AERONAUTICS: Plane Parachute

What makes the majority of people prefer the “nice, safe” ground to flying around the heavens in airplanes, is a maxim they used to read in their copybooks: “What goes up must come down.” It is not likely that this maxim will ever be disproved, but there are ways and ways of “coming down.” Refinements upon the art of gentle descent began at least five centuries ago when a quaint babu hugely diverted the court of Siam by jumping off the roof with two umbrellas hooked in his girdle.

Last week, near El Segundo, Cal., the very latest wrinkle in descent was demonstrated—a wrinkle that promised to eliminate a tremendous percentage of the danger—and fear—of aviation. Pilot R. Carl Oelze of the Naval Reserve had the temerity to ascend in his plane to 2,500 ft., jerk the strings of a monster parachute folded in the fuselage behind the cockpit, shut off his motor and let the plane plunge toward the ground like a plummet. Anxious watchers saw a white mushroom suddenly billow above the dropping craft. With a jerk, the plane’s fall was retarded to a comparatively gradual downward float, about 38 ft. per second. At first there was a sideways swing to the suspended plane, then it hung even below its straining, air-filled life-preserver, to which it was harnessed by five stout cables. In slightly more than a minute the plane, with Pilot Oelze safely in it, settled upon a hillside with no damage other than a cracked propeller and smashed landing gear, incurred on the upsloping ground.

The inventor of the plane-parachute was Chief Aviation Machinist’s Mate Harry A. Doucett, of San Diego Navy air base. The contrivance weighed 45 Ibs. and measured 50 ft. across. Plane, pilot and equipment weighed just short of a ton. Naval observers were most enthusiastic after the test and Pilot Oelze was for another drop at once, to a level landing, with a slightly larger parachute.