Saturday, July 27, 2013

The Lone Eagle Dodges Death


P-47 Thunderbolt painting by Keith Woodock
Charles Lindbergh dodged death a dozen times.
Working with the bomber manufacturer Ford during World War II, Lindbergh became interested in the problems plaguing high-altitude aviation. While he was testing a P-47 Thunderbolt — an Air Force fighter that could reach 40,000 feet and 430 mph — Lindbergh’s oxygen ran out with no warning at 36,000 feet.
The gages appeared fine, but Lindbergh had trained extensively with oxygen deprivation, and sensed a characteristic shift in pulse and vision, “that vagueness of mind and emptiness of breath which warn a pilot of serious lack of oxygen.”
Blacking out, he shoved the stick forward into a power dive. Aware only dimly of the shrieking wind outside his cockpit, Lindbergh came to in the increasing air density and found that his plane had dropped 20,000 feet.
After he landed, a mechanic discovered that the pressure gage was 50 pounds too high. “That had caused all my trouble — a quarter-inch error of a needle,” Lindbergh wrote.
Source: ‘Lindbergh’ by A. Scott Berg

No comments:

Post a Comment