Viewing page 16 of 17
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
July 8, 1939 PAGE TWELVE ELMIRA STAR-GAZETTE Stanley Wins Battle With Death in Plane After Wing Is Lost By THOMAS J. M'CARTHY Star-Gazette Staff Writer While several hundred spectators stood paralyzed by fear, Aviation Cadet Robert M. Stanley fought a life and death battle-and won-high over Harris Hill after a wing on his sailplane collapsed late Friday afternoon. The pilot landed about half a mile west of Harris Hill and the damaged plane came down in a Rhoades farm cornfield. Eyes of nearly every spectator were on the slavery craft when the wing crumpled while Stanley was doing aerobatic maneuvers. For minutes that seemed like eternity, the crowd watched the spinning, whirling craft plunge toward earth waiting breathlessly for the pilot to leap out and ride safely to the earth under his parachute. But Stanley was fighting a tremendous centrifugal force in the narrow confines of his cockpit. He was pressed into the seat by the motion of the craft and was exerting every strength to get free. In attempting to twist himself upright, he accidentally pulled the record of the parachute and the silken folds flowed out of the pack and draped loosely about him. When he did stand up, his left foot was caught in the controls. With precious altitude being lost every second, he wrenched his foot from the shoe and hurtled over the side of the craft, praying that the parachute would not be fouled. First Woman to win Glider C License Revisits Soaring Contest Here for First Time in 7 Years By Marion Stocker Star-Gazette Staff Writer IT IS seven years since Mrs. Hattie Junkin flew a glider, and seven years since she last attended a National Soaring Contest here. Yet Mrs. Junkin has the distinction of being the first woman in the United States to earn a C-license. That was back in '31 in the primitive days before "thermals," when a handful of daredevil enthusiasts "dodged cabbages" on South Mountain - "Slouse" Mountain,' the german lads persisted in mispronouncing it," she chuckled. - "gliders are expensive" mourned the attractive little woman as she sat in the shade outside her cabin on Harris Hill, "and I have a son and daughter to educate-" But the fact that here license has lapsed through disuse doesn't "get her down." She has weathered much greater vicissitudes than that. Here life has been filled with glorious "ups" and tragic "downs" - enough to a fill a book, and that is exactly what it will do one of these days. Even now her story is being prepared for a newspaper syndicate. Mrs. Junkin's interest in aviation dates from her childhood when she and her brother, Charles, built model planes in imitation of their hero, Percy Pierce. Years later she met the famous Percy - now head of the Model Builders Association of America. She helped her 'teen age brother fashion the huge wings on which he actually took one flight - hanging suspended by his arms! - before the crash which left him slightly dazed but undaunted. THEN DURING the World War, when barely 19, she married George "Buck" Weaver, civilian flying instructor at the Waco, Tex., War School. She worked and starved fought with him for five years after the war when he founded the Weaver Aircraft Company and struggled to put aircraft production ... [[?]] R.E. Franklin, urging her to join him at Elmira and try a lighter ship. "It was a great crowd that gathered here," she recalled, "and a motley assortment of ships compared with those of today - heavy things with almost no controls. They couldn't sail very high, with ... [[?]] the hill again this year - Earl Southee, Bill Sullivan, Mr. Franklin, Woolf Hirth, Gus Haller, Jack, O'Meara -." Mrs. Junkin returned to Elmira in 1931 when she won her coveted C-license - Number 37 - and again in 1932. Thereafter she confined her soaring activities to the fields ... [[?]] She and her son, George, and daughter Janet, are touring New York State. "REALLY, she confided, "I'm looking for a job and a place to settle where Janet can have a college education. I've written many [[image caption]] FIRST women in the United States to receive a C-license for gliding was Mrs. Hattie Junkin, right, who won the honor at an Elmira meet in 1931. With here, left, is her daughter, Janet. Mrs. Junkin, son George, and Janet are spending a few days in a cabin on Harris Hill. This is her first return in seven years to the scene of her former exploits. [[image caption]]
