant. I closed the throttle and saw an S.E.5 with Lieut. McAllister in the cockpit, a few feet on my left. He was apparently unhurt and getting ready to jump.
“Our ships were locked together with the fuselages approximately parallel. My right wing was damaged and had folded back slightly, covering the forward right-hand corner of the cockpit. Then the ships started to mill around and the wires began whistling. The right wing commenced vibrating and striking my head at the bottom of each oscillation. I removed the rubber band safetying the belt, unbuckled it, climbed out past the trailing edge of the damaged wing, and with my feet on the cowling on the right side of the cockpit, which was then in a nearly vertical position, I jumped backwards as far from the ship as possible. I had no difficulty in locating the pull-ring and experienced no sensation of falling. The wreckage was falling nearly straight down and for some time I fell in line with its path and only slightly to one side. Fearing the wreckage might fall on me, I did not pull the rip cord until I dropped several hundred feet and into the clouds. During this time I had turned one-half revolution and was falling flat and face downward. The parachute functioned perfectly; almost as soon as I pulled the rip cord the riser jerked on my shoulders, the leg straps tightened, my head went down, and the chute fully opened.
“I saw Lieut. McAllister floating above me and the wrecked ships pass about 100 yards to one side, continuing to spin to the right and leaving a trail of lighter fragments along their path. I watched them until, still locked together, they crashed in the mesquite about 2,000 feet below and burst into flames several seconds after impact.
“Next I turned my attention to locating a landing place. I was over mesquite and drifting in the general direction of a plowed field which I reached by slipping the chute. Shortly before striking the ground, I was drifting backwards, but was able to swing around in the harness just as I landed on the side of a ditch less than 100 feet from the edge of the mesquite. Although the impact of landing was too great for me to remain standing, I was not injured in any way. The parachute was still held open by the wind and did not collapse until I pulled in one group of shroud fines.
“During my descent I lost my goggles, a vest pocket camera which fitted tightly in my hip pocket, and the rip cord of the parachute.”
During the descent all the other planes broke formation and arched around us. Every ship within sight proceeded at full speed to the spot and before long the air was full of machines. Several of the De Havilands landed in the plowing and within half an hour two planes with extra parachutes were sent to take us back to Kelly. About an hour after the crash we had two new S.E.5’s and were back in the air again.
The parachute is a marvelous invention, experimented with as early as the 16th century by Leonardo da Vinci.
The first parachute was built by a Frenchman in 1784. This parachute was a rigid structure covered with very strong paper and fabric. It was used in a jump from a building in Paris.
About a year later the same type of parachute was dropped from a hot-air balloon in England. Soon jumps began to be made from balloons with other types of rigid parachutes.
About 1880, Captain Thomas Baldwin made a name for himself by jumping from hot-air balloons with a chute which was a forerunner of the present type. He was the first really successful jumper, but success in those days was judged by how long a man lived in this profession.
In 1912, the first parachute jump from an airplane was made. The container was attached to the plane and the
