“IT WON’T BE LONG”

Southland Times, Issue 24153, 15 June 1940, Page 10

“IT WON’T BE LONG”

Seconds Are Like Hours To A Parachutist

f SUPPOSE I have been a bit of a stunt artist —parachutist, test pilot, that sort of thing. If you could see me, you would see I’m minus my left arm, and at one time or another I suppose I’ve broken pretty well every bone in the old body. Still, I think that kind of thing is a bit overdone. So does my family sometimes, writes Robert Wyndham in The Sydney Morning Herald.

A few years ago I had been living quietly with my father and mother, near Guildford, for a little time. Then one day I just sort of slipped away for a few days, without telling them exactly where I was going or what I was doing. As a matter of fact I’d gone off to Cardiff to do a stunt for an air circus: a delayed parachute drop. Of course, I didn’t know that the 8.8. C. were broadcasting this affair—they had fixed it all up with my manager. Anyway, on this particular Saturday afternoon my father and mother were sitting at home, not having much to do, and they vaguely turned on the wireless only to hear an extremely excited commentator telling the world at large all about me—name, too, of course, nice and clear. What they heard was something like this: “It won’t be long now. I can see him through my glasses standing on the wing—won’t be long now—there he goes, there he goes. Square Four.” You see? And then, with diabolic cunning, the announcer puts his watch up against the mike to sound like the ticking of the stop-watch strapped to the palm of my hand, to tell me when to pull the rip cord and open up the parachute. That time at Cardiff it was fourteen seconds before I vzas due to pull the rip cord, and fourteen seconds is a long time when you’re anxious for your son. It’s a long time for the son, too, I’ll tell you. One’s whole small soul is concentrated on one particular small thing—stop-watch, rip cord. You start falling, of course, with an acceleration of 32.2 feet a second until after ten seconds you reach your terminal velocity, which is 119.6 miles an. hour. And you keep on at that speed until you do something about it.

So there I was, falling rapidly downwards towards Cardiff, and my poor father and mother sitting horror-struck near Guildford—and then I’m blowed if that commentator didn’t get really excited: “Open the parachute—for heaven’s sake open it. It’s too late—he’s done for—no he isn’t—he is—he’s up on his feet—by Gad, sir, he’s all right.” Or words to that effect. By this time, of course, my people were throwing fits all over the dining-room floor. Yes, and when I came back, father looks up sternly—“ What have you been doing?” “Oh, just going places, you know.” “Well, next time you decide to go places, please arrange not to have it broadcast.” Upside Down Bit of an error, that. And, talking about parachutes, a distinct error crept in when I went out to India with an Air Circus in the winter of 1933. Up till that time I had always had my parachutes Backed for me by experienced

ground engineers who knew their job and had the appropriate licences. But this time my partner, Johnny Longmore, and I had to learn how to pack our parachutes ourselves. It’s a tricky business, and if you get it wrong the odds are you’ll end up unfortunately. Well, towards the end of the week, by an effort of extreme concentration, Johnny and I managed to scramble through the examination, and got our licences. So far so good. And we went off to India with two parachutes all I nicely packed up and ready to use. We I jumped them both at Bombay, and then | the trouble started. There they were ; both unpacked and we had to pack ■ them. That was at Poona. And we found to our horror that we had en- | tirely forgotten tire whole business. ; Bad thing. We struggled with one of i those wretched parachutes all mornj ing—and eventually got it into the case, I which was fair enough, but for one ■ highly important detail—we didn’t know whether it was right side up or wrong side down, and there was no manner of finding out until we went up to use it. We tossed a coin to see who should go up, and, of course, it fell to me. Going up in the plane I became increasingly certain that the dratted thing was packed upside down. When we got to about the right height I got out and I walked gingerly along the wing, hangI ing on to the interplane struts. You stand facing the tail, looking carefully down to get the right point above the aerodrome, so as to land just nicely in front of the grandstand. Yes, but right side up, or upside down? Now—signal to the pilot—jump—and by golly it was upside down. It did open, but the silk shot through the shroud lines, and instead of being completely open, a good third of the parachute was flapping idly and unable to work. I hit the ground a terrific smack and the ground was extremely hard. The first thing I knew was Johnny rushing up to me in the middle of the aerodrome and saying, “So it was upside down after all!” > That was a bit of a smash, but I was in a really serious one on another occasion, in California. I was doing a test pilot job for an American aeroplane company and they wanted me to test a new model, very fast, thousand horse-power, single-seater fighter. Well, I do a bit of designing myself from time to time and I was perfectly i convinced that this particular machine | would not stand up to that particular ) test. I said so to the designer. i It got through its first test all right. But the last one’s the one they call the 9G test. (9G 1 means nine times the! force of gravity.) We didn’t do it in, England then, though they have started it just recently for the R.A.F. planes. It’s the ultimate and final test of • a fighting aircraft. If it will stand that, it will stand anything. What ought to happen, if everything goes smoothly, is this. First of all you are bandaged up tight all round your tummy—otherwise you might, practically speaking, burst. Then you fly the plane up to about 18,000 to 20,000 feet: little wisps of cloud below you,j and the earth spread out like a kind i of a map. You wait for a nice rift in the clouds. Then—everything’s all set. Nose her over, right down, right down . . . vertical, and then slowly but steadily turn on full engine. In a few fractions of a second the ordinary boom of the engines rises to a shriek; the

wings sort of quiver; and you have to fill your lungs and scream. That tightens the muscles of your neck, and gets your chest ready to meet the awful pressure that’s going to hit you at the bottom of the dive. You’re watching your altimeter like a hawk to find out how far you are from the ground, and at about 7000 to 6000 feet start pulling her out. With this particular machine you wouldn’t get her right out of the dive even then until you were pretty close to the ground—well, 1000 feet, 1500 feet—and that’s pretty close when you’re doing about 900 feet a second. When you get to the bottom of the dive and start to zoom up again, this remorseless pressure hits you nine times your own weight, and I weigh 14 stone. It presses you down and down into your seat, as if it was trying to squash you into a mere smear.

There was an enterprising film company out there, and they got hold of the idea that just possibly all mightn’t go absolutely smoothly. Anyway, it ought to make a good picture. So they asked me if I had an objection to having this particular 9G photographed. No objection. They paid for it—handsomely. Flash and Bang Up I went—2o,ooo feet or so—started screaming, and over into the dive. We went down all correct —cameras at 10,000 feet working away, and the ones lower down were all set to get me pulling out of the dive, and the landing business. Well, on this particular occasion the technique of landing wasn’t necessary, because when I pulled the machine out of the dive, she shuddered violently, and the wings came off with a crack. I then discovered that an aeroplane flies very badly without wings, and this one flew particularly badly. What was left of it, with me inside, shot straight into the ground. The engine was buried about i 12 feet underground, leaving bits of it scattered about —bits of me scattered about, too. There was an awful feeling of shock when the wings came off—then a flash and a bang—and then I was way down at the bottom of a deep, j dark well. Very deep, very dark. Somebody was right up at the top, and saying to me, from very far away, “Come on, come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up”—and I was trying to hurry up, fighting desperately to get to the top of it, but it was a big well, and it took me some seconds to get up. When I eventually did, a nurse said, “Drink this”—handing me some foul concoction or other.

Actually I’d been two weeks unconscious—and the doctor told me that that climbing up the well was my struggle for life, and if I’d ceased struggling that would have been the end of it. As a fact when they brought me into hospital, he thought I was dead, but he just began sewing me up a bit—you know, to make it a tidy corpse for the funeral. Then he noticed there was just a spark of life left' and he thought, “That’s sporting—it’s putting up a bit of a show; we’ll see if we can help it a bit.”

I was nine months in hospital after that, in plaster of paris. Then I went away for a cruise, and in three months more I was flying again. That may all sound, very exciting and desirable, and I’m still at that kind of game. But, honestly, it isn’t worth the candle. You never have any sort of home life, you’re never- certain where you are going to be from one month to another,, and you live on your nerves all the time.-