PILOT STORIES: Filmore, William H.

Filmore filed a forced landing report with Charles Stanton, Superintendent of the Eastern Division of the Air Mail Service on September 5, 1919. He had landed the day before at Harrisville, Pennsylvania after leaving Cleveland, Ohio in airmail airplane #91 at 10:17. He landed at Harrisburg at 11:05. "Was almost directly on my course, but owing to rain and poor visibility had not been able to check up any landmarks coming to the mountainous country and poor visibility, I decided it was best not to keep aimlessly on, but to pick a good field, and get my bearings. I looked all available landing fields over thoroughly, finally selected a very good field, flew low over it and back again and made good landing. It had been raining and one of the tires blew, letting the wheel sink to the axle, causing the ship to go up on its nose, damaging propeller and radiator."

On September 12, 1919, William E. Filmore filed another report with Stanton regarding a forced landing. Filmore noted that:

I left Bellefonte at 1:05 with fair visibility, and strong direct headwind. After passing Clarion visibility became worse as I went on. On reaching out-skirts of Cleveland I could see black low clouds congregating over the city.

I increased my R.P.M. to maximum hoping I could reach field before storm broke. It caught me before I reached field, and it was so severe had to put all my attention on flying the ship. Some idea of the severity of the storm may be realized from the fact that it was so dark I could plainly see the flames from the exhaust, and that I never cut my [engine] until well over the edge of the field I landed in.