Page:The Fun of It.pdf/212

176 knocking them unconscious. In a panic, a man may cling to the wheel of an automobile and go over a precipice unable to move a muscle. Or a drowning man fasten on his rescuer such an iron grip that both may be pulled under.

So in the old days, particularly before medical examinations were required, student pilots now and then reacted similarly. They held the controls so firmly that their instructors had no recourse but to hit them with whatever tool could be reached. To­day, there may be had a mechanically opening re­lease which acts from the pilot’s cockpit to disen­gage the dual controls if necessary. Then, the instructor kept with him a belaying pin of sorts for use in emergency.

Probably Mrs. Omlie was too small to reach her man in the front cockpit, and she had to sit help­lessly waiting till they crashed. She still carries a scar from that accident and since then has done little or no primary instructing.

For years Mrs. Omlie has flown a Monocoupe for the company which manufactures them at Moline, Illinois. She is one of the best known pilots of this type of craft in the country, and with it has won races and established records. For this job she leaves her husband to carry on alone at Mem­phis for a few months each summer while she goes north.

A commercial side of the Omlie family’s activities is crop dusting, an increasingly important phase of aeronautical work with agriculture. Especially in