Aeronautics: Girl v. Tomcat

Every Thanksgiving Day in Manhattan, R. H. Macy & Co. stages a parade of huge comic balloons designed by Tony Sarg. When the procession ends the balloons are released. Cash prizes are paid for their return. But after famed Clarence Chamberlin snared a yellow-&-black dragon on the wingtip of his plane last year and collected $25, Macy’s announced that aviators in flight were disqualified as balloon-hunters.

Last week, when the enormous helium-filled alligator, pig, drum-major, etc., etc., were drifting foolishly over Manhattan and Long Island, a student flyer named Annette Gibson, 22, carrying Instructor Hugh Copeland as passenger, steered her cabin monoplane for a near view. Presently she found herself face to face with a 60-ft. striped tomcat. Yielding to impulse, Miss Gibson plowed into the bag. The punctured fabric wrapped itself about the wing, put the plane into a spin. Miss Gibson cut off the ignition, saw the rooftops of Queens gyrating toward her. Then Instructor Copeland seized her shoulder, yelled, “Get out!”

Miss Gibson climbed over the back of the pilot’s seat while the instructor eased down into it. In doing so she was whirled against the cabin door, which flew open. Her foot caught in a safety strap, saved her. Pilot Copeland pulled the plane safely out of the spin about 100 ft. above the chimney tops—so low that 700 persons telephoned a crash alarm to police.