THIS week we have another great story from the pen of Ralph Oppenheim. Best known in these parts for The Three Mosquitoes, he wrote many other stories of the air and several ripping detective yarns. Here Mr. Oppenheim gives us a story of Lieutenant Steve Bentley who was a race car driver before the war like the great Rickenbacker. But unlike Rickenbacker, Lt. Bentley has a problem with take-off. So used to driving race cars, he couldn’t let go of his instincts—he would hold the stick back, keep the tail down, making the speeding plane hug the earth. He could never get it through his head that a Spad didn’t have to go ninety miles an hour to take off, that flying speed was no more than seventy. Once in the air he was as good as they come.

When Bentley finds out his friend has gone out on a suicide mission, he jumps in his plane and goes after him. Here, his proclivity to drive a plane like a race car comes in handy for getting through the German ground defenses and hopefully saving the day! From the December 1933 issue of Sky Fighters it’s “Earthbound Ace!”

An Auto Racer Takes to the Sky and Finds That He Has a Lot to Learn—But . . . .

• Download “Earthbound Ace” (December 1933, Sky Fighters)