All He Had To Do Is Bail Out Of A Plane...
by ANN Correspondent Pete Tobin
After all the amazing accomplishments and awards won by air show
legend Sean D. Tucker, he has now been accepted into an even more
exclusive aeronautical group... the Caterpillar Club.
For those who have never heard of the Caterpillar Club, it is a
distinction conveyed upon any pilot whose life has been saved by a
caterpillar... more specifically, a silk worm.
In other words, a pilot who for one reason or another, elected
to forgo the safety of the aircraft in which they were presently
flying and chose to "hit the silk;" or, as it is more commonly
known, "bailed out."
The identity of the first inductee is in dispute. Most
researchers tend to agree that William O'Conner, who jumped from an
aircraft over Dayton, OH on August 24, 1920, is the first person to
have his life saved by a parachute. Lieutenant Harold R. Harris
jumped from his Loening W-2A monoplane fighter roughly two years
later and seems to receive most of the official recognition.
Regardless, both of these men had their lives saved by a
parachute manufactured by Leslie Irvin. In 1922, Irvin pledged to
pin a gold caterpillar on any person whose life was saved by one of
his parachutes. Thus, the origins the Caterpillar
Club.
In more recent events, on April 5, 2006, while practicing for
the Sun N' Fun air show over Louisiana, Sean Tucker was forced to
leap from his beloved Oracle Challenger aerobatic biplane. After
what is believed to have been a rod end bearing connection failure,
Tucker heroically fought with the controls of his aircraft for
roughly 25 minutes to regain pitch authority before executing such
a harsh decision. When the thought: "I could die from this" went
through Tucker's mind, he decided it was time to exit the
aircraft.
On July 25, 2006, at the Oshkosh Press Tent, Tucker accepted his
Golden Caterpillar. Tucker, a consummate professional who always
has the safety of himself and others in the forefront of his mind,
used the honor of being presented with this award as an opportunity
to discuss aviation safety.
From the podium, Tucker, a former sport parachutist with over
500 + jumps to his credit, explained why all aerobatic pilots need
to wear parachutes as well as practice with them and obtain
free-fall skills long before those skills might be required in a
real world situation.
Since Tucker's incident over Florida, several professional
aerobatic pilots have begun to take their parachutes much more
seriously. Perhaps, this is the silver lining in what could have
been and fortunately was not, a very gray cloud.
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