Evening Star Newspaper, June 2, 1929, Page 93

The Sundiy Staf Magasine WASHINGTON, _]). C., SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1929 Headlong In Features 24 PAGES, S Lieut. Benton made a desperate attempt to save himself by leaping at Dargue as the latter d rifted past attached to his parachute. Members of the Caterpillar Club Have All Made Emergency Leaps--Lindbergh’s Four Jumps Constitute a Parachute Record. One Woman Is a Member. BY RUSSELL KNOWLAND. OOPING and spiraling more than a mile above the earth, an Army pilot was giving a new type pursuit plane its final structural tests. On the ground below, an interested group of officers, field glasses trained on the plane, waiched the maneuvers. ‘The test was thorough. Every twist, bank and roll that might be necessary during aerial combat was executed by the Army fiyer. Machine guns are deadly, and upon the ability of a combat pilot to turn his plane a little more sharply than the enemy, or to climb a trifle faster, rests the margin between defeat and victory. Suddenly a puff of black smoke shot back from the engine cowling. Almost instantly, it appeared to the watchers, flames enveloped the entire ship, which zoomed crazily skyward into & stall, As the forward momentum of the doomed plane ceased, the pilot leaped from the cock- pit and fell plummet-like toward the earth. One, two, three seconds passed. Then a white mushroom snapped open above the falling man, and his breath-taking drop became a Ilazy, swinging float. Once again a parachute had functioned in an emergency and one more name was added to the roll of the Caterpillar Olub. WHAT is the Caterpillar Club? According L to the Information Division of the War Department, it is an organization of flyers who have saved their lives by forced emergency jumps from airplanes or balloons in flight. The membership requirements are higher than those of any other organization in existence, because to join the club one must virtually lose one'’s life, then regain it. The club started following a discussion among two Dayton, Ohio, newspaper men, Morris Hutton, reporter, and ‘Verne Timmerman, pho- tographer, and H. H. St. Clalr of the parachute unit at Wright Pield. This discussion took place immediately after the sensational forced leap of Lieut. Harold R. Harris, chief of Mc- Cook Field flying section, in October, 1922, The future valug of the parachute was foreseen from the success that attended the Army fiyer's leap from a rapidly falling and disintegrating plane. It was suggested that a club be organized, composed only of persons whose lives were saved by use of a parachute when forced to lcave an aircraft in flight. The name probably resulted from the fact that parachutes are manufactured from silk, a product of the caterpillar cocoon. The Caterpillar Club has no officers, consti- tution or by-laws. Its aim is simply the collection of data relative to emergency para- chute jumps, with a short statement of cir- cumstances attending the leaps and photographs of the person saved. These are mounted in the Caterpillar Club album in the parachute unit of the material division at Wright Field. More than a hundred emergency leaps are on record. The four leaps made by Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, two of them at night, while flying the air mail, constitute the highest individual parachute score. Two leaps each are recorded for Maj. James Rutledge, former pilot for the Pacific Air Transport Co., flying on the Los Angeles-Oakland-Seattle run; Capt. Frank O'D. Hunter, U. S. A.; Sergt. F. F. Miller, U. S. A, and Lieut. Eugene H. Barksdale (deceased). Not only because his action paved the way to formation of the Caterpillar Club, but also because of the circumstances under which it was made, Lieut. Harris’ jump is of special interest. On October 20, 1922, Lieut. Harris was flight testing some new experimental-type balanced ailerons that had been installed on a Loening pursuit monoplane. At the same time, he was indulging in combat practice with Lieut. Muir S. Fairchild, who was flying a Thomas-Morse scout., Lieut, Fairchild made a left turn, and Lieut. Harris, to keep the sights of the Loening machine guns fixed on the Thomas-Morse, turned also. The two planes were flying at a speed of 150 miles an hour, gUDDENLY somelhing went wrong and the %2 control stick, with which lateral control of a plane is maintained by the pilot, started to oscillate so violently that it was knocked out of Lieut. Harris’ hands, severely bruising his legs just above the knces. With contiel gone, the plane started to fall. “I opened my safety belt and slid out through the top of the fuselage clear of the airplane,” Lieut. Harris said later when reporting his experience. “The wind velocity was very high, and no effort was necessary to leave the cock- pit, as the wind, sweeping up, carried my body absolutely free. Particles of wing or aileron were flying from the left wing just before I left the ship. “After clearing the plane, an attempt was made to operate the cord which permits the parachute to open, but I was unable to locate the ring for a considerable time, because of repeatedly grasping the leg-strap fitting, thinking it to be the release string. Three separate attempts were made before the ring finally was located, and it is believed that during this time my body was spingping. keag downward. I distinctly remember looking at my feet three times, with the knowledge tha$ they pointed toward the sky. Upon lgeating and pulling the rip-cord, the parachut: epened almost immediately.” This episode marked a milestone in aviation history, for, although the parachute in in- numerable test§ had been proved efficient, there was more or less skepticism among air men as to the ability of the flyer to think and act rapidly enough to get free from a falling ship and oprrate a parachute before too great loss of altitude for safety. There also were doubts as to whether the speed of the fall might not cause unconscious- ness. Because of his mistake in pulling the leg-strap instead of rip-cord ring, Lieut. Harris fell nearly 2,000 feet before his parachute opened. During his entire drop, Harris re- ported, his mind was clear and capable of thinking with great rapidity. Two of the newer members of the club are Lieut. Harvey T. Dyer, pilot, and Sergt. Frank J. Siebenaler, passenger, of a United States Army transport plane that crashed near San Antonio, Tex., carrying six enlisted men to their deaths. Lieut. Niyer jumped after struggling to regain control of the big ship when it went into a 4.000-foot spin. Siebenaler, who was riding with Dyer in the cockpit, was thrown from the plane as it fell and saved himself from certain death by using his parachute. The six men killed all wore parachutes, but apparently were unable to use them. A MID-AIR collision of two planes from the Langley Field, Va., Tactical School resulted in death for Capt. Robert A. Archibald, of the Marine Corps, and membership in the Cater- pillar Club for Capt. Earl R. Deford, also of the Marine Corps. Archibald, like Deford, attempted to make a parachute drop, but pulled the rip-cord an instant too soon. The para- chute became entangled in the tail assembly of his plane and he was hurled to his death on the ground. The jump that made Lieut. Frank O'D. Hunter of the Army Air Corps a two-time member of the club, occurred on March 5, 1926, as he was climbing to join a formation from Selfridge Field, Mich. At 1,000 feet, Yunige's motax suddenly made a peculiar sound and a cloud of steam blew back info his faee. Knowing that something was wrong. Hunter decided to land on the ice of Lake St. Clair. As he started to dive, the entire front of the cockpit burst into flames, scorching his face and burning his mustache. “It was too hot for me,” Hunter said, and he proceeded to dive over the side of the cockpit. pulling the rip-cord as soon as he was clear of the blazing plane. The “chute” opened imme- diately and let Hunter down safely, if not entirely gently, on the ice. The plane crashed through 18 inches of ice into three feet of mud and water. Col. Lindbergh joined the Caterpillar Club in 1925 while he was a cadet at Kelly Field, Tex. He was forced to leap for his life when his plane collided in mid-air with a ship piloted by Lieut. C. D. McAllister. Like Lind- bergh, Lieut. McAllister leaped to membership in the exclusive Caterpillar organization. Less than three moikhs later Lindbergh became the first two-time member of the club. This occurred at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field, when a ship that Lindbergh, then a lieutenant, was testing went into a left-hand spin at 2,000 feet. Despite every effort of the young officer to bring the plane under control, it kept spinning earthward. At 300 feet Lindbergh jumped. Lost at night in a fog above territory thsat he knew to be too hazardous to attempt & landing, Lindbergh, on September 16, 1926, made his third emergency jump when his fuel gave out. “The motor sputtered and died,”, Lindbergh said. “I stepped up on the cowling and out over the right side of the cockpit, pulling the rip-cord after about a 100-foot fall.” The parachute funcdoned perfectly, and once again Lindbergh was spared. Lindbergh'’s fourth leap occurred two months later, when he was unable to find a landing because of fog and snow and ran out of fuel while flying the air mail near Covell, Ill. This time Dhe landed on top of a barbed-wire fence, but was unhurt when the barbs failed to pene- trate his heavy flying suit. The only woman member of the club is Mrs. Irene McFarland. Mrs. McFarland was to make an exhibition parachute jump from a plane over Cingtnnati, Ohio. Before she left the ground, Maj. Hoffman of the Army Air Corps prevailed upon her to strap on an Army parachute in addition to the one she intended to use in the jump. This fact alone saved her life, because her own parachute fouled on the landing gear and did not open. She pulled the rip-cord of, the Army parachute and descended safely to the ground. LIEUT. JAMES T. HUTCHJNSON and Paul Stanley joined the Caterpijlar Ciub together when both leaped from a flanging Huff-Daland’ light bomber near Wright Field. When the siane buwst into flames, Licut. Hutchinson Jidered &ianley to jump. After setting the ajntrols and turning off switches, Hutchinson. # tilowed his observer over the srde. His “chute™