Show r.- r. p w F AMOUS HEADLINE EADLINE HUNTER L- L t y iIIi 4 I 4 1 fJ 1 r Solo SoIl Flight By FLOYD GIBBONS h c CHARLE HARLES LITKE LITRE of oJ Ja Jamaica naica N. N Y is is today's Distinguished Adventurer and he shows u up here at the club meeting rooms rooms rooms' wi with h the story of the worlds world's most hectic solo flight Charley took that flight in November 1929 and it had quite a few Unusual unusual un un- usual sual features Though Charley was just a beginner at the flying flying fly fly- 0 ing business though business though it was his first trip through the air air he he managed to make a power yer dive and to loop the loop six times And speaking of solo soo flights this lights this was the solo-est solo of them all For Charley not only didn't have any passengers passengers up there aloft with him hIm hIm-he he didn't t even have a plane 1 J Charley had been up hi m the au air before plenty of times but hed he'd i Y always had something to hang onto He is a steeplejack by trade and he thinks nothing of dangling thirty or forty stories from the street just so long as theres there's a scaffold or a chair under him But this particular time tune Im I'm going to tell you about Charley was out out on his own No scaffold No chair No noU nothing J Charley Takes Off on ona a a Story 24 Tumble Charley had been p painting inting th the coping at the top of ofa a four twenty story building on seventh Fifty street in Manhattan and was sort of ot mopping up after the job He was was dangling on his chair tenor ten tenor or fifteen feet below the roof washing away the paint that had dripped on th the bricks below the coping g. g He was using a strong acid to get the paint off oft and and I well I Isaid said a little while ago that Charley didn't take anything at all in along with him on his solo flight I 1 was wrong He lIe did take something He Be took that pail of acid Can you ou imagine anything anything anything any any- thing worse to have around when youre you're power diving and loopIng loopIng looping loop- loop Ing the loop Neither can Charley Chancy There were a couple other lads in the crew with him each of them cleaning a strip of brick about six feet wide Charley had just finished one strip and was pulling himself himsel up to the roof again to re- re sling his chair He got up to the coping was coping was reaching out with his right hand to catch hold of it when all aU of a sudden things b began gan to happen The rope he was pulling slipped out of its block Th The chair began to fall Charley tumbled over backwards and went W Wi wm i it it- it with twenty-four twenty stories to go before hed he'd hit the street A Acid id Pail Adds to Falling Mans Man's Peril That's when Charley took up stunt flying He went into as pretty a series of ot loops and turns as you ever saw in your life He turned six somersaults one right after another There was a cloth cloth- I i l It l ll J l I 1 f ft t 1 f I. I The Acid Pail lilt Hit the Window Sill sm and Spattered Him Dim with Fiery Fluid covered scaffold about thirty feet down put there to keep the paint and acid from falling on the street end and he went past that like a bat out of ot Hades Then he stopped looping and went into to a power dive dive- dive dive- head first straight first straight for the p pavement c About bout six stories down Charley saw a rope dangling in front of him him him-a a rope that hung from the cloth scaffold almost down to the street level Ho He grabbed for it with both hands He might even have held onto it if U it hadn't been for that pail paU of strong acid hed he'd been using It still hung in the crook of his left iett arm arm- armand and in all aU his Ws looping and somersaulting centrifugal ugal force had kept it from spilling Now It hit bit on a window sill Acid flew lIew In every direction but most of it landed on Charleys Charley's head It burned like the devil It got in his eyes and all but blinded him Its fumes made him choke His hands tore loose from the line and he began falling again This time though he was falling feet first Down Down do down he went and while he fell he fought to clear his head HI smarting eyes were tight shut but he forced himself himsel to open them Ev Eves when he did he see clearly but there was a a long snaky blur swaying in front of him and he knew that must be the line he had just jus let go of Charley Emulates Man on the Flying Trapeze He grabbed at it again And while the rope burned through his hands tearing the skin from rom them he got busy with his feet and wrapped two turns around his right leg That brought him to a stop stopa stop stop- a sudden jarring stop that almost broke his leg and almost tore his arms out of their sockets And there Charley hung blinded and dizzy from his fall faU through the air u When my eyes cleared for a moment moment he says saS I ul found myself in front of a window about half baU way up the J side of the building building- There was an iron knob by the window the window the kind window cleaners use to hook their safety belts on and on-and and I reached out caught it with two fingers and drew v myself in I rested my left foot on the sill but my right leg was caught in the the- rope ropo so tightly that I 1 couldn't get it out One of ot the men up above lowered his chair but I couldn't get it My head was spinning like a top and I didn't dare let go goof goof go of ot that knob I shook my head trying to clear it It only made me dizzier Plane-less Plane Stunt Flyer Wisecracks With Doom But through one of the worst frights a man ever got Charley still ti managed to keep his Ws sense of humor The men up above were yelling i down to him What floor are you on they asked him I dont don't know Charley Charlcy yelled back I forgot to count them I wonder how many professional l comedians could turn off a apat apat apat pat one like that standing on a three-Inch three window sill a dozen stories up from the street bruised braised dizzy and smarting with acid burns barns The birds up above had to find ou out for themselves what floor Charley was on It was the twelfth They went down there and hauled him in and anda J Ja a doctor washed the acid off Charley and looked him over Nothing but buta a n strained ligament he said and a few burns an and bruises That's pretty good too for a lad lad who goes stunt flying without a plane Q |