Page 36 - Demo

At 7:17 am on July 13, 1929, Dale Jackson and Forest O%u2019Brine took off from Lambert Field, in a St. Louis Robin, %u201cto check out a new engine%u201d%u2014but everyone on the ground soon realized what they were up to. They planned to remain aloft as long as they could to break the aerial endurance record, a record that had already been broken 4 times that year. The pair alternated between flying and sleeping. A catwalk allowed them to take turns crawling out of the cockpit to change fouled spark plugs. The Robin%u2019s 170-horsepower engine burned six gallons of gasoline and a pint of oil every hour. So, they had to be refueled twice a day while aloft, which they did by grabbing the end of a 40-foot hose that was lowered to them from a second airplane. The other plane also dangled a daily canister of food prepared by the pilots%u2019 wives. Jackson and O%u2019Brine regularly dropped notes onto the airfield: %u201cDon%u2019t forget breakfast,%u201d or %u201cI wish I had some coffee,%u201d or %u201cMotor doing fine,%u201d which were just as regularly published in newspapers across the country. The duo finally landed on July 30, after 420 hours and 21 minutes in the air%u2014a whopping 17%u00bd days. Fifteen thousand people at Lambert Field cheered then as heroes when they landed. On on August 1, they received a ticker-tape parade through downtown St. Louis The famous aviators soon went on tour. After Louisville, they arrived in Indianapolis on August 10 for a reception at Curtiss-Mars Hill Airport (later renamed Stout Field). They were honored at a dinner sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce, and presented with the James A. Perry trophy%u2014a silver loving cup named in honor of the late president of the Indiana Curtiss Company.It took a year for their record to be broken, but they promptly reclaimed it with a 647%u00bd-hour flight, which stood until 1934.Dale Jackson and Forest O%u2019Brine, in their Robin airplane, being refueled by a similar airplane above them while airborne.