Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-09-14
Locklear:S Death Plunge
Ended Amazlng Career
OF DaredeUeJ ExpIOi1J

The life of the daredevil is not
long in the land The type, of course,
IS always with us, but THE individual
thrills q brief hour and then takes
his way to the undiscovered coun-
try. The human fly crawls among
us, but eternity eventually rises up
and swats him; leaners from NBrook
Ign bridges leap once too often;
those that go down to Niagara in
barrels have way of not returning;
the stunning aviator sooner or later
is numbered among those that no
longer are with us, says the Kansas
City Star.
The most recent addition to our
long screed of misdirected bravery
is that of Lieutenant Ormer Lock
lear, daredevil extraordinary, who
was killed when his. plane crashed
at Los Angeles q few days ago from
a height of one thousand feet. With
him when he went down to his death
was his associate in thrills, Lieu
dead when attendants reached the
Wreckage.
Locklear, in the public eye, was
like the may fly he danced brief
hour and was gone; one ephemeral
year and his career was closed. He
first came to national notice last
year at Atlantic City. when he per
formed the unprecedented thrill of
changing from one plane to another
in midair No one had ever done it
before, hence notoriety, half-sister to
fame, claimed him for her own. 1t
was his peculiar trick, his by right
Of discovery and conquest; he did it
with variations, first leaping from
the plane above to the one below and
later climbing to the upper plane
from the lower by means of a swing
ing rope ladder.
From a thrill like that it is only
step to the movies, that mecca of
wealth and publicity, and in Lock-
lear's case the termination of all
things. For it was in the perform
ance of a stunt for the camera that
ed for nose dive-a simple flying
trick-which was to appeGr to end
in disaster. Locklear and his COM
panion bathed in the glare of bat
terry of searchlights on the ground
below, for it was night time, went
into a nose dive, firing off rockets
as they went. Something went wrong
and the intended wake became ire
trieVable disaster.
Omar Locklear seems to have been
a daredevil by nature. He began it
when he was mere boy in Fort
Worth, Tex, where he was born and
grew up. At first, with a bicycle and
tacular stunts for bets or prize mon
ey. He made a siXty-two-foot leap
from a platform with a motorcycle;
then he bet he could drive his ma
chine UP the side of a four-story
building. He was ridiculed, but he
money, and the crowd assembled to
see him do the impossible.
Locklear fixed a pulley rope from
| the corner Of the building. removed
| the tires from his motorcycle and ar
| ranged the rope so that it circIed
| the rear wheel. Strapped into his
| machine, he made the ascent. A
chine to descend.
The flying game attracted him in
| 1910. He built a glider and had him
| self hauled about the country by an
automobile. He tried to construct an
airplane, but failed. After saving up
ceeded in building a machine that
would fly, and without instruction
became an expert flyer.
When the United States entered the
war Locklear enlisted in the air
the Schools aa Of instrDcton in the
Texas aviation fields and was made
an instructor in flying at Barron
field, where he remained throughout
the period of the war, Soon tales
| bcS oil ~ lean OuI VI LOChlSdI
stunts while he was teaching recruits
to fly. They began as a result of
his discovery of the steadiness of
an airplane in flight. He found he
could climb about the Iplane and do
things that f1iers maintained could
knot be done, such as climbing out
on the wings and on top and riding
on the tail.
With visions of thrills that could
be done, Locklear left the service at
the end of the war and went in for
spectacular stunts. He was booked
for large fairs and expositions. and
proved the most hair-raising of
thrillers. 81 don't do these things
because want to run the risk of be-
ing killed." Locklear once said. II
do it to demonstrate what can be
done. Somebody has got to show
the way. Glen Curtiss said that no
man could sit on the tail of a ship
with nothing to hang on to in a
stream of wind at ninety miles per
hour. I showed him that such a
thing could be done. I want to do