White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1912-07-14
THE "HUMAN FLY"
DROPS $500 FEET.
(From the New York World.)

80" A. -
who has made many sensational
leaps, stepped into an aeroplane at
Hicksville, N. Y, with Aviator Harry
Brown, and, at a height of $500
feet, launched himelf in a parachute.
Two minutes later he landed safely.
Laws story of the drop follows:
People who have watched me
have said l don't know what 1t is to
be nervous. They are wrong. ! am
very nervous, but in a way different
from the they expect to
see. l chafe at delays. My whole
nervousness is experienced waiting
for the crucial moment to arrive.
After days of delay, everything
was ready at 6 o'clock in the morn
ing. Brown ran the Wright biplane
out to the tent, and a little later We
were in the air.
THE engine didn't develop power
enough for climbing. When We were
circling around 900 feet in the air,
a cylinder head blew out. Brown
started to volplane down. Right
ahead of us as we neared the only
possible landing place, were tele-
graph wires. We skinned Eel
them, missing them only by a very
few inches. A moment later we
landed, smashing a wheel of the
running gear.
THE whole day was spent in re-
pairing the damage done to the cy-
Under head and the running gear.
At GAO We started. The sun, low on
the horizon, was all but hidden by
the cloud haze. It was a dimly lu-
minous, gray ball. Straight toward
it We headed on the first lap of our
long climb.
Eve gained our altitude in an
ever widening spiral. The last lap
began over Hicksville and ended
over the field near the Plate Farm,
three miles distant. On up We Climb
ed 500 feet. 1t was that field l had
picked for my landing place. AS a
marker | had selected the big white
tent. Thirty-fye hundred feet in the
air it was only a white dot. When
thought we were just over it, l drop
ped.
my parachute had been lightly
in a canvas slip on the bottom
of the lower plane, just under where
sat. The parachute ring ! held in
my lap, together with the trapeze
bar.
MY problem vas to drop down
through a space scarcely larger than
my body. restricted by wires and the
/ had to lower my body be-
low the skids, hanging by one hand,
while with the other hand l olsen
ropes that had fouled the
It seemed to me | hung there
a full minute.
For fifty feet dropped like a
plummet. My 165 pounds of weight
out the lacks of the canvas
slip so that danger was over. The
parachute envelope spread out,
checking my descent with a jerk. But
then my troubles were not over.
The parachute showed an inclination
to shoot down sideways. l had to
climb up on the trapeze bar to bal
ance 1t.
''Then for the first time l had a
to look up and see II Brown
was all right. Speculation had it
that my leap from the aeroplane
would unbalance it, but I saw him
away toward the south.
Then ! looked down.
People seemed to be soaring up
to me with the earth, growing bigger
and bigger. It didn't seem long get
down. They say | was only two
minutes. The last thirty seconds of
time | spent in specializing
| was going to land. ] struck
feet first on the bank of a culyert
a railroad track. There
was no jar. wasn't dazed in the
My chief concern then was to
get back to New York. and, for the
first time in a week, to get a square
meal, a bath and a good bed"
forty minutes. a record for this run