met at Sam�s house to talk after work. They brought up
the plane.
� I don�t know anymore. I decided that I should
probably wait on it.�
�Wait a minute, I have seen you drawing diagrams of
your �dream plane� and you say that you want to wait
on it?� Sam gave me a look of disbelief.
� You said so yourself that I couldn�t do it and Pa
needs me to help out the family.�
� What about following your dreams? Johnny you�ve
wanted to do this for a while. Ever since I met you,
you�ve done every single thing that you have ever
wanted to do. And you know what you have never given
up on anything and I don�t think that you should give
this up.� Michael said.
�Okay, if we do make a plane then where are we going
to get the parts for it?� asked Sam.
� Probably from the junkyard,� I replied. �I guess
that it is important to do this and to follow my
dreams.�
�Alright!� Sam and Michael cheered in unison.
We decided that it might just work. We met every
18Sunday after church services and Sunday school,
Tuesdays, and Thursdays. It had taken about two weeks
to get all the materials we needed. The materials we
got were lots of odds and ends, things that no one
really wanted.
We started on the making of the plane in the April of
1926. It took us about four months to actually make
the plane, but we finally finished it. To build the
plane I used my diagrams that were inspired by
pictures or drawings that I saw in books. We first
built the metal frame from scrap metal from cars. For
the rest of the plane we used just about anything that
we could find.
On September 21 we tried the plane out. I just
happened to be the pilot since I was the one to come
up with the whole thing and if I had gotten a chance
to fly across the Atlantic I would need to know how to
work the thing. Now I look back on it and laugh, we
didn�t do a single safety precaution like we do now in
the U.S. Air Force. 19I got into the plane and
together Michael and Sam turned the propellers, for
that was how we got planes to start back then, and the
engine roared to life. I took off. To get off the
ground we made a ramp, which was stupid. Before taking off I told Michael and Sam to make sure that there was nothing in my path because I couldn�t see a thing in the plane, but just to be funny they told me that
there was nothing in my path but really there was a
couple of big strong trees in my way so after I go off
the ramp I would run right smack dab into the trees.
I took off the ramp. I caught some air and got off the
ground about 10 feet. Of course there were two trees
in front of the ramp and there wasn�t enough time to
land. I couldn�t see a thing. The plane went in
between the trees. They knocked off the wings and I
went nose first into the ground. When I got out of the
plane I looked completely chaotic. My pants wore torn
along with my shirt and I was pretty bruised up. The
reason that I looked that way was because my chair did not have a seat belt and the impact from the landings
sent me flying towards the nose of the plane. Sam and
Michael were rolling on the ground laughing. In their
laughter they did not even think about asking me if I
was hurt at all. It was a good thing that we had done
this out in the middle of a big field or else we could
have been in a lot of trouble. We put the plane in an
abandoned barn where we had been hiding it for the
past couple of months and started to run home. I ran
all the way home with a sort of limp from the crash.
BACK
expression on his face and at that moment I knew that
I was in trouble. He asked me what happened. I told
him. After me telling him what happened he yelled at
me for an hour (or at least it felt like it). He was
so overpowering but if he weren�t that way then I
probably wouldn�t be the same person that I am now. He
said that it was all a waste of time and that I should
be spending my time studying so I could get into
college. He told me that I could not work on the plane
anymore.
That night after I washed my clothes in the 20newly
invented washing machine and washed myself off, I
tried to settle down by reading the paper, The Saint
Louis Dispatch. 21The Saint Louis Dispatch was ran by
Joseph Pulitzer II at the time and 22it was a major
paper in Missouri that brought all the really
important news from the world together. I read that
23Charles Lindbergh had gotten a plane and he was able
to see through widows on the sides of the plane a
periscope to see up front. 24The name of the plane was
The Spirit Of St. Louis. 25The Spirit Of St. Louis was
a Ryan NYP developed from a Ryan M2 built to Lindbergh
specifications. 26The Ryan M2 was a single engine high
wing monoplane. This gave me an idea. Maybe I need to
work on my plane alone and add some different things
besides odds ands ends, so that way it should work
better. I knew that Lindbergh would be able to fly
across the Atlantic soon.
A year or so later I added some more things to my
plane and tested it out over the summer of 1927 after
Lindbergh made his solo transatlantic flight.
27Lindbergh�s flight was on May 20-21, 1927.
28Lindbergh used an extended runway, provided by
Richard Byrd, while taking off. 29The flight lasted 33
_ hours from New York to France. 30To get the plane
back he had it hauled over on a carrier (ship) instead
of flying it back.
Over the previous year I had studied planes and saved
some money from my job to buy the parts for the plane.
With this plane 31I used an air-cooled engine that had
recently replaced the old water-cooled engines. This
engine made my plane weigh less so it was able to fly
faster. With some extra money I later on got a two-way
radio so I could contact people below on the ground.
32This radio was better the one that made the first
two-way contact in 1914. It took me six months to
completely finish my plane. I tested it out and it
worked. Twenty minutes, eighteen miles.
After graduating some army flying schools I joined up
with the 33Army Air Corps that was created in 1926,
fulfilling my dream to become an aviator.
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