AMERICAN BIRD MAN

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 22 (Supplement)

AMERICAN BIRD MAN

A 20TH-CENTURY ICARUS. SOARING AND LOOPING. We can hardly believe the things we read and see to-day. Tumbling in the air like a pigeon and gliding' with artificial wings and tail as fast as a carrier pigeon flies, a man lias performed a feat never before accomplished. An American named Clem Sohn, who once held the world record for dropping the greatest distance from an aeroplane before opening his parachute, has been thrilling huge crowds at Daytona Beach by looping the loop three times thousands of feet above their heads. With collapsible wings of balloon fabric stretched over light steel tubes fastened umbrella fashion between his arms and sides, and a tail plane like the webbing of a duck’s foot between his legs, Clem Sohn sprang from an aeroplane 10,000 feet up. As he leapt he stretched put his arms and legs, and so retained the momentum of the speeding plane. He found himself gliding like a bird at a speed of 60 miles an hour. So fast was his movement that he succeeded in looping the loop three times. It was all a matter of two minutes, when, feeling intensely cold, he pulled the cord of a parachute attached to his back and descended calmly into some woods near the field from which the aeroplane had ascended. His feat reminds us of that of Icarus in the Greek legend, or of the tale of the monk who jumped from the battlements of .Malmsbury. But both these daring pioneers perished, while Clem Sohn has lived to win the title of the first human bird.