Air service medical / War Department. Air Service. Division of Military Aeronautics.
- Date:
- 1919
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Air service medical / War Department. Air Service. Division of Military Aeronautics. Source: Wellcome Collection.
652/670 page 434
![instruments, which I marked down on my data pad. I believe that if my goggles had been better ventilated they would not have frosted. When I was about 27,000 feet I had to remove my gog- gles, as I was unable to keep a steady climb. My hands by this time were numb, and worried me considerably. The cold raw air made my eyes water, and I was compelled to fly with my head well down inside the cockpit. . “TI kept at it until my oxygen gave out, and at that point I noticed my aneroid indicated very nearly 29,000. The thermometer showed 32° below zero ©. and the R. P. M. had dropped from 1,600 to 1,560. This is considered very good. But the lack of oxygen was affecting me, I was beginning to get cross, and I could not under- stand why I was only 29,000 feet after climbing for so long a time. I remember that the horizon seemed to be very much out of place, but I felt that I was flying correctly and that I was right and th horizon was wrong. i] “About this time the motor quit. I was out of gasoline, so I de- scended in a large spiral. When I had descended to about 20,000 feet I began to feel much better and realized that the lack of oxygen had affected me. I passed down through the clouds at 16,000 feet, and as I remember it was snowing from these clouds upon the next layer some 4,000 feet below. I am not positive of this, as I may have been affected by the lack of oxygen. I noticed as I descended that the air seemed to be very thick and stuffy, but very nice and warm. I did not see the ground from the time I went up through the clouds above Dayton, Ohio, until I came down through them again at 4,000 feet above Canton, Ohio, over 200 miles from where I started. “TI was lost beyond a doubt, with a dead engine over very rough country. I landed O. K., and broke the tip of my propeller, which was standing vertical, when I rolled into a depression in the ground. However, I did not nose over or do any other damage to the plane or myself. I flew back to Dayton with a new propeller. “My lips and four of my fingers were frozen and required medical attention. Electrically heated clothing would have been very well used, but I dressed as light as possible to avoid the extra weight, as I had stripped the entire plane of all unnecessary load. This was done to assist me in climbing. “Attached are photographs of the performance curves and the bar- ograph curves, also a report of the corrections to show true altitude above sea level, as compiled by Lieut. George B. Patterson, officer in charge of all performance reports of the testing squadron. “Tf this record can be made official, it will be the first world’s avia- tion record held by America since August, 1911. At that time the late Lincoln Beachey made a climb to eleven thousand and some odd feet at Chicago, Ill.”](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32171936_0652.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
