Aeronautics: Sailing Storm Trooper

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A big moment at every fair is the grand balloon ascension. One night last week at the world's greatest fair. 40,000 persons crowded into Chicago's Soldier Field to see what promised to be the greatest balloon ascension ever made—a flight to the stratosphere by Lieut.-Commander Thomas G. W. ("Tex") Settle. Ceremonies lasted seven hours. Soldiers and sailors paraded the field. Massed bands countermarched. Radio loudspeakers brought from Manhattan the voice of Professor Arthur Holly Compton. scientific director of the flight, wishing Commander Settle luck in breaking Auguste Piccard's 10-mi. altitude record and in gathering data on cosmic and ultraviolet rays. A major-general had the honor of starting the hydrogen gas hissing into the acre of white rubberized bag—biggest ever built. An admiral saw to the hooking on of the spherical gondola made of metal ⅛-in. thick. Mrs. Rufus Cutler Dawes, wife of the president of the Fair, dashed a bottle of liquid air on the gondola, christened it Century of Progress. Colors were piped. Bands blared "Anchors Aweigh." Commander Settle climbed into the gondola, waved, sealed himself in, and was off into the moonlit sky. Searchlights fingered the balloon as it floated up and westward over the Loop. After ten minutes it ceased to rise. Then it began to fall. Down, down it came, skimming the sheds in the Burlington & Quincy Railroad yards at 14th & Canal Streets. Plunk!—it landed on the tracks, barely missing the head of a yardman and scaring him out of his wits. In a few minutes a crowd of thousands jammed the yards. "Get those cigarets away!" shouted Commander Settle, who had pulled the ripcord to empty the bag of hydrogen. Except for a dent in the gondola the balloon and instruments were intact. Sadly Commander Settle explained the fiasco: planning to hang at 5,000 ft. until dawn, he had pulled his gas escape valve. The valve stuck open. Then it was recalled that during the last-minute fanfare the valve had been opened & closed several times while those near the balloon listened for escaping gas. Commander Settle later admitted that he was not quite positive the valve was completely closed as he took off, but was unwilling to spoil the show with further delay. The Chicago Daily News, which had financed and ballyhooed the flight (with the Exposition and National Broadcasting Co.) refused to admit defeat. Stubbornly it boasted: "A balloon flight that ended as brilliantly as it began gave Chicago one of its greatest thrills. The climax was the unexpected. Settle did not reach the stratosphere as he had planned. But he did something more—a thing that will be imperishable in the history of ballooning. He landed the biggest balloon ever built in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world in darkness, and landed it perfectly. . . ."