The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-06-09
Lindy Took Hard Fall
When Parachute Failed

from Lindbergh's plane and Lind
bergh remained in st. Louis until
Guerney recovered, selling his plane
in the meantime and buying the old
Standard bi-plane in which he ar
rived at Brooks Field, Texas, the
next year for his army training.
1t was while free lancing at Lam
bert Field in 1925, that Lindbergh
made his connection with the Rob-
ertson Aircraft Corporation, which
led him into the air-mail service and
indirectly played a part in his
GROWING venture, the flight to
Paris.
He joined group of brother avi-
atorS in maintaining bachelor quar-
tiers in little frame house near the
flying field. There he settled down
to theseXacting life of a commercial
aviator. He was up early, slept
when he could, and always subject
to call.
But life was not all work. Await
ors, when not flying, are a light
hearted crew who worry little, and
Lindbergh, when not employed, was
usually busy at his favorite diver
sion, playing practical jokes. He
delighted in loosening up bed so
it would collapse about the time a
comrade tried to sleep in it. He
never seemed too tired after a long
trip to turn loose his pranks on
whoever might appeal to him as a
likely victim.
1t was at this time that Lindbergh
became the jaunty, we'll dressed avi-
ator, when he was flying, that he
proved to be the evening he arrived
in New York from st. Louis and
startled the nations blase metrop-
oils with his faultless attire.
But when he was not in his flying
costume, he still seemed the gangl-
ing country boy he was in 1921 when
he arrived at Lincoln, Neb., and be-
gan learning to fly. He usually wore
blue serge, and regardless Of how
carefully his clothes might have
been selected, his suit always SEEM
ed too small and his arms too long
His commercial flying was varied
that summer when he and Phillip
R. Love, who had been a classmate
at Kelly Field, flew to Chicago in
DH-4 planes, blazing the trail for
the st. Louis to Chicago air mail
route, which later he was destined
to fly with the mails.
He joined the One Hundred Tenth
Missouri Aviation Squadron, Ma
tional Guard, at that time, became
flight commander and that was
when he obtained his rank as cap
tain, the rank which he still holds.
April Is, 1925, Lindbergh became
the Flying Mail Man." when he
made his first flight over the Chi
cago-St. Louis air mail route with
United States mail. During the
following winter he and Thomas p.
Nelson, also graduate of the Kelly
Field, army flying school, made avi-
alton history with their night flying
between those two cities.
The route was not lighted in any
way. They flew just as Lindbergh
flew into Paris, with unlighted
planes. No matter what the wealth
er, Lindbergh always seemed ready
to go. He would take the air with
the mail when no one else cared to
go aloft and at the end of the win
ter his record showed that he had
delivered the mail at its destination
with as great regularity as had filters
on many of the well-lighted routes.
Fog, snow and sleet all were met
and overcome by him and it was in
this treacherous flying that he
gained much of the skill which per-
mitted him to outwit sleet storm
in the North Atlantic while flying
! 20 Paris. ..,.s, :,