Word: skeel
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Pierson & Skeel. "We were stirred to further action by the killing of Lieutenant Pierson and Captain Skeel in the dilapidated racing airplanes during last October's are meet. "This was caused by an arrangement between the Navy and Army that the navy should take the races one year and the Army should take them the next year, thereby equalizing propaganda, not service. Instead of building new airplanes, our men were given the old crates to fly at those terrific speeds. Of course they came to pieces, as they were designed for only one race two years before. This...
...Stoner in a Curtiss PW-8-A were the first three to fly to a point ten miles behind the start and ascend in the customary "tower" from which the racers plunge down to the starting pylon at maximum speed. Last to leave the ground was Captain Burt E. Skeel, his 520-horse Curtiss R-6 leaping up with a great burst of power. Said the crowd: "There goes the winner...
With the fliers out of sight, the crowd watched the west. The broadcaster droned: "Here comes Mills." Then: "Here comes Skeel. Note his speed." Down from a great height swooped the plane, catapulting toward the starting line in a wide arc. Then tragedy. The machine was seen to disintegrate, like a cardboard toy. A wing broke completely away, fluttered down. The crippled fuselage spun, dove precipitately behind a row of trees. Flying sticks and clods of earth, visible to the crowd a mile and a half away, told of Skeel's instant death-the first fatality in all five...
Died. Captain Burt E. Skeel, 30, of Selfridge Field, Mich., "one of the best air pilots in the U. S."; at Wilbur Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, in a flying accident during the Pulitzer Cup Race. (See AERONAUTICS...