Ok, here's another one of my late father's flying tales:

In early 1944 on the West Coast, Dad was a flying instructor and concurrently squadron leader of an Army Air Force precision flying team that, with a corresponding team on the East Coast, constituted the forerunners of the USAF Thunderbirds. They flew primarily North American AT-6’s in various official airshows to promote and assist the War effort. On the day in question, they were performing in a major show at (I believe) War Eagle Field (now long gone) near Lancaster, CA and Edwards AFB, attended by Henry Wallace, FDR's Vice President before Harry Truman. We know that it was May, 1944, because my mother was 9 months pregnant with me, and I was born May 21^st. Mom was in the stands watching the show.

The finale of the show called for Dad to make a relatively low pass over the field and for someone in the back seat to throw a small parachute out the rear cockpit in front of the reviewing stand. This parachute was supposed to open and reveal a banner with a patriotic message - "Buy War Bonds" or something similar - to complete the show.

As Dad was making his pass, the airman in the back opened his canopy as planned and threw out the parachute. Unfortunately, instead or throwing it out diagonally, he threw it almost straight up. The slipstream caught it, ripped it open, the shrouds caught on the vertical stabilizer and it then opened the rest of the way. As Dad later described it, the plane just sort of stopped flying, WHAM! As he applied full power to try and regain some (any!) airspeed, all he could think of was my mother in the stands. "Well," he thought, "I guess Mildred is going to have that baby today." What he didn't know was that, being very pregnant with the usual teeny-weeny bladder, she had gone to the ladies room and missed the whole thing.

Dad didn't have time to do much of anything except to try and keep from dying. With full power he managed to keep the airplane more or less level, and pancaked the plane onto the tarmac very hard, destroying the prop in the process. Nevertheless, they were shaken but unhurt as they ground to a halt not far from the spectators. They sat there for a few seconds as the spectators starred in stunned amazement at what had just happened. Suddenly, Dad released his harness, jumped up onto his seat, raised both arms and sort of took a bow: Taa-Daaaaa! He said later that he couldn't think of anything else to do. The Vice President was very impressed, but Dad's CO was less than amused.

Bob

Copyright Ó 1998 Robert T. Chilcoat

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