Page 64 - Demo

Due to poor weather conditions on Saturday, South Bend%u2019s 4th Annual Air Meet was condensed from a two-day event into one. Even though the weather was still, damp, and dreary on Sunday, the clouds parted to reveal a partial blue sky. So the St. Joseph Valley Aviation Club decided to proceed with Sunday%u2019s festivities, and a crowd estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 attended.A parade, which included an honorary reception committee, wended its way from the municipal airport through the downtowns of South Bend and Mishawaka. Seven national guard airplanes were on hand from Indianapolis, as well as other planes for attendees to examine.Performers included Clyde Shockley of Kokomo, a barnstormer known as the %u201cflying farmer,%u201d who was a member of the Caterpillar Club. This was an organization of flyers whose planes crashed, but they had been able to safely parachute to the ground. The club was named for the silk caterpillar that spun parachute silk. Shockley thrilled the crowd with half-loops and barrel roilsHomer Stockert was also on hand. An able flier from the Rainbow Aviation service, he received applause for his demonstrations of stalled flight, spins, and inverted flying. Former army pilot Maj. James H. Doolittle flew his yellow bullet plane in a speed flying demonstration. Other flying aces included Rudolph Van Devere, who looped and spun a cabin monoplane, and Lieut. Walter Hinton, who had been one of the pilots on the U.S. Navy%u2019s first flight across the Atlantic in 1919, and had logged more than 400,000 miles in the air.A Capt. Harrison made a parachute jump, but his %u2018chute failed. The crowd surged forward, but soon realized that it was not the Captain, but a dummy that fell to Earth. They were also fooled by a pilot who jumped from his plane after it seemed to catch fire above the airport%u2014but another pilot aboard brought the undamaged plane in for a safe landing.South Bend%u2019s Bendix Airport in the 1930s, with a parking lot full of automobiles.