Free Fall

For as long as it would take a good track man to run a half-mile, bald, burly Arthur Starnes plummeted down through miles of air last week. During that minute and 56 seconds he dropped five and a half miles (29,300 feet), hit a speed of 190 m.p.h., felt the temperature change from 46DEG below zero (Fahrenheit) to mild 60DEG above. When he cracked his chutes at 1,500 feet, he was pretty sure he had had an experience that would not only keep green the name of Arthur Starnes but somehow help national defense.

Starnes had jumped before--more than 300 times. But, until last week, he had still not answered a vexing question: What happens to a flyer's heart, lungs and circulatory system when he plunges earthward from a disabled airplane at high altitude and falls free as long as he dares, 1) to escape the enemy, 2) to get into warm, breathable air? The Army and many a scientist wanted to know the answer.

Arthur Starnes decided to try to find it.

Loaded with 80 pounds of gadgets for safety, science and publicity, he climbed into a Lockheed Lodestar one day last week and went upstairs--far above the 'chutists' attic. Bundled in a heavy leather suit, he carried two chutes, oxygen equipment, stop watches, an altimeter, a barograph (to record changes in altitude), a small radio transmitter, pneumograph (to record the action of his lungs).

At 30,800 feet, Arthur Starnes bailed out. Everything worked like a clock, an altimeter or a pneumograph. On the way down, Chicago's Station WLS picked up the beats of his heart, rebroadcast them.

"I was conscious all the way down and comfortable, too," he told newsmen. "I could see the earth whirling by me, for I was in a fast body spin. . . . Then I whipped through a fragment of cloud and my goggles frosted up. ... I raised one side of the goggles and glanced at the sensitive altimeter." By this time he was in a dizzy end-over-end spin. He flung out one arm, stopped the spin and plummeted straight again.

When the altimeter said 1,500 feet, Jumper Starnes cracked his first chute, passed out for a few seconds as it slowed him down, fast. When he came to, he cracked the second. He landed in a cow pasture south of Chicago. Said he: "I'm certain that the jump is the longest delayed fall ever made in the U.S. and perhaps in the world." No man from Mars gave him the lie.

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