A Visitor to an Air Show

The sky was clear over Houston that early spring morning, and the eye could see for two hundred miles—if there was anything to see. The country was flat, the air was still, and the crowd was exuberant. They were about to witness an event that they couldn't have even imagined a few years earlier. The place was dusty and dirty, but nothing different from what the farmers in the crowd experienced daily. They lived out in the country, and the opportunity to see an unusual happening such as this was a welcome occasion.

Tom Webber had finished plowing his field the day before. He planned to plant a new crop of tomatoes in the field in a few weeks. While the ground was resting after the plow, he felt this would be a good chance to spend the day with his family, as the feverish late spring and summer months left no time for anything but farming. The Gates Flying Circus was in town displaying their airplanes and flying stunts in this new era of aviation. This would be a new experience for almost all who attended the show. Airplanes were the new in-thing in those days so Tom thought it would be great to take his wife, Margaret, and two young children, Mark and Danielle, to the show to celebrate the coming of summer.

When they arrived, they were amazed at the crowd. Parking was a nightmare when several thousand people converged in a single farmer's field. The morning was still a bit cold, but the rising sun in the clear blue sky warmed the air quickly.

The family eventually found a parking spot, and the four had to hike more than a mile to the ticket booth. They bought their tickets and proceeded into the field to watch the show. Makeshift grandstands had been constructed, but there were not nearly enough spots to seat so many people. With time, Tom found a spot for his wife to sit while he mingled through the crowd to find a good viewing location. The kids roamed freely as they were safe to do that in this crowd.

They were in awe at the stunts being performed right in front of their eyes. Airplanes with their powerful ninety-horse-power, slightly-muffled engines roared by right in front of them. Then stunt men did acrobatics on the wings and hung by their legs from the landing gear axles.

This went on for more than an hour until the sights became commonplace. Their minds started to accept that these heavier-than-air machines could actually fly, and their eyes and necks became sore from taking it all in. But they were glued to the show, as the grand finale was yet to come.

The performance would end with one of the local folks doing some sort of a stunt. In this case, it was rumored that a young local woman—a girl in her very early twenties—was to jump from an airplane and parachute down to the ground.

Tom and his family could hardly wait. Who would have such bravery and guts to perform such a stunt? At last it was revealed that a local girl, Rosalie Gordon, and a pilot, Clyde Pangborn, would do the feat.

Tom said to his wife, "I don't know them now, but I bet everyone in the region will know them afterwards."

When the airplane carrying the final stunt taxied to the end of the make-shift runway, a cheer from the audience echoed throughout the farmland. There were actually three persons onboard, but nobody in the audience really understood why. The members of the crowd held their breath as the airplane lifted off of the field. The airplane circled around and around as it gained altitude. Eventually it leveled off at what seemed to be an extremely high elevation.

"I'm sure they wouldn't try the parachute thing from there!" Tom told his family. "That is just too high."

But almost before he got the words out of his mouth, Tom could see some activity from the girl and the second man over the edge of the airplane's body. Everyone in the crowd was awestruck. Tom thought, I hope they know what they are doing—I'm not ready for my family to witness a disaster. Then, before he could even count to three, the girl was over the side, snapped to the end of the rope, and was being dragged behind the airplane some twenty feet or so. The people in the audience felt scared, but many figured that it was part of the process of letting the girl drop from a parachute. Then a few minutes later, a number of other airplanes took off in pursuit of the stunt airplane.

Word quickly traveled through the crowd that there was a problem. Apparently, the parachute shroud line had gotten tangled, and the girl with the parachute was trapped. Other pilots took to the air in hopes of finding a way to save the girl. As numerous attempts were made to rescue her, the audience members watched helplessly and fully believed that the girl was doomed.

Tom decided he did not want his family to see this any further, so he quickly gathered them up and guided them to the exit. From there, they swiftly raced to their car and headed for home.

Meeting Clyde Pangborn

Three weeks earlier, the local girl, Rosalie Gordon, who wanted to be the parachutist, had a driving desire to go to a flying show, and she tried to convince her fiancé, Richard, that it was a good idea. One of Rosalie's girlfriends, Marianne, had gone to a show and...