My dad and his buddy "Toppy"

“A Bitter Day”

July 6, 1946.  That Saturday was the most tragic day in the life of my mother.  “A Bitter Day” is how she titles one page of longhand where she describes what happened that day.

            “My husband, Leonard Sherman and myself had arranged to go to Church Reunion at Lake Doniphan with our five children.  He was involved in the Heart of America Airport and President of Blue Valley Flying Service.

        Several men contacted him and desired that he stunt fly for the air show to be held at Fairfax airfield. – One of our friends, Clyde DeWalt, heard him refuse three times.  Leonard told him he didn’t approve of that kind of flying.  “Well, how about a listing under the heading – How not to fly - He still refused, but his Buddy (Toppy) Toplikar accepted – He took the plane up the first day of the three day air show.  Leonard became so worried about him because he had three children that he took over the second day.  The third day he took me with him in the plane to the airport.  Dale, Judy, and Sharon went in a car with some friends.  Dan and Ruth stayed with some neighbors.  Well, that was the day that we lost him!”

            There is a lot of confusing irony in that second paragraph.  Did my dad forget that he had five children of his own?  I doubt it. I expect my father thought he was a better pilot than Toppy.  He probably was.  He got glowing reports from Captain Ong for his safety record when he was in the Civil Air Patrol in Manhattan, Kansas.  Letters from past students after the accident echoed his emphasis on safety.

           

I have always heard varying reasons for why my father took over for Toppy Friday and Saturday, the second and third days of the air show; Toppy had a migraine headache, someone else had a migraine and Toppy had to take him to the hospital, and now there’s my mother’s version that my dad was worried about Toppy and his children.

I think it was a coming together of many unfortunate conditions that led to that ill-fated day on the sixth of July.  The three day show was a splashy display of air power to reward everyday citizens who had purchased war bonds in support of the war.  I think my father felt obligated to some extent because the air show was sponsored by the Civil Air Patrol which he had enlisted in and served in.  Combine my father’s sense of youthful invincibility, risky maneuvers too close to the ground, a plane not designed for the extreme aerial acrobatics he was performing, a one armed mechanic, and a loose cushion, and you have all the ingredients for a catastrophe.  There were even rumors of sabotage of the plane by partners or associates at the “Heart of America Airport.”

 

            Let’s go back to the beginning of that Saturday in July of 1946. This is what I imagine happened after reading all the newpaper accounts and combining it with my mother’s writings.

            That morning my mother packs sack lunches and delivers Ruth and myself to the door of the Linhares family up the street.  Their 14 year old daughter Lilah will baby sit us for the day.  My mother cautions my older siblings about the hazards of riding in a car with their friends and gives them entry money for the air show.  She then climbs into our family car with Leonard and they drive the seven miles to the “Heart of America Airport” on 40 Highway and Blue River Road. In her writing she describes the car as “ready to fall apart.” 

Aeronca Champ

At the airport, she climbs into the back of a two seater Aeronca Champ.  I am reasonably positive that it was an Aeronca Champ by the description given by reporters.  The Champ wasn’t put into production until 1945, the previous year. My father had evidently purchased it as the centerpiece for his fledgling “Blue Valley Flying Service.”  It only held two people, one in the front seat and the passenger or student in the back seat.  It had a dual set of controls for training purposes.  The Champ’s fuselage and tail surfaces were constructed of welded metal tubing. The wings, fuselage and tail surfaces were covered with cotton fabric.  This Aeronca Champ was probably the standard Aeronca yellow, spiffed up with a wide swath of red on the tapered back sides of the fuselage.  The only picture I have of the plane is a black and white newspaper photo taken later that afternoon showing mangled metal tubing and ripped fabric. My father had not yet been extricated from the plane.

           

While my mother is sitting in the back seat I imagine my dad does the standard pre-flight walk around.  I watched my nephew Michael do this once and it is an extensive time consuming procedure. Leonard would have checked the wing flaps to make sure all the bolts, nuts and cotter pins were secure.  He would have checked to make sure there was no tears or rips in the cotton fabric that covered the plane. These light planes were what they called “rag and tube designs”.  Collectors restoring these vintage “ragwings” today replace the cotton or linen fabric with polyester.

In trying to re-construct what happened that Saturday I’ll just assume the one armed mechanic in my father’s employment at the “Flying Service” was there to spin the propeller. Starting these small planes is usually a two man job.

 This colorful warning was printed in the “Operating Manual” for the Aeronca Champ.  “As any good gunman can tell you, “Every gun is loaded.”   Likewise, every prop is hot.  If you must look down the barrel of a gun or put an important piece of your anatomy inside the arc of the propeller, do so very, very carefully.”  (Now I’m wondering if this is how the mechanic lost his arm.)

After the mechanic spins the prop and gingerly steps back, my father releases the brakes and slowly taxis to the end of the grass runway.  Then he turns to take off facing the wind.  Any small plane like this 700 pound Aeronca is basically a weathervane.  He applies full throttle and somewhere at just less than fifty miles an hour he applies slight back pressure to the control stick and the plane lifts off the ground. After banking the plane, they head in a northwesterly direction toward the Fairfax Airport in Kansas City.

           

            As the plane gained speed the engine had an uneven roar, a trademark of its 65 horsepower Continental Engine. The peculiar engine noise accounts for the Aeronca Champ’s nickname, the “airknocker.”  They are in the air only a short time cruising at the speed of about 80 mile per hour. Somewhere in the short flight to Fairfax Airport my mother mentions that the seat cushion strap is loose.  (There is a cushion for vertically challenged flight students that might need a booster seat.  Evidently there was a faulty strap that was meant to keep it secure when not in use.)

My nephew Michael Ackley said my mother told him she suspected that the cushion had come loose during the afternoon acrobatics and had somehow wedged in Leonard’s control stick. It’s possible that the warning about the cushion was unheard over the engine noise, or was possibly forgotten as they entered the busy air traffic surrounding the Fairfax Airport.

I don’t know what time they actually arrived at the Fairfax airport. They would have wanted to avoid the morning pre-show activities.  Each morning war planes did a simulated strafing and bombing run over Kansas City.  At one point there were fourteen bombers and jets flying in formation at the same time.  There was a B-29 like the one that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. There were four A- 26 bombers, four B-25 bombers, a pair of P-61 night fighters and two pairs of P-51 fighter planes.  The star of the morning spectacle was a p-80, a jet-propelled fighter that raced through the sky at over 500 miles per hour.  I imagine some of the less informed street people in the city must have been extremely alarmed.  My parents glided into one of the non-military runways at Fairfax at  about sixty miles per hour.

I don’t know what my parents did at the airport that day.  They probably engaged in small talk as they watched the military planes and the parachute jumps. They may have discussed their plans to attend a church reunion with the family later that month, or the farm that they wanted to buy someday..  Maybe my dad thought this show was an opportunity to showcase the pilot training and other services at the “Blue Valley Flying Service” where he was heavily involved and invested.

 I doubt they dined at the airport café.  Between the two of them my parents had only twelve dollars, five in his billfold, and seven dollars in her purse. They had no other rainy day money in a bank account or money stashed away in a cookie jar.  They probably ate their sack lunch away from the crowds of people who were lined up to view the military planes. This was the first time the bombers and jets had been made available to the public for inspection.  There were over 4000 people that last Saturday, not counting hundreds of cars lined up on the side of Richards Road watching for free.  They would honk their horns, clap and cheer when something spectacular occurred.

My dad’s stunt act was scheduled at the end of the show.  Only a parachute jump was scheduled to follow him.  It was after 4 p.m. when my mother gave him a goodbye kiss and left to find her three older children who were somewhere with their friends.  After the pre-flight ritual my father climbed into the cockpit. One of his flying buddies probably spun the prop as he revved the engine of the little “airknocker.

  Horns were honking from the road in appreciation of the LS-8 blimp that bounced and maneuvered along the runway at 5 miles per hour. The pilot was bouncing the big blimp’s single landing wheel on and off the earth throughout the entire length of the runway.  Then he applied the power of its two engines, and climbed at an angle far too steep for an airplane. Goodyear had produced a number of them for the military during the war..

After the blimp performance my dad lifted off the runway to perform his final and fatal act.  He gained altitude and positioned himself above the crowd.  He successfully did a number of spins, stalls and other acrobatic maneuvers, just as he had done the day before. 

The Champ Operating Manual lists a number of permissible acrobatics including normal spins, stalls, snap rolls, and half rolls. It cautions the operator not to exceed 129 mph in a dive and not to bank the plane further than 70 degrees. I’m sure he was outside the recommended bounds of the manual.  I’ve heard that he was doing low altitude loops and bouncing his wheels off the runway after each loop. 

The next day the Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star reported that “36 Year old Pilot Fails in Tactics Showing “How Not to Fly.”  Sherman was showing the dangers of stalling tactics and failed to pull his light Aeronca 2-seater plane out of the resulting spin in time, and crashed in the center of the field.”

             In the next blog I will continue with the rest of that “Bitter Day” and the life changing impact it had on our family.