By RICHARD H. WATKINS.
THE easiest way to count "stunt" fliers is to count their tombstones. This is, of course, a radical statement, but it is almost literally true. The cleverest flier who ever lived was not clever enough to last long at the acrobatic game, as a survey of the death roll of aviation proves.
The stunt flier in the old days of flying—not ten years ago—was a miracle man, a superhuman being without the nerves or mortality of mankind, an Achilles without a heel—until he crashed. During the war he was a hero, an adventurer of the air, flying through a storm of shrapnel, flying onions, machine gun bullets and anti-aircraft fire, and dropping in flames to earth with his gun still roaring gallantly. But now he has become merely a nuisance, and, like other nuisances, he is being legislated against.
It is possible to account with almost mathematical precision for the stunt fliers of yesteryear. There is, of course, the 1921 crop who are still at the zenith, but the nadir is not far off. The stunt fliers who thrilled the crowds years or months ago are underground.
Hoxsey, Beachey, Locklear—all are dead. But so, you may say, are all the other early aviators and many of those of the present day. Not so. It is true that many a flier dropped to death in the flimsy machines of a decade or more ago; it is equally true that once in a great while we read of the death of a flier who was flying and not stunting, but the proportion is about the same as the mortality of grade crossing speculators and race drivers as compared with cautious motorists.
Wrights Took Greatest Chance With First Practical Plane
The Wright brothers were early fliers, the men who took the biggest chance of all when, in 1903, they ventured off the ground in a flimsy kite, propelled by a 12-horsepower, coughing, jerky motor. Wilbur died in bed and Orville is still active in the aeronautical industry. Glenn Curtiss was an early flier, and held many of the early records, but he never forgot that he was a man and not an angel. He is still alive and one of the biggest figures in aviation to-day. Louis Bleriot still lives in France and builds planes and automobiles. Dozens of others flew bravely and well, yet lived.