Word: wingtips
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...acrobatic Flight Lieutenant Abadia, who once was suspended from the air service for "imprudent flying," decided to finish off with a super-spectacular dive ending in a "half roll" swoop between the two grandstands, barely far enough apart for his plane to have room to pass between. Crash-one wingtip hit the Diplomatic Stand. CRASH -the plane rebounded against the Presidential Stand, burst into flame and sprayed burning gasoline as its propeller slashed human flesh. The whole flaming mass crunched down upon spectators between the stands, slithered 65 feet...
Most hair-raising escape from death was that of Germany's baldish, grinning Major-General Ernst Udet, Germany's No. 1 stunt flier whose stunts include flicking a handkerchief off the ground with his wingtip and who apparently bears a charmed life. After the War, in which he brought down 62 Allied planes, Udet was forced to bail out more than once, on one occasion barely managing to kick himself free of the falling wreckage of his plane in time to open his parachute. Few hours after last week's accident, which occurred while Udet was competing...
...undisturbed by the rough air because their pilot was famed Henry Tindall ("Dick") Merrill, whose exploits, besides flying U. S. mail in a bathing suit (see cut, p. 74), have included twice hopping the Atlantic (TIME, Sept. 14, 1936). Suddenly a thudding shiver ran through the plane as a wingtip sliced a treetop. Recalled Passenger W. T. Critchfield: "It sounded at first like a heavy truck running on gravel very fast. I looked at Saggio [a passenger across the aisle] and saw him still strapped in and then suddenly he was flying through...
With dawn, Air Commerce officials speedily reconstructed the accident. For some unknown reason, the pilot had apparently decided to return to the airport, banked sharply to the left at full speed when too near the ground. In the maneuver, the wingtip caught in a ditch, tripped the plane into a cartwheel. At the last instant, the pilot cut the switch, prevented fire. The retracted position of the landing gear showed that he was not attempting to land...
...Commerce emergency landing field at Kirksville, Mo., 128 mi. away. About 16 mi. from Kirksville, with only 27 minutes of fuel left, the pilot came down through the fog, flew low over rolling country apparently seeking Kirksville .When he made a turn too close to the ground, a wingtip hit, catapulted the plane into a roadbank...