Realizing he should finish his therapy before he ruined any more relationships, Grace completed the prescribed 17-week hospital stay. Even though he was advised by doctors not to continue with stunt flying, he was back at work in 1928, organizing a squadron called "the Buzzards" to perform in a minor film, Lilac Time. He managed to break several ribs in one of the crashes he did for this film, but again his luck held and he survived. Several other Buzzards, however, were not so fortunate. Three of them would die shortly after Lilac Time -- though not in film-related accidents.
Another noted aerial movie produced in the latter days of the 1920s was the brainchild of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. Eager to make an aerial film, Hughes had been furious when the script for Wings (written by his friend John Monk Saunders) was bought by Paramount. The resolute Hughes decided to make his own epic -- one that would outdo Wings. It would be called Hell's Angels.
Then just 23, Hughes hired star actors and spent more than half a million dollars buying and renovating 89 airplanes. He put well-known flier Frank Tomick, who had worked on Wings, in charge of obtaining all the aircraft he could for the film -- on an open budget. Because Hell's Angels took place in England, the planes for the film had to look British and German, so many of the aircraft Hughes acquired had to be repainted and redesigned to simulate unobtainable foreign aircraft.
Howard Hughes
He also needed airfields, so he bought a cow pasture near Van Nuys -- just north of Los Angeles -- and dubbed it Caddo Field. There he built hangars and other buildings, personally supervising construction. He also bought land in Inglewood, south and west of Los Angeles (in an area that would later become the site of Los Angeles International Airport) and property in Chatsworth, in the far west part of the San Fernando Valley, which would be used to simulate a German base.
One of the final dramatic scenes in the film was the diving, spinning crash of a Sikorsky S-29A bomber -- repainted to represent a German Gotha. Both Dick Grace and Frank Clarke had refused to do the stunt for less than $10,000, but Al Wilson agreed to perform the dangerous dive. Smoke effects would be created by using lamp black, with a mechanical blower system blasting the black "smoke" from the diving plane. A young mechanic, Phil Jones, volunteered to ride along and operate the smoke machine.
On March 22, 1929, with three camera planes in the air to record the stunt, Wilson took the Sikorsky up to 7,500 feet. As he started the downward spin, the other pilots noticed the fabric tearing away from the left wing, and then pieces of cowling from the left engine began to break away. Wilson realized he was in trouble, and he climbed from the cockpit and opened his parachute.
The three cameras recorded the plunge of the plane as they waited for a second parachute to appear. But it never did. The plane crashed with Phil Jones' body inside, his parachute still strapped to him.
Hell's Angels pilots, l-r: Ralph Douglas, Leo Nomis, Frank Clarke, James Hall (star), Ben Lyon (star), Frank Tomick & Roy Wilson.
Al Wilson was shattered when he learned of the mechanic's death. He swore he had twice yelled to him to jump, but whether Jones heard him or not, Wilson had no way of knowing. He received a great deal of criticism after the accident, but an investigation found him not guilty of negligence. His pilot's license was suspended briefly as a result of the incident.
Hell's Angels was not completed until 1930, by which time sound had been introduced and audiences were shunning silent films. Hughes decided to reshoot many scenes to make what had started as a silent film into a sound film. The production ended up costing him $4 million -- one of the most expensive pictures made up to that time -- but it was to prove a success, mainly because of its spectacular aerial scenes.
Waldo helped (but didn't fly) Howard Hughes film "Hell's Angels"
Here (from WALDO: Pioneer Aviator, pp. 266) is the planning for the Gotha flight scene: (l-r) Harry Perry, chief photographer; Fred Fleck, asst. dir.; Roscoe Turner; Frank Clarke, chief pilot (arguably the era's best stunt pilot); Al Wilson; Harry Crandall, kneeling; Roy Wilson; Frank Tomick; and Jack Rand.
To highlight the film's premiere on May 27, 1930, planes flew low over Hollywood Boulevard, dropping flares and parachutes. Veteran racer Roscoe Turner also participated in the gala event, completing a flight from New York to Los Angeles in a record 24 hours and 20 minutes.
Hollywood Boulevard was blocked off in one direction before the movie's initial screening, but the crowd, eager to see the stars arrive, was immense, and traffic soon came to a standstill. The film went on to play to packed houses worldwide. Whether or not it eventually made a profit is hard to gauge. Hughes always claimed it did, but others were not so sure. The project had certainly drained a vast amount of money from his other enterprises. He had shot almost 300 times the amount of film that was eventually used and lavished time and effort on the project. In an interview some years later, Hughes admitted, "Making Hell's Angels by myself was my biggest mistake....Trying to do the work of twelve men was just dumbness on my part. I learned by bitter experience that no one man can know everything."
Demand for stunt fliers began to wane as the newly evolving airline industry grew eager to provide filmmakers with opportunities to photograph their own planes taking off and landing and even made available mock-ups of their interiors -- which they had built to train airline staff. Then, as now, product promotion was becoming a fact of life for the movie industry. The military also began cooperating with the industry by providing film companies with both planes and personnel. They saw this as an effective way to recruit young men for the Army Air Corps.
But a more important reason why there were few accidents in those later days involved the evolution of more sophisticated special effects. Miniatures, rear projection and matte shot techniques were being developed to a point where many dangerous scenes could be faked.
In one shot, Grace was to turn the plane completely over and have it crash upside down. The stunt apparently came off fine, and Grace even posed to have his picture taken along side the wrecked plane. However, as soon as the picture had been snapped, he collapsed. Grace had broken his neck. Nevertheless, he went on to his next job with his neck still in braces.
Thus the era of the Squadron of Death, which had claimed the lives of so many talented fliers, came to an end. It had provided audiences -- and the stunt pilots who survived -- with some of the greatest thrills ever captured on film.
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