7
Morning View Kentucky
, _ 7 May 1958
Hello Mr. McCarthy,

When recently you mentioned the burning of the Hindenburg, I
wandered to a window and looked, unseeing, out across the drenched
pond-field, reliving once more the appalling eternity of those
few seconds during which I nearly sent that same Hindenburg flaming
dm n into the middle of New York City.

§ Early one beautiful morning, Little Brother and I were bound for old
Roosevelt Field out on Long Island, our courSe taking us across
north Jersey and New York itself. There were many plump little
cumulus clouds riding low in the blue sky, their bottoms as flat as
though they had been baked on a cookie sheet, and we played a game
with them as we putthd laZily along in our butterfly. Our lack of
instruments would have thrown a modern pilot into panic -- the
instrument panel boasting only a tachometer, oil pressure, and
altimeter, plus a wobbly little automobile compass clinging uncertainly
by its rubber suction cup.
With these instruments, we were taking turns at flying into the
clouds about 100 feet above their bases, and seeing who could do
the best job of maintaining direction and altitude through the
misty nothingness.
We emerged, at about 700 feet, from little Brother's cloud shortly
before reaching the Palisades, and I took the controls as we cra5sed
the Hudson just above the Weehawken Ferry, both of us peering down
at the always fascinating river‘activity. ns we approached the next
cloud, over New York, I Was still looking downstream when my bnather
remarked, conversationally, "Your cloud has engines.”
It had. Through the swirling edges I could distinguish engine pods,
and in the same instant was aware that the silvery wall so close
ahead was more than yielding mist.
We were too near to either dive under or climb over the vast object
in my cloud. at such a moment there is no time for conscious thought
processes, and in purely automatic reaction, I closed the throttle,
at the same time throwing the little plane up on one wingtip in a
wild turn. As the nose passed the 90 degree point, I slammed the
throttle wide open tohhelp pull us away -— fully expecting all the
while to hear and feel the Spoon of our tail skid strike the great
hulk which loomed between us and the low morning sun.
Nothing happened. We flew numbly back tOWard the Hudson and Jersey,
while behind us the mighty Hindenburg slid out of the cloud and
serenely continued its flight up Broadway.
The momentum of any other aircraft would have carried it Smashing into
the dirigible before we could turn, but our tiny pl'with wide