Opening of the book
an old biplane flying in the clouds
THE OLD LADY FLIES
By Raoul F. Whitfield
CHAPTER I. STICKING TO HIS PLANE.
Russ Healy always insisted that the old girl understood. But Russ was that rare sort of creature—a flyer who was sentimental. Of course, on the face of things, it was sheer rot. A plane is an inanimate object, theoretically—and therefore incapable of understanding. But Russ didn’t look at it that way. There was no doubt about the fact that he loved the Jenny.
He’d picked her up right after the war, on a government sale. She hadn’t been flown at all, and Russ had worked with her ever since that time. He’d joy-hopped her, taken a chance on air advertising, smoke writing, stunting. He’d even done some air surveying with her, and I think he chased boll weevils, down South, at one time—spraying from the Jenny.
She’d cracked up with him more than once, but Russ would just patch her up—and patch himself up. She wasn’t a pretty sight. She was dirty—oil-stained, her wing fabric of varied colors, her struts lacking varnish. She sagged a bit on her under carriage. But her flying wires were right; she was rigged properly for the air. She was slow, of course—powered by an old Hall-Scott engine, and sluggish on the controls, compared to the new ships. Just an old lady, that was all she was—an old lady, still turning a prop and taking the air, but pretty far out of date.
We had eight ships in the circus, and five pilots. That is, we had five fliers who could do more than get off and land. A couple of the grease monkeys could qualify—indeed, had qualified—for a license, but that doesn’t make a flyer—not by about a thousand air hours and considerable natural ability. However, when we made the jump from the outskirts of one town to the outskirts of another, the two mechanics each flew a ship, and Bob Brooks, who ran the Brooks’
Flying Circus, flew the other. That got the eight ships around, and made a nice showing in the sky.
It was Bob Brooks’ wife who started the thing. She was a peach, and Bob was crazy about her. I didn’t blame him.
We ran into a streak of tough luck. Charlie Ryan crashed on a
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