The Crowd Pleasers

by Pete Fusco

  At first it looked as if the Maxim Gorky, the trainer planted in the wing, would make it safely to the airport, an elephant limping to the water hole with a thorn in its foot. Unfortunately, the collision had critically damaged the main wing spar. The Maxim Gorky shuddered briefly and came apart. It fell to the ground in pieces. The flying jewel of the Soviet Party, paid for by donations from the masses, was gone, scattered around a Moscow suburb. The playful Blagin, eleven crewmembers, thirty-six passengers, and three persons on the ground were killed. The thirty-six unfortunate passengers had been selected as special guests from the thousands of “shock workers” who managed somehow to build the aircraft in only eighteen months.

  Whether or not loops around the Maxim Gorky were a sanctioned part of the program or simply Blagin’s impulsiveness is not known. What is known is that Stalin needed an immediate scapegoat to blame for the humiliation. Blagin filled the bill. Officials called the dead pilot an “aerial hooligan.” Since the Soviets found propaganda potential in everything, including disasters, those killed were honored as “fallen heroes” in a public ceremony. Their ashes were buried in Moscow under a granite relief of the Maxim Gorky. All except Blagin’s.

  The ANT-20 was as innovative as it was ridiculous. It was the first aircraft to use fly-by-wire and electric servos to trim the stabilizer. Pushrods, aided by more servos, moved the immense control surfaces. The Maxim Gorky enjoyed advanced flight and navigational equipment as well as an autopilot. It was the first aircraft to have a built-in boarding and deplaning ladder, which folded up and became part of the floor.

  On the ridiculous side, the Maxim Gorky was equipped with its own radio station, the “Voice from the Sky” that broadcast the music of pro-communist composers and peppy messages from Stalin as it flew overhead. On-board printing presses were capable of putting out thousands of leaflets or newspapers per hour. The ship carried a photographic studio, full propaganda library, phone service, lounge, business office, sleeping bunks, and a film projector to show movies in flight—the first in history—and project images and Party slogans onto clouds—the first and last in history. When clouds were not available as viewing screens, the Maxim Gorky carried equipment to create smoke backgrounds. It also had lighted billboards mounted under the wing to display propaganda at night. Despite its size, the ship could be disassembled and moved on railroad cars.

  The Maxim Gorky served other useful purposes. In the Soviet Party’s relentless campaign to rid Russia of religion, village leaders who persisted in their Christian beliefs were treated to an airplane ride in the Maxim Gorky to see for themselves that there was no God to be found in the sky.

  Maxim Gorky, who died at age sixty-eight a year after the crash of his namesake aircraft, seems to have earlier in his life given poetic approval of the high-tech monstrosity. He once wrote, “In the carriages of the past, you can’t go anywhere.”

  The only other ANT-20 also crashed as a result of bad judgment, this time from inside the cockpit. The aircraft took off from Chardzhou, Turkmenistan, on December 14, 1942 and was on route to Tashkent when it entered a steep dive and crashed. All thirty-six people on board were killed. Since a passenger, not the assigned pilot, was at the controls when the aircraft went down, it was determined that the pilot had allowed the passenger to fly, with disastrous results.

  21

  IMPRUDENT FLYING

  After more than a century of airshows, no one seems to have a definitive answer to the question of how much risk it takes to thrill a crowd. Pilots and other performers must decide for themselves, day by day, show by show. They usually get it right.

  On July 24, 1938, Flight Lt. Cesar Abadia climbed into a Colombian Air Force Curtiss F-11C Goshawk biplane fighter with his own ideas about how much excitement was enough. He and many innocent people would be dead within the hour.

  Abadia was part of an airshow entertaining dignitaries and spectators at Campo de Marte, a Bogota park. The occasion was the 155th anniversary of the birth of the South American hero Simon Bolivar, who led the battle for South America’s liberation from Spain early in the nineteenth century.

  The Colombian Air Force paraded some of everything it had, including a formation of Junkers JU-52 trimotor transports. Interesting to be sure, but the crowd was waiting for Lt. Abadia, a local hero. The Curtiss Goshawk he flew was among the last biplane fighters produced in the United States. It sold in large numbers throughout South America in the 1930s.

  Curtiss Hawk F-11C similiar to that flown by Flt. Lt. Cesar Abadia of the Colombian Air Force.

  One reviewing stand in the Bogota park accommodated Colombian President Alonso Lopez and President-Elect Eduardo Santos and their wives and entourages; another held the diplomatic corps. A large group of spectators, some of whom had traveled long distances to attend the show, stood on the ground in an opening that separated the two reviewing stands.

  Abadia’s superior officers had warned him and the other Goshawk pilots not to fly lower than 500 feet and not to fly over the stands. The pilots all agreed to the restrictions. After they took off from a nearby airfield, they grouped up and approached the reviewing stands in a “V” formation at an altitude that seemed to comply with the restrictions.

  Then Abadia left the formation and descended; the crowd erupted in cheers, expecting an aerobatic demonstration. Abadia rolled his Goshawk at low altitude several times in front of the stands, drawing more cheers. The other pilots, perhaps stirred by Abadia’s boldness, also performed over the stands in defiance of the restrictions. Abadia flew away a short distance then turned back; he aimed directly at the opening between the two stands.

  According to a Time magazine story from that day, Abadia and the others were close enough to cause President-elect Santos to complain to the War Minister, “I don’t like the way our pilots are stunting over this crowd.”

  “I agree with you,” replied the War Minister, who certainly must have shrugged and flashed a worried smile when he told Santos that the pilots had assured him they would not endanger anyone.

  Lt. Abadia, who had once been suspended from flying duty for “imprudent flying,” performed another series of rolls as he approached his audience. He descended and, incredibly, kept heading for the opening filled with spectators.

  It soon became obvious that Adabia planned to fly between the grandstands and over the heads of the spectators. Cries of praise tinged with fear rose from the crowd. A moment later, one of the Abadia’s wingtips struck the roof of the presidential grandstand. The aircraft burst into flames and crashed among the crowd on the ground. People ran from flying debris, hot oil, and a burning ball of gasoline. The large radial engine tumbled amidst the crowd, its steel propeller still spinning.

  Abadia was killed, along with thirty-three others. Most died instantly, either consumed by fire or hit by the Goshawk’s whirling propeller. Eight persons died later. Approximately 150 more were injured, most with burns. The dignitaries in the two grandstands escaped injury. At the time, it was the worst aviation accident in the history of South America.

  Again, how much excitement is necessary to thrill a crowd? Did Abadia believe anything less than his deadly stunt would have left the people wanting more? He went as far as he could because risk is a one-sided equation; those that provide it get to set the terms.

  PART THREE:

  THE WAR YEARS

  CONSIDERED non-essential activities, airshows were mostly discontinued for the duration when the United States entered World War Two in 1941. Resources such as gasoline, rubber, and, notably, airplanes, were all directed for the next four years against enemies on two fronts.

  Airshow and air race pilots of the 1920s and 1930s were an invaluable and willing resource. Those too old to join the fight became instructors, either in the military or at civilian flying schools. Some of the most experienced pilots in the world eagerly shared their hard-earned knowledge with thousands of flying cadets, no doubt wishing their own fingers could squeeze the wing-mounted .50 calibers in combat.
Others went to work as test pilots.

  Some big airshow names that had thrilled millions with their flying found a way to get in on the action, some famously. Jimmy Doolittle, master of aerobatics, pylon racing, and much more in the 1930s, led a formation of North American B-25 Mitchell bombers on a memorable half-minute bombing tour of Tokyo in 1942.

  The war gave women a chance to participate in aviation to a greater degree than most ever imagined. Hundreds joined the Women’s Air Service Pilots (WASPs) and learned to fly the fastest and most advanced aircraft ever built.

  Before bombs and guns officially kicked off World War Two, there had been many hints of things to come, including the long-forgotten 1939 Brussels Salon Air Show.

  22

  THE WEIGH-IN

  THE Brussels Salon Air Show in July 1939 allowed attending countries to march their war horses and rattle their sabers before potential foes. If the show’s intent was to intimidate and frighten, thus averting war, it failed. Less than two months later, the first shots were fired.

  Even though there were an estimated one hundred thousand spectators, the Brussels show did not draw much media attention, except for a few inches of copy buried on page twelve of the Glasgow Herald the day after on Monday, July 10, 1939. The event might not have made the paper at all except for the death of a German aerobatic pilot identified only as “Captain Wille,” who was killed performing aerobatics in his Bücker Jungmeister biplane as part of the Luftwaffe aerobatic team. No details of the accident were reported. The Glasgow Herald story reads like an afterthought, hacked together from various wire services.

  The Herald story noted that Germany brought none of her “principal service aircraft,” notably the Messerschmidt ME-109 fighter, which had debuted in the Spanish Civil War a few years earlier. Instead, Germany hung a Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber from the ceiling inside the exhibition building. The Stuka, which also saw service in Spain, was a red herring and it worked. Aeronautics magazine called the Stuka “obsolescent” and, by inference, harmless. With its fixed landing gear and graceless lines, the Stuka certainly looked old-fashioned, but that didn’t prevent it from terrorizing a continent for nearly a decade.

  Germany’s true intentions seemed to be written on every wall. The Luftwaffe aerobatic team, including Captain Wille before his fatal crash, featured a maneuver in which four Jungmeisters followed each other while executing consecutive “flick” rolls. The routine was described as an “imitation of a shell twisting its way through the air.”

  The Junkers Ju-87 dive bomber appeared dated at 1939 Brussels show, but would soon terrorize millions. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv.

  England, in its effort to convince Germany to play nice, brought a formation of Wellington bombers and a Hawker Hurricane, both transitional aircraft partially covered in doped linen, unlike the sleek all-metal aircraft the Luftwaffe left at home. The Hurricane showed impressive performance, but it and the Wellington were somewhat outmoded and must have given the German spies on hand a good laugh, especially the Wellington’s nickname of “Wimpy.” That is, until the Hurricanes shot down 60 percent of the Luftwaffe aircraft lost during the Battle of Britain less than a year later and the Wimpies carried the first bombs to the Fatherland shortly thereafter.

  A lot of wrong or misleading conclusions were drawn at the Brussels airshow, not the least of which was an observer’s assessment of France’s air power. France showed the SNCAC NC-600, a twin-engine long-range fighter. The aircraft had promise but never went into production; its development ended with the French surrender in June 1940. The French held back most of their newer hardware but, for all the good it did them, they might as well have handed out blueprints or the ignition keys to the Nazis.

  After the French aerobatic team “replied with spirit and skill” to the German team, which had just watched one of their own die in a crash, the reporter wrote that the French “dissipated the idea that they are backward in flying affairs.” He also wrote, “… the quality of the aircraft and of the flying among the democratic nations has been so high that the evident satisfaction of today’s enormous crowd was well founded.” In other words, there was nothing to worry about. Besides, the Luftwaffe in 1939 was only four years old. How threatening could it be?

  The long-forgotten airshow in Brussels, with all its sleight-of-hand and illusion, sent observers, reporters, and attendees home feeling assured that war was not on the horizon. They were simply not reading the clues. The future always gives a hint of what it’s up to, even if no one notices. It might be a squiggly seismometer blip while everyone’s at the office party or, in the case of the Brussels Salon, the aircraft the Third Reich did not bring to the party.

  The charade in Brussels a few months before Hitler invaded Poland was like a title fight weigh-in: lots of flash, pent-up resentment, huge power reserves, secret moves, some big talk but no punches just yet. With the weigh-in over, the greatest heavyweight bout of all time would soon follow.

  23

  HOME FRONT

  AIRSHOWS, though not unheard of in World War Two, were typically events to sell war bonds or unveil a new aircraft model the United States was about to introduce to Hitler and Hirohito. The demonstrations boosted home-front morale and showed the public that its money was being well spent. The new aircraft was typically a fighter or bomber, but on August 1, 1943, the star of the show was the Waco CG-4 Hadrian, a large wood, metal and fabric glider designed to carry troops and equipment into battle.

  Sixteen separate contractors in the United States, most running twenty-four hour shifts, built close to fourteen thousand CG-4 gliders during the war. One of the contractors was the Robertson Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis, which built 170.

  To give the locals an opportunity to see the CG-4 glider in action, the Robertson plant organized an exhibition flight at St. Louis’ Lambert Field in August 1943. Two U.S. Army Air Force pilots and eight St. Louis VIPs and businessmen boarded the glider for what promised to be a brief and not very exciting ride. Nonetheless, an estimated ten thousand spectators attended.

  A Douglas C-47 transport towed the CG-4 aloft to two thousand feet and circled the field a couple times with the glider in tow. Everyone in the stands cheered. Moments after the glider pilot released the tow line and set the glider free, it pitched up and its right wing folded back. The wing separated from the glider, which plunged vertically to the ground, killing everyone on board. Among those lost were William B. Robertson, founder of Robertson Aircraft and a financial backer of Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, as well as St. Louis mayor William D. Becker.

  A faulty wing strut attachment fitting and bolt supplied by a subcontractor—a persistent story has it that the subcontractor was in the coffin business—was found to be the cause of the wing failure. Specifications called for the fitting to be constructed of steel three-eighths of an inch thick. Those found on the wrecked glider were only one-sixteenth of an inch, or only one-sixth as thick as specified.

  Three subcontractors supplied the fittings; they were not required to stamp their names on the parts so it was impossible to target blame. Robertson’s quality control was also found to be deficient. Several people lost their jobs but no one was ever prosecuted. Investigators ruled out sabotage. One hundred gliders were grounded and refitted.

  Waco CG-4 troop glider diving to earth after losing its right wing during a demonstration flight at St. Louis. Ten persons were killed.

  The army glider pilots that flew the CG-4 wore a unique set of wings with a large “G” in the center. When asked what the “G” stood for, the pilots were more inclined to answer “Guts!” than “Glider.” No one who knew anything about their mission argued the point. Of the seven thousand CG-4 pilots, 20 percent were killed in combat.

  The CG-4 was the first American stealth aircraft. When cut loose from the tow planes, two pilots and a passenger load of thirteen fully-armed infantrymen glided silently to the landing zone. There was no good time to do this. At night, they were at the mercy of
the terrain where they alighted. During the day, they were easy targets from above and below. It was for good reason that the Waco gliders earned the nicknames “Flying Coffins” and “Tow Targets.”

  Flying the boxy CG-4 required finesse. Pilots tried to maintain 72 mph during the glide, with a landing target speed of 60 mph. If the CG-4 got slower than 49 mph, it stalled. With no power and usually no altitude to recover, a crash was inevitable.

  The Ohio-based Waco Aircraft Company gave no name to the CG-4. The British, however, called it the “Hadrian.” When lined up wingtip to wingtip, the gliders reminded an anonymous Brit of “Hadrian’s Wall,” the wall the conquering Roman Emperor Hadrian built to mark the northern limit of Britannia, and to separate civilized Brits from the barbaric Celts.

  Some women in the crowd at St. Louis on the day of the fatal glider crash fainted; men and women alike wept. But the pilots and passengers in the glider did not die in vain. Their sacrifice lead to the discovery and correction of a flaw that might have killed hundreds of troops who would soon bring the war to the enemy in the CG-4. In use, the unsophisticated glider distinguished itself in Allied European invasions. A few survive and reside in museums.

  Not to underplay the tragedy, but taken in the context of a global bloodbath in which sixty million people perished, the St. Louis glider crash warrants but a footnote in the death tally of World War Two. A second footnote would properly contain a line or two of how a grievous airshow accident in their own backyard brought home to the people of St. Louis a taste of the horror and capriciousness of death in a distant war.