Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1919-07-14
BY o. B. keller
Staff Correspondent of The Atlanta
Georgian.

somewhat desirable, to lead off a
newspaper story with bit of news,
permit me to spring this right at the
jump:
The Souther Field Aerial Circus,
put on Saturday for crowd of T.
900 in spite of a drenching rain
storm, will be repeated, bigger and
better than ever, next Thursday af
ternoon. Of>course it may rain again,
though | think not. Il. seems to me
that the rain supply must be awfully
low after Saturday. If it rains again
well, the circus will be just bigger
and wetter than ever; only l don't
believe that is possible. But they
will have the circus, and it will be
magnificent show.
Colonel RAIDER, commanding officer
at the Field held little conference
with his staff Sunday morning. The
staff had request to make.
LET US put this show on again"
asked the members. owe didn't have
fair chance to show what we could
do"
"Well, boys" said the colonel, at
means a lot of hard work-but you
and the enlisted men are the ones to
do it. If you want to put the show
on again, go ahead-with my bless
ing"
They are going ahead-Vance,
Henderson, McMullen, Burgtorf and
the rest of the bunch; the best bunch
of boys | ever saw gathered under one
steel hanger while a thunderstorm
danced and spat over the quivering
ships in the long row outside. They
showed their class by hopping off the
rain-soaked field and stunning in sat
urated planes within fifteen minutes
of the time j. Pluvius eased up.
The rest of this is just a bunch of
notes on joyride to and about and
over Souther Field and Americas, for
which "Roodles" Magruder and 1
take pleasure in thanking the Ameri-
Gus and Sumter County Chamber of
Commerce and Colonel RAIDER of
Souther Field. Lovelace Eve, vice
president of Chamber of Commerce,
brought the matter to the Colonels
attention and last Friday two Cur
tiss planes, piloted by two worthy
young fliers-Wolfe and MacRae-
called for us at Hapeville, and away
we went. While in Americas we weres
entertained by W. S. Kirkpatrick and
Mr.. Eve, of The Times-Rec order, and
we enjoyed every minute of it.
IS 80
Americas is a good town. Coming
by the air route you can slide down
to it from Atlanta. I noticed the
altimeter in Macs ship stood at 600
feet at Hapeville. He said Hapeville
was that much higher than Americas.
Sure enough, when we got to Souther
Field, and settled to earth, the alti-
meter stood at zero. We were riding
down grade all the time, you might
say. But it isn't particularly hot,
at that, and | had two of the best
nights sleep of my life in Americas.
Sumter county is full of farming.
The best way to estimate the per-
centage of county under cultiva-
ton is to fly over it. l doubt if an
other county in Georgia will show as
high percentage of land under cul-
tivation as Sumter This gives one a
feeling of comfort when flying. A
forced landing in a nice, soft field
doesn't look nearly so depressing as
in woods. -Em-Up Brown, the
demon photographer, had three emer-
gency fields picked out for landing
near Americas, if necessary, while he
was making sky pictures of the town
with MacRae.
This recalls a slight misunderstand-
ing which Brown says existed between
himself and Mr.. MacRae.
Hes very fine flyer" explained
Brown, "but we don't mean the same
thing when he says straight flying
l said l would need only straight fly
It,Cr 30