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...thus creating great confusion in the astrological world...
Here is a scan from page 291. Can't make this stuff u
Postscript 291
On June 19, 1918, little more than a month after his arrival at Wilbur Wright, Lieutenant Patterson and his aerial observer, Lieutenant LeRoy Amos Swan, went aloft in their DH-4, Army Air Service Serial #32098, to test newly installed machine guns synchronized by Nelson interrupter gear equipment. Their instructions were to fire about one hundred rounds into the field from 6,000 feet, 10,000 feet, and 15,000 feet. They completed the first two trials successfully, firing the guns through the propeller as they dived. Lieutenant Patterson then climbed to 15,000 feet and pointed the airplane downward in a steep dive. Just as reports of the guns reached the earth, the wings of the airplane were seen to collapse and separate completely from the fuselage, leaving it to travel nearly across the field at full power during its fall. The machine was completely wrecked and the crew crushed beyond recognition.
The initial report of the accident wired to Washington indicated that it was not clear whether the wings folded up or were swept back. It was subsequently determined by the aircraft accident investigation board that:
Patterson’s accident believed to be due to shearing of tie rod that passes through fuselage near radiator and connects the two fittings to which are attached nose drift wires. Accident occurred while diving hence considerable strain put on those two fittings. Tie rod sheared but fittings show very little elongation showing that weakness lay in tie rod. There being nothing else to take backward strain on wings, wings probably folded back and separated from fuselage.
This report clarified the popular, but erroneous assumption that bullets from the machine gun shattered the propeller blades, which flew back and tore the wings from the airplane.
Lieutenant Patterson was buried next to his father in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, on June 21, 1918, following a military funeral. He was survived by his mother, Julia Shaw Patterson Carnell; by a brother, Jefferson, who was a lieutenant in the field artillery serving with the 83rd Division in France; by a sister, Mary, who was active in wartime Red Cross work; and by other members of the illustrious Patterson family, including his first cousin, Frederick Beck Patterson, who later headed the Dayton Air Service Committee in its drive to donate land for the creation of Wright Field.