by Jim Bates

The U.S. Air Force song says, in part, "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder,..." Despite that "wild" warning in the beginning of a spirited exaltation to the joys of flight, confident pilots often become forgetful that it might be nice weather when a flight starts but it's quite possible for aviators to experience first-hand how wild that blue yonder can easily and quickly become.

Here's the tale-of a naval pilot who discovered the extent of that wildness.

In May 1960, while flying in formation with another pilot, our discoverer bailed out of a powerless F8U at 47,000 feet while on a VFR (visual flight rules) journey from Massachusetts to North Carolina. His unanticipated problems started while the two planes were passing over a thunderstorm and his plane's engine made odd noises and a fire warning light came on.

He took hurried corrective actions, but nothing worked. Abruptly he was without power controls and the stick was locked in neutral position. He hastily decided to eject rather t han stay with the plane that had started an uncontrollable plunge toward the raging storm below.

Later reports estimated the thunderstorm to be some hundred miles in diameter. His indicated airspeed at ejection was 210 knots (241.5 miles per hour).

The "wild blue yonder" gave him a frightening experience of a nine-mile descent, lasting more than thirty minutes - an ordeal that he fortunately survived - during which his parachute equipment did not fail, though it had been subjected to extraordinary stresses. Parts of his incredible adventure are given here in his words, garnered from statements in an official U.S. Navy investigation.

* * *

"My first sensation was one of severe cold and extreme expansion, as if I were about to explode. The cold rapidly changed to a burning, tingling sensation. I felt as if millions of pins were sticking in me. I sensed that I was tumbling and spinning like a cartwheel. My arms and legs were out and I could not get them in.

"In a matter of seconds I realized I had retained my helmet and mask but no longer had my visor although I had been flying with it down because of the bright sunlight and reflection from the top of the clouds. I believe it was torn away on ejection.

"I opened my eyes and saw I was entering wispy clouds. I was going into the tops of the fleecy overcast that I had flown through just a few minutes before. I seem to remember saying to myself, 'Well, you're entering it and it's about 44,000 feet.' About this time I managed to get my arms into my body.

"I looked down and noticed that I was absolutely forcing my torso harness. It looked like it was going to burst. My stomach popped out under my life vest as though I were pregnant.

"I had the feeling that I fell and fell and fell and fell for an eternity. My oxygen mask was beating against my face. I held my mask with my right hand. I put my left hand on my helmet which was pulling on the chin strap as if it was going to go off. My left hand was very cold and numb - it felt like somebody else's hand, not mine.

"Some time during the free fall, my right glove got in my way. It inflated like a balloon so I let it go - just jettisoned it. I remember seeing it go off and I thought 'Why did I throw the glove away?'

"During the free fall I had the feeling of not being able to exhale; in fact, I seemed to have to work very hard to be able to exhale, but all I had to do was open my mouth and in-rushing air just seemed to fill my lungs. At this time it was getting a bit darker in the cloud.

"I had an urge to open the parachute but I told myself I was still far too high and if I did I would either freeze to death or die from lack of oxygen. I still had this tingling sensation but I sort of had the feeling that I was slowing down and falling into denser atmosphere and I seemed to be getting a little warmer.

"I was still in the free fall and thinking about opening the chute. It was quite dark but I don't recall any great moisture or any great violence. It seems like while I was thinking about opening the chute, all of a sudden there was a terrific jolt and I knew the chute had opened. I looked up but by this time I was in such a dense, dark cloud that I couldn't even see my canopy. I reached up and got hold of the risers and gave them tugs on both sides; it felt like I had a good chute.

"From here on, my memory of what happened seems much better. I now clearly recall running out of oxygen, having the mask collapse against my face, and I believe I disconnected it from the right side as I always do. At about this time I thought I definitely had it made and was going to survive. However, I noticed I was still bleeding from the nose, my right hand was cut, and my left hand was frozen numb, but the pressure was going and I was much more comfortable. Then the turbulence started and I realized I was entering the thunderstorm.

"As the turbulence started, I was pelted all over by hail. Then I fell a little bit more and I seemed to be caught in a violent updraft. I had the feeling that I was being tossed around - that I was actually going around in a loop and I was looping over my canopy like being on the end of a centrifuge. I got sick in the turbulence and heaved.

"Sometimes I could see the canopy and sometimes I couldn't. The tossing and the turbulence was so violent it is difficult to describe. I went up and down - I was buffeted about in all directions - at times it felt like I was going sideways. One time I hit a very rough blast of air - I went soaring back up and got in a very severe hailstorm. I remember the hail beating down on my helmet. I had the feeling it would tear my canopy up. The next thing I knew I was in rain so heavy I felt like I was standing under a waterfall. I had my mask loose and the water was so great that when I tried to inhale I got water with the air like I was swimming. It seems to me that some time in the storm I noticed my watch and was surprised that it had stayed with me. I'm not sure but I think I was able to tell the time by the luminous dial - I believe it was around 1815.

"At one time during an up or down draft, the parachute canopy collapsed and came down over me like a big sheet. I could see my legs in the shroud lines. This gave me some concern - I thought maybe the chute wouldn't blossom again properly and since the hail seemed to be larger now I was afraid it might damage the canopy and put holes in it. I fell and the canopy blossomed again. I felt the risers and everything seemed all right.

"At this time I looked down and saw what appeared to be a big black elevator shaft. Then I felt like I had been hit by a blast of compressed air and I went soaring back up again - up and down - sideways. How much of this soaring went on I don't know. I had the feeling that if it went on much longer I was not going to maintain consciousness. I was being tossed around and beaten around and I wasn't quite sure how much more I could take.

"The violence was so great that I thought that if it doesn't stop soon, my gear will come apart - and my straps will break - I will come apart. Stretching - twisting - slamming - the turbulence of this thunderstorm was so violent I have nothing to compare it with. I became quite airsick and I had considerable vertigo. Again I had the feeling that I couldn't take much more of this but if I could only hold out a little while longer, I would be falling out of the roughest part of the storm.

"The lightning was so severe that I kept my eyes closed most of the time. Even with my eyelids closed, there was a blinding reddish-white light when the lightning flashed. I felt rather than heard the thunder; it just about burst my eardrums. As I recall, I had the feeling that I was in the upper part of the storm because the lightning seemed to be just flashes. As I descended, I seemed to see big red streaks heading towards the earth. All of a sudden I realized it was getting a little calmer and I was probably descending below the storm. The turbulence grew less, then ceased and I realized I was below the storm. The rain continued, the air was smooth, and I started thinking about my landing.

"By now my shoulders and legs hurt pretty badly. I checked myself over again and thought I was O.K. I kept looking down and said to myself 'Under the storm you probably won't have more than three hundred feet.' It was just like breaking out when you're making a GCA [ground controlled approach]. The first thing I saw was green and then I was able to see trees and then I knew I was very close to the deck.

"I remember seeing a field off in the distance and I thought there must be people nearby. As I got close to the trees I suddenly realized there was a surface wind and I was being carried horizontally over the ground quite rapidly - maybe 25 knots. I oscillated about three times, then went into the trees. It seemed that my chute fouled in two pine trees and I continued in a horizontal position with the wind, then swung back to the left. I came crashing back through the trees like a pendulum and hit a large tree with my left side. My head, face, and shoulder took most of the blow. My helmet was knocked crooked but I think it did a great deal to save me here. The blow was so violent that it twisted my helmet back on the right side and pulled the chin strap so tight over my Adam's apple under my chin that I had to loosen it when I got on the ground. Anyway, I came down with a crash. I slid down and landed on my side. I was cold and stunned but still conscious. At first I thought I had broken something and was paralyzed. Pretty soon, however, I was able to move my head and then my arms. I checked the time; it was between 1840 and 1845."
The pilot's report went on to detail that he wasn't yet out of trouble. It was still daylight but dimming quickly, and raining heavily. The physically battered and stunned pilot struggled out of the tangle of canopy, suspension lines, and harness webbing. He wanted desperately to get out of the woods before dark, but he was confused about what direction to go. Momentary panic worsened the confusion but he forced himself to think rationally.

He then quickly recalled training in making square search patterns. In the rainy darkness he saw a freshly cut tree stump, then another, and another, then several more. He figured that a logging operation of this size meant there would a logging road also. That road would be the objective of his square search pattern.

On the third leg of the square pattern he found the road. In the increasing darkness and steady rain he followed the dirt road until he came to a farm field and across the field he saw automobile headlights of several cars moving along a road. He wearily plodded through the muddy field until he reached a paved two-lane secondary road. Bedraggled, he stood on the edge of the road and tried to flag down a passing car. He got annoyed, then angry, that by his count fifteen cars went by without stopping to help.

His statement went on to read: "I must have looked like something real unusual - all wet and bleeding and standing out there in my flight suit in the dark and the rain. I guess they figured I was drunk.

But suddenly he got a break: "Then after all these other cars had kept on going, a car came by and I thought I heard a boy say, 'There's a pilot, daddy."'

The car kept going into the rainy darkness, but then slowed, turned around, and came back to the exhausted, hurt roadside figure. The aviator's ordeal was done. He recovered from his injuries flew again for many years.

The U.S. Navy's Approach magazine, produced for naval and marine corps flight crew members, included the pilot's amazing flight experience in an issue published soon after the official investigation had been completed.

The "wild blue yonder" had been bested and another flyer's life was saved with a parachute.

INTRODUCTION-The history of parachuting includes many ideas intended to make the unordinary act of parachuting acceptable to people in the aviation community.
But gaining that acceptance was a long time coming. It took a long and widespread war to accelerate acceptanceof parachuting to save lives-and then only reluctantly by both Allied and German military aviation planners of the"Great War" of 1914-1918 (many years laterknownas "WorldWarOne").
Even after grudging approval of parachutes for airplane pilots, and despite more than adequate proof of parachute value and usefulness demonstrated by balloon-borne observers of both sides of the conflict, getting production orders in the works was slow, actual production was sluggish, and delivery to front-line units lagged.
For Germany, it was not until October 23, 1918 (shortly before the Armistice of November 11) that a Fokker pilot used a parachute when he was shot down right after having destroyed an American kite-balloon, forcing two officer to themselves bail out and use their own parachutes. When the German pilot bailed out it was the first known time, based on American records of the time, that an aviator-of either side-had made an emergency parachute jump from an engine-powered heavier-tban-air flying machine in aerial combat.
When WW One ended, and airplanes were eagerly seen as a wonderful weapon of commerce, and parachutes had proved greatly useful in saving lives, ideas for both devices were rampant, but with parachute development to a far lesser degree. Despite the need, parachutes, still being in early developmental stages and in limited supply and use, were not yet readily trusted.
However, stalwart visionaries and innovators steadily plugged away at trying to change the minds of aviation skeptics. One innovator was a British military officer who wrote the following article.
His concept, published (just over a year after the Great War ended) in the December 31, 1919 issue of the British periodical, The Aeroplane, appearing in a supplement titled "Aeronautical Engineering."

Since the writer's last article appeared it has been officially stated in the Press that the authorities have decided to make life-saving parachutes an integral part of the equipment of their Service machines. The carrying out of this decision not only entails a large expenditure, but greatly affects the safety of aviators in the future. It becomes, then of great interest to know what general principles are guiding the Technical Committee in their selection of the type of parachute to be adopted.
Some months ago a curious article appeared in the Technical Press. Published anonymously, the writer happens to know that it actually emanated from official quarters. Purporting to be advice to parachute inventors as to what direction their activities should take and as to what was or was not likely to be acceptable to the Parachute Committee, it opens with this remarkable dictum:
'The principal object in equipping aircraft with parachutes is to inspire confidence in those who use aircraft."
Some simple-minded persons, like this present writer, have hitherto been under the impression that the principal object of a life-saving parachute was to save life and that its value was proportionate to its ability to do this under any conceivable conditions. Apparently it doesn't matter what the parachute is or does if only the authorities can camouflage it to an appearance of safety and reliability. If this article really represents the considered opinion of the Parachute Committee, it will hardly tend to "inspire confidence" in the judgment of that body.
Once upon a time a lofty factory was erected with two wings. Each was equipped with a different type of fire escape.
No. 1 was a regular iron staircase with balustrade and all. Everyone was delighted with the iron staircase, and when the company ordained a weekly fire-drill the employees voted it good fun running down the staircase. No. 2 was merely a seemingly rickety iron ladder which swayed and shook in the wind, and only one or two venturesome spirits would trust themselves on it.
Then one day the factory caught fire. The iron staircase proved too heavy; the heat quickly loosened the cement fixings, and when the employees crowded onto it the whole crashed to the ground. In the other wing there was only the iron ladder, and the employees had to choose between this and being burnt alive. No one bothered their heads as to whether it shook or swayed; they clambered down it and all escaped.
Just so, there are two general types of life-saving parachutes:
No. 1 type is apparently simple and certain in action when used from aircraft flying normally and under complete control and doubtless inspired confidence in those who make descents for pleasure or practice or advertisement, but which, in the opinion of some of us, will merely prove a broken reed in the hour of need.
No. 2 type may seem less positive and certain action, and parachutists would very likely feel less confidence in using it for practice descents. But if No. 1 would prove useless in the majority of peace-time accidents, while No. 2 would afford at least a sporting chance of escape in almost any conceivable circumstances, it seem obvious that No. 2 type should be given exhaustive trials instead of being condemned off-hand merely because it does not "inspire confidence.''
The writer is very far from wishing to minimise the importance of passengers feeling confidence in their parachutes, but surely the right way to obtain this confidence is by making practice descents. A Service airman undergoes a severe training in everything affecting his duties with the single exception of parachuting. Then when disaster comes to his machine, he is expected to make his escape by parachute necessarily hurriedly and possibly under difficult conditions without previous training and experience.

It may be objected that parachute practice involves risk and it is for this reason that the writer ventures to describe a machine he has devised for practising parachute descents with little, if any, more risk than attends the use of an ordinary lift. Any derelict factory chimney of sufficient height, such, for instance, as the destructor chimney at Aldershot, could be easily and inexpensively adapted for the purpose.
The machine consists essentially of a carriage travelling freely on a vertical or nearly vertical cable. In the first instance the writer proposed to employ a balloon to support the upper end of the cable, the lower end being secured to the ground, but though this would have been a cheap and simple way of carrying out his purpose, the writer came to the conclusion that there were too many practical obstacles to its successful working. In its present simplest form the cable may be attached by means of brackets to any sufficiently lofty building.But for obvious reasons a tall factory chimney is the most suitable and convenient erection for the purpose.

The diagrammatic drawing shows the general arrangement. The main cable "D" is secured at one end to one of the rings "S" set into cement, thence it travels over pulleys attached to the arm "C" and descends again to another of the rings "S." Means are provided for straining this cable. The arm "C" is a light lattice steel frame, pivoted at its centre and capable of being rotated in a horizontal plane by means of the cord "M" passing over the pulley "N."
The object of this rotating arm and series of rings "S" is to allow the position of the main cable "D" being varied according to the direction of the wind at the time.
A light bamboo carriage "F" is mounted to run freely on the cable "D." It is fitted with a long arm carrying an adjustable counter weight "I" to balance the weight of the passenger.
The passenger stands on the platform "A," an arm being provided for him to hold on to. The carriage "F" is hoisted by means of the elevating cable "F" and the windlass "K." The latter is fitted with a brake so that the descent of the carriage can be checked or stopped instantaneously; and as an additional precaution a screw or lever brake "H" is attached to the carriage which may be further fitted with an automatic check brake which comes into action only when the carriage is nearing the ground. A pneumatic buffer "J" may also be employed, but the need for it is doubtful.

The modus operandi is as follows:
The arm must first be rotated into such a position that the main cable is on the lee side of the chimney, and the two ends of the cable are then made fast to opposite rings "S.S."
If one of the ordinary single parachute systems such as the Spencer or Calthrop is to be used, the passenger will take this with him on the carriage. He will then be hoisted up to the top of the main cable, in which position he can attach the parachute receptacle to the arm "C." The parachute cord will be attached to his harness in the ordinary way. As soon as all is ready he signals to the operator at the windlass who takes off the brake allowing the carriage to fall.
As the passenger falls with the carriage the parachute is withdrawn from its case, and the cable, being on the lee side of the parachute, is blown away from the chimney. As soon as the parachute is sufficiently inflated, but not before, it lifts the passenger from the carriage.
Should the parachute fail to inflate, the operator at the windlass will check the fall of the carriage, or it may be checked by the automatic check brake, so that the passenger and carriage reach the ground at a safe speed.
When a passenger is having his first lesson, it will be well on the first two or three trials to reduce the rate of fall of the carriage to such a slow speed that the parachute does not open or not enough to lift the passenger off the carriage.

If one of the parachute systems is used in which the parachute is carried on the passenger's back, the modus operandi will be essentially the same; the cord for withdrawing the parachute being attached to the rotating arm. If the Autochute or any similar compound system is being used, the passenger will hold the pilot parachute in his hand and release it the instant the carriage begins to fall. When the passenger has made a few descents and acquired confidence in his parachute, he need not wait to be pulled off the carriage, but he can jump off as soon as he sees the parachute commencing to inflate.

Anyone practising occasionally on this machine must acquire a coolness and confidence in his parachute which may stand him in good stead when the hour of need comes. If this appliance was used for testing parachutes with dummies, it would mean a great saving of time compared with the usual method of employing kite balloons or aeroplanes as well as saving of petrol or hydrogen.
Given the necessary chimney, such, for instance, as the old destructor chimney at Aldershot already referred to, the actual apparatus need not cost more than £200 or £300.

When will the Air Council, and more especially the Civil Aviation Department, come down from the clouds and realise basic facts?
So far their propaganda activities mostly take the form of glowing accounts describing official aircraft trips. But the man-in-the-street, even the problematic "business-man-in-a-hurry" who was to fly from London to Manchester for ten minutes' business talk, remains cold.
It is, of course, pleasing and gratifying to read of luxurious trips (at the public expense) made by distinguished officers, with printing presses and brass bedsteads, chefs and hot dinners as accessories in the picture, but the civilian of ordinary intelligence knows that one spark from a boot heel might send the whole bag of tricks crashing to earth, bedsteads and all.

This form of propaganda must be very costly, and the same amount of money spent on subsdising the P.O. to initiate one or two express letter and parcel services from London to the north of England would do much more to impress the business man. Meanwhile, for want of other work, aircraft manufacturers are turning out bootjacks and milking stools and such like. But when the shortage in these articles, due to the war, is made up the trade will naturally revert to pre-war markets.Then the trouble will come. Pioneers always suffer, as witness the fate of early electrical engineering, safety bicycle, tyre and motor-car companies. but it will be as nothing to the casualties that await aerial enterprises. Let us look facts in the face. Airships and aeroplanes are now made as safe and reliable as they are likely to be for some time, unless some epoch-making invention appears. Still the public remains cold. Why? Because aviation is too uncertain, too risky, and too costly. But, first, and all the time, too risky. "Accidents will happen"-and do happen every month. What is the remedy? The great Atlantic liners, immeasurably safer than any aircraft, carry lifeboats for all. Similarly, every airship or plane should carry lifeboats for all occupants. The only aerial lifeboat known up to now is the parachute. But it is not enough merely to to make parachutes compulsory and to inform passengers that they are carried. The public, or, at any rate, the potential flying public, must have facilities for seeing them in actual use and for trying and practising widh them themselves. This means public demonstration grounds and some device to enable practice descents to be made widhout any risk. The writer has thought it worthwhile to describe his own device; but there will no doubt be better ones forthcoming soon.
Convince the civilian that he has a really reliable means of escape, even in case of The worst accident to his machine, and you will go far towards making him regard aviation in a new light.

Colonel Holt's concept certainly had merit-and similar conceptual progress continued.
In the early 1920s an American named Stanley Switlik was beginning to make parachutes in New Jersey. His Canvas-Leather Specialty Company became the Swidik Manufacturing Company in November 1928, then became the Switlik Parachute and Equipment Company on March 13, 1930.
More than four years later-on November 15, 1934-Stanley Switlik simultaneously became a partner in another corporation called "Parachute Jumps, Inc." in New York City. His partner was George Palmer Putnam, husband of the renowned Amelia Earhart.
She had suggested "parachute jump" towers to her husband after having seen them extensively used in Russia while on her famous round-the-world flight. Putnam had written to Switlik on August 22, 1934:
"My wife, Amelia Earhart, and I find ourselves extremely interested in a possibility that has just turned up involving the use of a special parachute in a rather different field of activity....if it develops [it] may offer something of a real practical commercial interest to a parachute maker...."

Parachute Jumps, Inc. went forward and got into the business of building parachute training towers. By December 21, Switlik reported:
"We ran quite a few tests and the preliminary tests were very successful. In fact, way beyond my expectations and the proposition is working out much better than I expected. We have run quite a few dummy tests experimenting with different sizes of parachutes and have also made a few live drops and although there are a lot of bugs to be taken out yet, we are on the right track."
Switlik had a rocky time getting permission of authorities in New Jersey to erect his training device, but finally succeeded. On June 2, 1935, a month after Amelia Earhart ended her nonstop 2,125-mile flight from Mexico City to New York she helped demonstrate Switlik's tower. A fully inflated 32-foot-diameter canopy was used to make either a "captive descent," the parachute lowering along guy wires, or in a free-flight descent for advanced users.

A newspaper article described descents of captive parachutes:
"Amelia Earhart, transoceanic flier, and Margaret Perry, stage star, as well as Fay Gillis, another woman flier, were included in nearly a score of persons who tested the captive chute and praised its safety and fitness for training purposes as well as a thrill device."
At the time negotiations for similar towers were under way with four U.S. Navy stations and with amusement centers at Atlantic City and Coney Island.
The firm name was later changed to "Safe Parachute Jump Co." and Switlik, due to the press of parachute manufacturing, subsequentdy widhdrew from the tower business.
Such towers were widely used for training Thousands of U.S. Army paratroopers and jumpers of other U.S. service branches, as well as parachutists of World War Two Allied nations. (The Hightstown, New Jersey tower was used to train the first group of infantry officer parachute instructors in the summer of 1940.) More than 50 years after 250-foot-high towers were constructed at Fort Benning, Georgia, they continue to be used to train military parachutists.
And amusement centers and theme parks across the U.S., capitalizing on the great interest in sport parachuting/skydiving, feature captive "parachute jump" thrill rides.
So-to reiterate: CoLHolt's concept certainly had merit.