Reflections of a Teenage Barnstormer

Peyton Autry

Description

Reflections of a Teenage Barnstormer is the story of a 1933 two-month barnstorming tour of the Ohio River Valley of southern Indiana when the author was 16 years old. It is told in a first person, present tense in the manner he would have told it at the time it occurred.

Sujets

• Transportation
• Canelones (comida)
• Río Ohio
• Waco 10
• Ohio River
• Richland
• Cannelloni
• Aviation

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781618585158
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright 2002 Peyton Autry
Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the author and the publisher.
Turner Publishing Company Staff: Tammy Ervin, Editor Shelley R. Davidson, Designer
Library of Congress Control No. 2002116930
ISBN: 978-1-56311-857-9
Limited Edition.
Reflections of a Teenage Barnstormer is dedicated to Marty, my father Arch Autry and mother Nellie Baker Autry. They conceived and enacted the aerial odyssey described in the following pages.
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have a host of people to thank for making this book possible. Among these are: my wife Leta Ellsworth Autry for her caring encouragement on this book as well as all of my other endeavors. I am grateful to Helen Krinke, my manuscript secretary and advisor of thirty years, for her professional proficiency, promptness and faithful caring. To the citizens and officials of dozens of communities in the Hoosier Ohio River and Wabash River Valleys, for their important assistance in confirming my 70-year-old memories of times, places and things. To all of my friends, especially James and Barbara Balentine, who have always taken a special interest in me personally and my technical and literary careers.
A N INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR :
Reflections of a Teenage Barnstormer is the story of a 1933 two-month barnstorming tour of the Ohio River Valley of southern Indiana when the author was 16 years old. It is told in a first person, present tense in the manner he would have told it at the time it occurred.
C ONTENTS
Chapter I:
My Rhon Ranger Primary Glider. Marty and his Waco 10.
Chapter II:
A busy week flying passengers at the 1933 Annual Boonville Fair. Then comes the exhilarating surprise of a 15-year lifetime!
Chapter III:
Old barnstorming haunts at Richland. Friendly passenger folks from Rockport on the Ohio. Marty always the insatiable pilot/historian. On to Cannelton!
Chapter IV:
Our warm senior hosts, Albert Veeck and Henry Milhausen. The sights, history and passengers of Cannelton, Tell City and Troy. Marty s little scare with a truculent OX-5. Our first Ohio River storm.
Chapter V:
Last days at Cannelton. St. Meinrad, an idyllic rural place where time stands still. The young helpful Abbey monks, Otto, Michael and Robert.
Chapter VI:
A tour of St. Meinrad s Arch Abbey helps satiate Marty s historical thirst. On to Ferdinand and its Marian Heights Academy. We fly the Heilman family. I am thoroughly taken with little Katherine Heilman, one year my junior.
Chapter VII:
Overnight with the senior Heilmans. No Katherine, but her grandmother accepts my helmet and goggles as my gift to Katherine. On to Huntingburg. Dave and the big Lincoln-Standard.
Chapter VIII:
A busy weekend flying passengers in the Waco 10 and Lincoln-Standard at Huntingburg. A historic ground tour with Marty. Two days later a sudden forced landing on the way to Paoli! A threshing landing in standing corn!
Chapter IX:
Overnight in the haymow of Mr. Mrs. Sherman. A hairy take-off for Paoli. We join the elderly whittlers on the benches around Paoli s court square.
Chapter X:
We advertise at ritzy French Lick Hotel by both ground and air. Lady Stockton in her chauffeur-driven Pierce-Arrow, becomes our devoted advocate. She brings a steady 4-day stream of plane passenger buffs, borne in chauffeur-driven Cadillacs, Lincolns, Cords, Rolls-Royce, Stutz and Hispano limousines. On to Salem and friend Ralph Denien.
Chapter XI:
The big beautiful field on the Ohio River bluff at Hanover. The Waco parked behind our cabin. Passenger business over nearby Madison. Catfish dinners with Old Sam the fisherman. On north to Bedford, but with a detour deep into Kentucky to Lincoln s birthplace, Stephen Foster s Bardstown, Fort Knox and then north to the Ohio River. Just north of the river we are forced down in a raging 60 M.P.H. thunder and lightning storm
Chapter XII:
Waco saved by staking down to a fence. Muddy take-off to Bedford and Ragsdale farm. Next day west to Vincennes and famous Frank O Neal and his airport. South to Mt. Carmel, Princeton, Petersburg and Oakland City. At Oakland City we spend one more night sleeping under the Waco s lower wing. Next day on to Lynnville, Folsomville and finally home to Boonville two weeks late for the BHS 1933 fall term and a two month aerial odyssey the author will never forget.
About the Author
Peyton Autry in Marty s Waco 10 in 1933 just before take-off on barnstorming tour .
C HAPTER I
Our primary glider sits facing north at the south end of the freshly cut alfalfa field. A primary glider has no wheels for a landing gear, only a long wooden skid under its open trussed flat framework fuselage. I am sitting here on the open board seat mounted atop the skid s nose fastening my safety belt while Jim at the left wing tip holds the wing level. Ray and Carl back the old Nash open touring car up to the glider, throwing out one end of the light 600-foot towline with its one-inch steel ring attached. The ring is snapped into the release hook mechanism on the nose of the glider s wooden skid. I tucked the lanyard cord for the release hook in my belt so I could reach it easily when it came time to yank it, which would drop the towline. Ray and Carl drove the Nash slowly up ahead, paying out the towline as they moved along. When the line was drawn up taut they waited for our signal. I nodded to Jim who waved a white cloth he was holding and we slowly moved along gradually gathering speed. I could hear the old Nash slowly changing gears. Jim s walk is now a trot. He must hang on to the wing tip until there is enough slipstream pressure on the ailerons so I can keep the wing level without his help.
There! Now, I shake the stick from side to side a little bit and the wing rocks back and forth. Jim gets the message, trailing way behind, waving as I went along. Now I can feel the elevators and rudder take hold with my feet on the rudder bar and both hands on the stick. I ease the stick back a little and she s off! Each time I fly this thing, it s a greater thrill than the last! Now, I ease the stick back more and we re climbing. Carl is a good tow car driver-there isn t a single tremor transferred up the towline from rough driving. He accelerates very slowly and smoothly. He has done this now for three years.
Gee, I m climbing so fast I m leaning way back on the seat. I m now at about 150-foot altitude and the climb is beginning to slow because of the angular weight of the towline. I must be very careful now because this is the crucial moment of a ground towed ascent. If I jerk the towline release at this steep climb angle the considerable weight of the towline on the nose will be released suddenly and the nose of the glider will just as suddenly dart upward and she will stall, and at this altitude of 150 feet I would never recover and will crash. So, just a split second before releasing the towline, I push the stick forward in a momentary dive. There! The towline falls away, the nose rises sharply from the released weight and we are in a shallow glide. The tow car s motor below is idled. Now I can no longer hear anything but the gentle tranquilizing whir of the 40 M.P.H. wind in the wing brace wires. My air speed indicator is only the sound level of the wind in the brace wires and the wind on my face.
This glider was designed and offered in kit form by the Mead Glider Company of Chicago. Their claim was that the glider had a glide angle of 18 to 1, which would mean that at 18 to 1 we would at this point of 150 foot altitude, glide about a half mile. We found that it wasn t that good. It was something less than 18 to 1. At 150 feet we would glide about a third of a mile. It would be much greater than that if we had a longer field and a longer and lighter towline, perhaps a wire, piano wire, instead of the 600-foot cord, which we have been using. If that were a wire, of say 1500 to 2000 feet, and a long field, we could climb to 700 or 800 feet and then glide to nearly two miles from the point where we dropped the towline.
I am now passing over the wide ditch at the north end of the field. I am at an altitude of about 50 feet as I near the ground. This field is also alfalfa stubble. As I near the ground I rotate the stick backward and we slow, doing about 40 M.P.H. Gently the skid touches the alfalfa stubble and we decelerate and I feel myself lurch forward against the safety belt. The bottom of the skid has worn slick from use and it slides very easily over the stubble. We slide for about 100 feet, then come to a stop. The glider tilts over as the right wing tip drops over and rests on the ground. I unstrap the safety belt and crawl out, looking around to see if anyone approaches. Ray and Carl are going back across the first field and gathering up the towline, turning around and are heading back across the old wooden bridge over the drainage ditch. A short length of the towline is attached to the nose of the glider and the old Nash slowly drags it back over the bridge into the other field.
The north end of the first alfalfa field is an L shape cut into the corn field which extends all along the east side of both alfalfa fields. Beyond the corn, to the east is the Fairground. The tip end of the L forms a nice little secretive place to stake down the glider in the corn, hiding it from curious visitors and onlookers who drive along the highway at the south end of the field. Stakes are driven in the ground beneath the wing tips and tail to which we attached lengths of rope. The glider has a wingspan of 32 feet and a length of 18 feet and weighs only 118 pounds without the pilot. One of these southern Indiana windy thunderstorms would blow it away and tear it up if it were not staked down.
I feel lucky and good about the fact that as a 16-year-old BHS sophomore, I can do things like this. Two of us have taught ourselves to fly t