to recover. Instead, it plummeted to earth, twisting and turning. Some observers said the flyer and the careering plane separated at 250 feet. Lindbergh was more conservative in his estimate. He thought it was higher; in his official report stated the height at 350 feet.“ I pulled the ripcord as soon as the stabilizer passed. The chute opened quickly but while it was functioning I had fallen faster than the spinning ship. On its next revolution, the plane was headed directly towards the chute. How close it passed will never be known, for the risers leading up from my harness were twisted and swung me around as the ship passed. However, less than twentyfive feet intervened between the wing and my parachute.“ I watched the plane crash in a grain field and turned my attention to landing. A strong wind was drifting me towards a row of high tension poles and it was necessary to partially collapse the chute in order to hasten descent and land before striking the wires. I landed rather solidly in a potato patch and was dragged several feet and over a road before several men arrived and collapsed the chute. In addition to the strong wind and rough air, collapsing or‘ cutting’ the chute so close to the ground had caused a very rapid descent and my shoulder had been dislocated in landing.” After medical treatment, Lindbergh was again flying within two hours. Robertson Aircraft Corporation won the contract for the St. Louis-Chicago route of the newly developed U. S. Air Mail Service nationwide system. Nevertheless, work under the contract would not begin until the following spring. In November, 1925 Lindbergh enlisted in the 110th Observation Squadron, 35th Division, Missouri National Guard, and was promoted to first lieutenant soon after; then spent the winter months instructing students for Robertson, teaching how to fly the OX-5 and test flying in the company’ s commercial service. Contract flying for the U. S. Post Office Department commenced on April 15, 1926.
Emergency Jump No. 3
“... I stepped over the side of my cockpit, into space.” The wreck of Captain Lindbergh’ s mail plane. Chief Pilot Lindbergh was on a mail flight on September 16, 1926 when he made an emergency jump at night in a blinding snow and rainstorm because his plane ran out of fuel after he became lost in darkness and violent weather, after more than two hours of rigorous flying. In his official report, he wrote:“ Seven minutes’ gasoline remained in the gravity tank. Seeing the glow of a town through the fog I turned toward open country and nosed the plane up. At 5,000 feet the engine sputtered and died. I stepped up on the cowling and out over the right side of the cockpit, pulling the ripcord after about a 100-foot fall. The parachute, an Irving * seat service type, functioned perfectly; I was falling head downward when the risers jerked me into an upright position and the chute opened. This time I saved the ripcord. I pulled the flashlight from my belt and was playing it down towards the top of the fog when I heard the plane’ s engine pick up. When I jumped, it had practically stopped dead and I had neglected to cut the switches. Apparently, when the ship nosed down an additional supply of gasoline drained to the carburetor. Soon she came into sight, about a quarter mile away and headed in the general direction of my parachute. I put the flashlight in a pocket of my flying suit preparatory to slipping the parachute out of the way if necessary. The plane was making a left spiral of about a mile diameter, and passed approximately 300 yards away from my chute, leaving me on the outside of the circle. I was undecided as to whether the plane or I was descending the more rapidly and glided my chute away from the spiral path of the ship as rapidly as I could. The ship passed completely out of sight, but reappeared in a few seconds, its rate of descent being about the same as that of the parachute. I counted five spirals, each one a little further away than the last, before reaching the top of the fog bank.” The plane crashed about two
18 | FlyUAA | www. FlyUAA. org | November Issue