The Pensacola journal., 1920-03-22
BY MAJOR r. w. SCHROEDER,
A. S. A.
(Copyrieht, 1920, by The Newspaper
Enterprise Association.)

I flew kites when I was a boy and
I lay on my back and felt the pull of
the twine against my thumb and Won
dered what was mp there"
A glider, built in the backyard from
the crude and meager designs in mag
azines, was my 9rst airplane and in
1908 I took the air. / spent hours
carrying my glider up hill to coast
on the air down TO the valley.
The glider settled me" ! would be
an aviator and when I saw a power
driven machine for the first time
was sure / was to be s'birdman."
The machines We're queer little con-
traptions that went" sometimes and
more often didn't. l couldn't own one.
for they cost a fortune and so / Of
fered my services to Castellane and
became his mechanician.
Castellane built a plane at Mans
field, N. Y, and I helped him. He
was killed on the first flight. Tt con-
vinced me that flying was a science
and that much study was necessary
to the real aviator.
/ was now a ll-fledged ground
hog" and 1 had no trouble in becom-
sag the mechanician to Otto Brodie.
then a weIl-known exhibition flyer.
He had cranky little 5o-horsepowe
lairplane.
Brodie was kind to me and my
me take the machine from the ground
myself.
Altitude.
That was the one thing craved.
To venture further than any other man
into the blue sky was the thing |
longed TO do. I did. That day / made
my first altitude record of 900 feet
Nine hundred feet seemed half the
distance to Mars. back in 1910!
Beachey's report on conditions of the
upper air year later, when he made
a worlds record of 1850 feet, set me
to studying in real earnest. | spent
the next few years with exhibition
flyers. learning all the time and flying
sometimes.
The government showed its first in
terest in aeronautics in 1915 and or
ganized a reserve corps of the army to
train pilots. That was my chance
1 studied for months, and became fly
ing instructor, averaging from four to
six hours in the air each day. 1 had
just one thought-to climb further
than any man.
Finally ] became chief test pilot with
the technical section at McCook Field,
at Dayton, Ohio, and my opportuni-
ties for study and experimnt were en-
larged.
The aviators in Europe in 1918 kept
crying that their engines lost power
at the high attitudes and then the
Boiling Aviation Mission returned with
the plea that American inventive gen.
ius produce an engine TO combat the
obstacles of great altitude.
The ordinary aviation engine lost
-.
altitude of 10000 feet. The explana-
ton lay in the fact that there was
Insufficient oxygen for proper carbure-
ton. 1t was explained that although the
air at this altitude contained practi
caIly the same percentage of oxygen.
the reduction from pressure of 14.7
pounds per square inch at sea level
TO $50 pounds per square inch at 20,-
900 feet caused the gases TO expand
SO that tae density was one-half what
IL was on the ground. Therefore TO
obtain the necessary amount of oxy-
gen. twice as much air was required
at 90, 900 as on the ground.
I made a new worlds record in the
fall of 1918, when, after many trials
reached 5000 feet with service
type machine.
BY this time DIR. Moss of the Gen.
ereharged," at the request of the gov
ernment, to overcome the problem Of
carburetion at great attitudes.
Because I knew that the super
charger would carry me to new heights
and that I would have many rough
voyages, 1 chose the La Pere biplane-
an extremely rugged and strong air
plane built late in the war. The sup
ercharger was sent to McCook Field
for test and 1 began the last expert
n.ents that made the worlds record
possible.
i met many discouraging setbacks.
The first flights showed me that
propeller suitable for small attitudes
was useless at great heights, where
the air is less dense The difficulty
of engine cooling also presented itself
for at 20 900 feet water boi1s at a tenn
perature of 173 degrees or 80 degrees
" -f 11zn fos.na