The Hidden Dangers of Early Flight: Take-off Disasters That Shaped Aviation

Aviation history is full of bold firsts, but what often gets overlooked is the simple act of getting off the ground—something that proved deadly in the early days of long-distance flying. In this story, I explore the perils of takeoff during aviation’s golden age, when overloaded planes, muddy runways, and experimental designs pushed both pilots and machines to the edge.

From Rene Fonck’s fiery attempt to win the Orteig Prize, to the tragic crash of the “American Legion,” and Clarence Chamberlin’s brush with disaster, these gripping accounts reveal just how dangerous those early takeoff attempts really were. Along the way, I also break down key concepts like power loading, wing loading, and the fascinating phenomenon we now call ground effect. Buckle up—this is a side of aviation history you don’t want to miss!

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“Take-off Crackups by W. L. Oliver published in the September 1931 issue of Popular Aviation magazine.

One of the greatest dangers in long distance or record flying occurs before the plane leaves the ground. Will it rise or not? The record of some famous planes that failed to take off furnishes the basis of this informative article.

The launching of heavily laden planes, trying for distance or duration records, can not be classed with normal, every-day flying. Rather is this a form of stunt flying. In each case the plane’s reaction to the motor’s efforts and the pilot’s skill is an unknown which must remain an unknown until the craft rises safely, refuses to rise or soars briefly only to drop back to earth again. 

Airplane designers have in mind both power loading and wing loading—and a thousand other complicated factors—when they are drawing up the blue prints of the craft they envisaged. Power loading is approximately the weight of the plane divided by the horsepower. In other words, a plane weighing 1,700 pounds powered by 90 horsepower motor has a power loading of nearly 19 pounds per horsepower. 

Wing loading is approximately the weight of the plane divided by the area of the wings. A plane weighing 1,800 pounds and having a wing area of 240 feet will have a wing loading of about 7.5 pounds per square foot. There are dozens of factors which may affect these final totals, however. 

Then the designer has to remember that gasoline weighs about 6 1/2 pounds per gallon-more or less depending on grade-with oil considerably heavier. Having figured his wing loading, power loading, and fuel consumption, he can begin to estimate his speed and cruising radius. 

Then there is the problem of weight of power plant. In the early experimental plane models, steam power plants were used, developing approximately one horsepower to 2 pounds of weight. These were not satisfactory and when the Wrights came along and made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, N. C., in 1903, engineers found that a home-made gasoline engine had been used. 

These gas engines, at first unreliable, gradually have been refined in operation, decreased in weight and given almost unbelievable limits of stamina and endurance. In the war days and since the real old reliable was the OX-5. This engine weighed about 4 1/5 pounds per horsepower, dry, meaning without gas, oil or water.  

This is too heavy for modern speeds and performance, so literally hundreds of engineers have busied themselves, particularly in the last five years, in developing lighter and more efficient power plants. Among the most interesting of these are the Wright “Whirlwind” series of air-cooled motors and the Pratt and Whitney line, also air-cooled. The latter concern turns out the famous “Wasp,” which develops one horsepower for each 1.67 pounds of weight. It is said lighter motors are already being assembled by other companies, one weighing just a small fraction over a pound a horsepower. 

The above figures may aid in a better appreciation of some of the following incidents of crashes or near crashes due to overload at the takeoff. And by overload is meant a weight far in excess of the normal for that type of plane. 

Several years ago Raymond Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 for the first flier to travel by airplane from New York to Paris. This was a large order for planes of seven years ago but not too large to stir the ambitions of every pilot from the rock-ribbed coasts of Maine to the sunny climes of California or from the far outposts of Oregon to Florida’s more or less coral strand. 

The aviator generally averse to talking about himself, nevertheless has his share of natural vanity and this reveals itself in his unspoken creed, “For God, For Country-and For Lots of Great Big Headlines.” 

Rene Fonck, France’s flying falcon, was among the first to make a serious effort at a non-stop fight from New York to Paris. He interested capital to the extent of having Igor Sikorsky, Russian war-time airplane designer, build a huge tri-motored sesquiplane. Roosevelt Field, near New York, was chosen for the start.  

The big Sikorsky performed well in its tests and preparations were made for leaving the mile-long runway. Roosevelt Field, pilots equalled by any airport say, is unequalled by any airport east of the Alleghenies for the launching of heavily-loaded heavier-than-air craft. “The plateau,” as it was called in the the old war days, has a fame which is international. Even when pioneer fliers, taking their cue from Orville and Wilbur Wright, were making their first flights, Roosevelt Field had its share of thrilling episodes. 

Fonck obtained from Uncle Sam the loan of Lieut. Lawrence W. Curtin navigator for the flight, while two experienced airplane mechanics were to form the crew. The plane was loaded with gasoline and oil sufficient for the estimated flying time to Paris and Captain Fonck attempted to take off. 

The French ace took his plane practically the entire length of the field, but the load was too great to allow his craft to rise and too late he saw that he would be unable to clear a deep gully which stretched across the foot of the runway. The Sikorsky crashed against the far side of this, the huge gas tanks burst, sending fuel streaming over the heated engines and the wreckage quickly was in flames. 

Fonck and Curtin, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, climbed out, dazed, and when they realized their two mechanics were caught in the fire it was too late to effect their rescue. Thus the first serious attempt at the Paris flight went up in smoke, a failure. 

A take-off crash the following year, under somewhat similar circumstances and which wrung the hearts of men of the navy, resulted in the deaths of Lieut.-Comdr. Noel Davis and Lieut. Stanton Wooster. The two died at Langley Field in the wreckage of the Keystone-built “American Legion.” 

Davis and Wooster also were planning to dare the broad Atlantic. They managed to get off the ground, and thereby hangs the story of “ground air cushion” and “horizontal equivalent.” The former is what the name indicates, the latter is the area of lift in an imaginary horizontal plane. Obviously, if a plane is tilted, the lifting surface is reduced, bringing “loss of lift,” another good aviation term. 

The big Keystone was, in a sense, built to Commander Davis’ order. But it was reported to have been more than 1,100 pounds heavier than Davis had expected and newspaper accounts soon after the disaster said that the commander had been greatly disappointed when this was discovered. The craft was powered with three air-cooled motors, with a total horsepower of about 700. 

After the load tests had started it was found that the ship was performing satisfactorily and the loads were gradually increased. The plane itself weighed 8,000 pounds and it was planned to take off on the big flight with over 1,300 gallons of gasoline, the total fuel load, including oil, being about 9,000 pounds. 

The day of the final load test the “American Legion” was wheeled out on the runway at Langley Field and headed into the wind, which that day was coming from the direction of the dirigible hangars, about a mile from the airplane buildings. The giant tanks were filled, the craft’s tires sinking a bit under the 17,000-pound load. 

Each of the 9-cylinder motors was tested, separately and in unison, and Lieut. Wooster, one of the finest pilots of multi-motored planes the navy could boast, waved the wheel chocks aside. He gunned his three motors all the way out and the wheels slowly began to move. The big plane gradually gained speed and when more than three fourths of the way down toward the dirigible hangars, it began to rise. Lieut. Wooster held it close to the ground, gaining precious air speed, then tried to climb. 

Experiments indicate that the ground air cushion is variable in depth, extending upward approximately the span of any given plane or wing. This air cushion is in effect less yielding than air when the plane is at a higher level. Less yielding, it follows that it offers more support. This paragraph began with the words “experiments indicate.” And that is just about as much as is known about ground air cushion. 

If you will take a sheet of paper and drop it with the plane surface parallel with a table top, you can see the effect of the air cushion for yourself, for when the paper is a barely perceptible distance from the table top it will stop falling and skid forward several inches. Fliers know that the air cushion is there, and they accept it without question and are thankful.  

The “American Legion,” with wing span of about 80 feet, reached the top of this air cushion and was unable to rise higher. The dirigible hangar was too close to the line of flight for comfort and the inevitable trees were just to one side. Lieut. Wooster could climb no higher, so he had to try to dodge. When he did that he had to drop one wing to bank and turn. He lost his precious lift due to the reduced “horizontal equivalent” of the wings, and the 8½-ton craft began to sink.

Here his skill acquired in years of flying heavy transports, bombers and flying-boats began to serve him. Lieut. Wooster was striving now for a landing on the only available spot, a sunken stretch of ground adjoining the flying field.

The pilot was straightening the ship out as he neared the ground and almost had it leveled out when one wheel touched, then the other, and the overloaded craft began to skid, then sink a hollow made marshy by recent rains. As the wheels dug in, the nose dropped and the plane nosed over. The two fliers, in the forward cockpit, were caught as gasoline leaked out and filled their almost airtight quarters with fumes. They were suffocated when rescuers came up. 

In 1928 A. R. Martine, New York broker and aviation enthusiast, decided to try for a new endurance record. He had Guiseppe Bellanca, Italian genius, design his ship and arranged with Clarence D. Chamberlin, trans-oceanic flier, and Roger Q. Williams, also an ocean hopper, to fly it. Richmond, Va., was selected for the trial. 

The Bellanca ship, a monoplane, was built. It wore the famous Bellanca “tin pants” which streamline the wheels and was pulled through the air by a Wright Whirlwind motor of a little over 200 horsepower. 

The north and south runway of the municipal airport at Fort Lee, near Richmond, was selected, the east and west runway being too short. The chosen runway at that time was a little over 2,000 feet long, bordered at right angles on the south end by a line of high tension wires carrying power to the government beacon at the airport and the field landing lights. From the start, therefore, a takeoff to the south was out of the question.

The time of the year, late in the winter, was not propitious from a weather standpoint; rains, snow, freezes and subsequent thaws having done considerable damage to the runway. At the north end the runway terminated at the edge of the old war-time government plant near Sandston, a territory covered with trees, abandoned foundations and slightly elevated spur track gradings. The takeoff, however, had to be toward the north. 

The monoplane demonstrated the customary Bellanca-built ability to get off the ground with a heavy load during the early stages of the preliminary tests. When these were completed it was deemed advisable to build a short wooden runway at the south end of the soil route to help give the craft an initial impetus before it reached the soft ground.

The night before the big attempt, heavy power rollers were sent over a part of the course, but the ground was so soft that these had difficulty maneuvering. On the night before the morning of the test there was a slight freeze, but not sufficient to harden the ground to a depth of more than one or two inches. 

Chamberlin and Williams climbed into the cockpit, probably feeling as Lindbergh did at the start of the flight to Paris, that they were entering a death chamber. Williams had orders to dump the gasoline through a large, especially-constructed dump valve the moment Chamberlin gave the signal. Chamberlin was to make this sign if the craft reached a marked and flagged point on the runway without leaving the ground. 

The ship quickly gained headway on the boards as the attempt for the record began. It reached a speed of about 20 miles an hour, then as the wheels left the boards and struck the soil runway, the wheels sank and the speed quickly dropped. A little harder spot of ground was reached and the plane began to gather speed again. As it lumbered, then waved, then skittered down the course, those on the ground began to have hopes.

But these hopes were short-lived, for as the plane reached the danger line, they saw the craft still touching its wheels and a thin stream-like vapor shortly was seen trailing back from the dump valve. Williams had gotten his signal and acted quickly, but things were not working just right. Only a few gallons had been spilled from the brimming tank when the ship reached the end of the runway. There was a slight drop in the ground there and the plane sailed over that, then the undercarriage swept into one of the elevated spur track foundations, was sheared off cleanly and came to rest a bare hundredth of a second before the rest of the ship skimmed over the ground and began to break up.

Chamberlin and Williams, miraculously unhurt, reacted in their separate ways to the terrific nerve strain those horrible moments. Chamberlin, very white-faced, explained that at the last instant he had skidded the plane with the rudder to save Williams and himself from being crushed between motor and thousands of pounds of imprisoned gasoline. A little delay there would have meant the craft’s plunging into the ground, nose first, with the huge gasoline tank ripping loose and crushing the two men like swatted flies between tanks and engine. 

Williams gave vent to his released feelings by picking up a tire shorn from one wheel, sitting down on a stump, necklacing the rubber tread around his neck and owlishly quoting an advertisement— “It’s time to re-tire.”

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See, when pilots in the golden age of aviation set their sights on long-distance records, they weren’t just hopping in and flying off. These planes were loaded to the absolute brim with fuel and supplies, pushing designs and engines right to their limits. Pilots and designers had to juggle tricky numbers like power loading—that’s the plane’s weight divided by its horsepower—and wing loading, the weight divided by the wing area. Every gallon of fuel added about 6.5 pounds, and that weight piled up fast.

Alright, that’s a wrap on this one. I hope you enjoyed it. Please consider subscribing, and I’ll see you in the next post!