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Original report from Gericke about his flight to victory
On October 5th, the launch for this years Gordon Bennett Air flight took
place in Kansas-City. The competition, was of a special interest this time,
because besides America, only Germany and France took part. It was the duty
to fight against the victory of the Americans who had won the races in 1909
and 1910 to prevent final loss of the cup to America. I would have been
delighted, if the Frenchmen, without success in all races till now, had won.
In those first days of October, Kansas City was under the rule of the
balloons. Already on the evening of October 3rd there was a splendid
procession to honour the aeronauts. There was an almost endless string of
cars moving through the main streets of the town. On the cars light-bulbs
had been clever arranged, picturing the different children of flora. Between
the cars, on which nice and elegant ladies of the society of Kansas City had
taken seat, bands were marching. Enthusiasm of the population was great and
reached its peak when a car loaded with three respectable balloons,
electrically illuminated and adorned with the national colours of America,
Germany and France moved along the main-street.
Morning of October 4th was spent with visitation and inspection of the
arrived balloons. The chances of the different balloons were considered and
my thoughts were, that the French would carry home the victory from this
race, for their equipment was in an excellent condition. At noon a lunch was
given for us at the house of the aero-club, followed by an excursion to the
boulevards of the town by automobile. To prevent traffic jams in the streets,
we were accompanied by four constables on motorbikes, one ahead, two as
leaders of the train and the fourth followed our cars.
At 5 p.m. a briefing for the flight took place at the Baltimore Hotel,
where we stayed. The log books and instruments were handed over and then the
sequence of the launch was decided by a draw.
In the evening there was a big show for about 2000 people in the
Convention Hall.
Next morning at 6:30 a.m. the balloons were carried to the launch field.
This year I had preferred, not to take an American co-pilot, but a German,
Mister Duncker from Bremen, member of the Berliner Verein für Luftschiffahrt.
He cared for our food, which we had to calculate very generous. Inflation of
the balloons started at 3 p.m. and finished at 5 p.m. The first balloon
lifted into the air, every 15 minutes followed by the next one. When “BERLIN
II” was prepared at about 6 p.m., I recognized with a shock, that the
valve-line had not fallen through the appendix. Fortunately I had attached
the rope-ladder, I had brought with me from Germany, to the appendix before
raising the balloon, but even with a lot of effort, I did not manage to
reach the vent line inside of the balloon. When I was ordered to depart
within five minutes, in a short decision I cut a hole to the appendix large
enough to crawl inside the balloon. After some longer efforts, I managed,
standing on the rope ladder, to grap the vent line. There was no time left
to sew or glue this hole above the closing device. Soon when I had reached
the basket from the rope ladder, signal for depart was given.
Short after launch, we crossed the Missouri twice, having 50 meters of
our dropped trail rope in the water. After giving some ballast, we climbed
to an altitude of 300 meters and flew off in 10 degrees north to east. Our
heading turned further north, so we sailed along the sea of air with five
degrees west and 40 kilometres an hour. With this wind of constant speed it
would not take long to reach Canada at Winnipeg and Duluth, for 1200
kilometres are covered quick. Until 9 p.m. under a sky full of stars the
moon spread his magic light over the fields below and let the waters we
crossed gloom in a pale silver glow.
Then thick swathes of mist rose, banks of clouds loomed ominously above
and below us and took away the sight to the earth. A few heavy raindrops
fell and then a cloudburst beat down as I had never seen before. At once we
dumped ballast, but the rain increased and pressed us down again and again.
Considering the mentioned right turning of the heading and the higher
wind speeds in higher altitudes as well as the masses of water beating down
with horrible force, climbing higher could only be of an advantage. But we
then had to face the danger of a total loss of control of the balloons speed
and to be driven to the Canadian wilderness. Anyway, we had to try to climb
above the rain clouds. From 10 to 11 p.m. I reached up for altitudes of
about 1600 meters, at 11 p.m. I climbed even higher. The downpours that
clattered on the balloon sounded to our ears like volleys from a machine
gun. I was urged to search for higher altitudes and climbed to 2000 and 3000
meters.
All ballast for this purpose, except the last reserve for landing, had been
dropped, so with sad hearts, we had to decide, to sacrifice parts of the
food supply, we had carried along with us. But even this showed no success.
The water still pushed the balloon down and poured over us in a way, that we
thought, to have flow into the Niagara Falls. Luckly, the water, breaking in
from above, did not stay in the basket, as much as came in, naturally flowed
away again. Slowly, we gained a stoic calm: We could not get more wet, than
down to our skin. The water streamed down on our clothing like wild mountain
creeks. From time to time we took a good gulp of Cognac, to keep the spirits
of life alert and to warm at least the inner part of our human being. Again
and again we tried to reach above the rain clouds, one part of our food
after the other went overboard. Finally, only a small part of the solid food,
the vacuum flasks with coffee and chocolate and the liquors were left in the
basket.
For ten hours totally, we had to stay in the basket, standing the icy
showers of rain mixed with snow, pouring over us. About 3 a.m. the air
cooled down extremely. By wringing out the empty sand bags as well as our
jackets and caps, we both kept continually moving. Beside the liquors, also
the vacuum-flasks, which contents only had stayed warm, served very well in
these difficult hours. As time went by, we felt an urging hunger and
swallowed the corn, that was spread on the floor of the basket, because we
were not in the mood, to open the baskets with food fixed in the ropes high
above our heads with our freezing fingers.
We drifted around in the air without any chance, to even roughly
determine our position, when we tried to detect our wind speed and altitude,
it came out, that our instruments, spoiled by the moisture, had quit their
service. Orientation by eyes was impossible due to the thick the inflated
balloon the next day. We could not leave the basket at this storm and rain.
More than one hour we had spent in this little envied situation, when
suddenly voices sounded from below and two men, obviously farmers, appeared
out of thick bush in some distance. I put my hands to the mouth like a
funnel and shouted down with all power of my lungs: "Hello , hello, which
state is that? Is that Canada?" - "No, Wisconsin" was the answer. So we were
not in Canada, but had stranded in the wilderness of the state of Wisconsin
and found ourselves, as we soon learned, near the little town Holcombe, 12
miles southeast of Ladysmith, while the farmers lived only about 3 miles
away from our landing place. We asked them, to tie the balloon. This wild
monster was anchored with guide lines and the trail rope to the trees. The
helpers in our hour of need then started to set up a warming fire for us,
chattering teeth of cold and hissing like the balloon from being over taxed.
Even in this wet weather they managed it after some unsuccessful efforts.
Meanwhile we had left the basket and reached a tree by the trail rope, on
which we could climb down to earth and approach to the fire to warm our
stiffening and soaked limbs at least a little. Diagonal above us the silver
gleaming giant still raged between the tree-tops, thrown around in wild
movements by the storm.
Now we had to think of his recovery, but more help was needed. This was
promised, and the two brave farmers left us and returned back after 3 hours
with some farmhands. We had saved one box of food and ravenously we
swallowed some eggs and sandwiches with sausages. We still had to wait for
the liquors in the basket, for the basket hung too high to reach it without
help in this swampy area. After the meal I took several photos and
calculated our covered distance on the map with about 800 kilometres.
Finally, after a long waiting, our people came back equipped with axes, saws
and other tools.
With big efforts in a quite short time, almost thirty old trees were cut.
After several hours of work we managed to undo the now deflated envelope and
the net from the jungle of branches and tree tops. A car drawn by two horses
was taken to the spot as close as possible and at about 7 p.m. the net and
the envelope were finally loaded on the car. We had to leave the basket back
this time, because no more load could be drawn by the horses on this heavy
ground. First after 24 hours the basket and the other equipment could be
secured. Everything that was brought back in the bags, had been completely
soaked and spoiled by the indescribable rainfall, even protected by a
coating with the mark "waterproof". Also my instruments and my camera with
200 plates had been destroyed.
At nightfall, having finished our work, we were guided to a farm by its
owner, marching on mostly swampy ground, covered with burned tree trunks.
This hike, on which we often had to walk in water up to our knees, once
again demanded big efforts from us, being almost unable from exhaustion, to
keep up any longer. But these strains were overcome as well and at 9 p.m. we
finally reached the destination we had longed for so fervently: the home of
the farmer. We felt only one need: to lay down, close our red and inflamed
eyes and to sleep, sleep, sleep.
The farm on which we got our lodging carried the name "Devil's Nest" and
was run by four brothers, doing poor farming and bee keeping.
Next morning I drove with the carriage through the highly romantic jungle
along the river Jump to the town of Holcombe, five miles away. From there I
told about our landing to the aero-club of Kansas City by telegraph. Little
later, the reply telegram from Geo M. Meyers, president of the club arrived.
The good news, it brought to me was: "With best congratulations. You are the
winner!"
So the victory was ours, and we had not stood the ten hours of icy showers
in the balloon for nothing! Our covered distance was 757 kilometres as the
birds fly.
The year before, when I had landed deep in the Canadian jungle 30
kilometres east of I village of Kiskisink, my covered distance was 1814,5
kilometres, which became a German record for distance-flights. So I could be
satisfied with the result in 1910 as well as in 1911, when I was declared to
be the winner.
I hope, that the flourishing sport of ballooning will develop on as it
did in the past and close with the wish for Germany, that this cup would not
only remain for one year in our possession, but will be won also in
future.fog and the bunch of clouds. We saw nothing, not even the balloon
above us, only the radium coated figures of the watch and the compass went
through the darkness.
The race last year wasn‘t as hard as the efforts this year. Last year
hunger and cold in the Canadian bush, this year ten hours of uninterrupted
rainfall in the balloon!
Due to the weather conditions at launch, we should have met the best wind
speed and –direction at the altitude, we had mostly stayed at. We had flown
at this altitude above the clouds for 12 hours now and so, relying on the
speed, we believed ourselves deep in Canada. So at day break, 6 a.m., we
decided to descent for safety reasons. The rest of ballast had to do the
duty now. After a pull on the vent the balloon sank down through the grey
sea of clouds from an altitude of 3000 m.
When we broke through the clouds, we recognized, that the balloon was
driven to the south-south-east, a completely different heading. I decided to
land at once, for a continuing in this direction would have brought us
closer to the point where we began our flight, reducing our chances every
minute.
As far as the eye could see through the layers of fog, we discovered
wooden area below us. The strong surface wind threw us around between wild
trees for minutes, making several branches of the trees break with a loud
noise, and now, for a change, not water but wood of every size rained down
on us. Freezing we looked at the area; we found ourselves in a real jungle,
as it couldn‘t be more wild in Brazil. And this in a thunderstorm like that!
I explained to Mr. Duncker: "If we run out of food and don‘t meet any game
here, we will starve without any mercy. We are deep in the Canadian back
forests, miles away from any human settlement, we must have flow with an
incredible speed." The balloon struggled a heavy fight with the rotten bush
and hundred years old tree-trunks, surrounded by swamp, while the basket,
rising, falling, was tossed about like a scallop on foamy waves. The basket
still hovered some meters above the ground, exactly below us covered with
feet high water, while the load ring and the appendix were fixed and caught
by branches and tree tops.
The cracking in the rotten branches above us made us afraid, that the
fabric of the balloon started to tear. But right now, we can‘t see a hole
from the basket. If the envelope stays unhurt, recovery of the balloon will
be possible. So I felt the silent hope, to leave the forest with. |
