“Barnstorming” is the aviator’s term for flying about from one town to another and taking anyone who is sufficiently “airminded” for a short flight over the country. In 1922 the fare usually charged was five dollars for a ride of from five to ten minutes.
It was while I was flying with Bahl that I began to do a little “wing-walking.” We would often attract a crowd to the pasture or stubble field from which we were operating, by flying low over town while I was standing on one of the wing tips.
In June I returned to Lincoln and received a little more instruction, making a total of about eight hours.
About this time Charlie Harden, well known in the aeronautical world for his parachute work, arrived in Lincoln. I had been fascinated by the parachute jumps I had seen, and persuaded Ray Page to let me make a double drop with Harden’s chutes.
A double drop is made by fastening two parachutes together with rope. Both are then packed in a heavy canvas bag; the mouth of the bag is laced together and the lace ends tied in a bow knot. The bag is lashed halfway out on the wing of the plane, with the laced end hanging down. When the plane has reached sufficient altitude the jumper climbs out of the cockpit and along the wing to the chute, fastens the parachute straps to his harness, and swings down under the wing. In this position he is held to the plane by the bow knot holding together the mouth of the bag containing his parachute, the bag itself being tied securely to the wing. When ready to cut loose he pulls the bow knot allowing the bag to open and the parachute to be pulled out by his weight.
In a double jump, after the first parachute has fully opened, the jumper cuts the rope binding the second chute to the first. The first chute upon being relieved of his weight, collapses, and passes him on the way down.
I made my first jump one evening in June from an 1,800-foot altitude over the flying field.
My first chute opened quickly, and after floating down for a few seconds I cut it loose from the second, expecting a similar performance. But I did not feel the comfortable tug of the risers which usually follows an exhibition jump. As I had never made a descent before, it did not occur to me that everything was not as it should be, until several seconds had passed and I began to turn over and fall head first. I looked around at the chute just in time to see it string out; then the harness jerked me into an upright position and the chute was open. Afterwards I learned that the vent of the second chute had been tied to the first with grocery string which had broken in packing the parachute, and that instead of stringing out when I cut loose, it had followed me still folded, causing a drop of several hundred feet before opening.
I remained in Lincoln for two weeks working in the Lincoln Standard factory for fifteen dollars a week. Then I received a wire from H. J. Lynch, who had purchased a Standard a few weeks before and taken it on a barnstorming trip into western Kansas. He was in need of a parachute jumper to fill a number of exhibition contracts in Kansas and Colorado, and wanted me to go with him in that capacity at a small fraction of its cost. Page offered me a new Harden Chute instead of my remaining flying instruction, and I took a train for Bird City, Kansas.
Lynch and myself barnstormed over western Kansas and eastern Colorado giving a number of exhibitions from time to time, in which I usually made a jump and did a little wing-walking.
In the fall, together with “Banty” Rogers, a wheat rancher who owned the plane, we set out for Montana. Our course took us through a corner of Nebraska and then up through Wyoming along the Big Horn Mountains and over Custer’s Battle Field. At one time in Wyoming we were forced to land, due to motor trouble, near a herd of buffalo, and while Lynch was working on the motor I started over towards the animals to get a picture. I had not considered that they might object to being photographed, and was within a hundred yards of them when an old bull looked up and stamped his foot. In a moment they were all in line facing me with lowered heads. I snapped a picture but lost no time in returning to the plane. Meanwhile Lynch had located our trouble and we took off.
After we had been in Billings, Montana, about a week, Lynch traded ships with a pilot named Reese, who was flying a Standard belonging to Lloyd Lamb of Billings. Lynch and I stayed in Montana while Reese returned to Kansas with Rogers.
We barnstormed Montana and northern Wyoming until mid-October including exhibitions at the Billings and Lewistown fairs.
At the Lewistown fair we obtained a field adjoining the fairgrounds and did a rushing business for three days. We had arranged for the fence to be opened to the grounds
