Quinn’s Black Sheep is another of those squadrons populated with other squadron’s troublemakers like Rossoff’s Hell-Cats or Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight or any number of other examples. It seemed every author had a series with a black sheep squadron.

Captain Jack Quinn, brought in for disciplinary action, manages to convince the General that he could solve a lot of his headaches by hand-picking the problem aces out of other squadrons and forming an essentially independent squadron to take on the Boche. Thus, Quinn’s flight was a crew of hard bitten aces who had been tempered—to a man—in the cauldron of war, having unflinchingly facing Death many times before.

Spies are back at work on the Black Sheep ‘Drome and everyone’s at risk! The Black Sheep pilots seem to have lost their way—wings fly off their planes, pilots take their own lives—one by one, veteran pilots are going West leaving Quinn to try to get to the bottom of things and bust the spy ring wide open before the entire squadron is brought down!

Hate, treachery and those murderous pills were blasting disaster from within the hell-winging Black Sheep, while the Boche blasted from without—and Captain Quinn didn’t like his role as fly . . . to be strangled in this black web of poisonous intrigue!

• Download “Flaming Destiny of the Sky Damned!” (January 1939, Sky Devils)

In 1918, Lieutenant Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham took a long hop, figuratively speaking, in an astral plane and came down to earth with the Zodiac in his lap. And as if that weren’t enough, a spiritualist of note—one Madame Mazola, who had taken a powder out of the Tyrol in 1915—put out her shingle in Bar-le-Duc, announcing to whomever it might concern that she would give an applicant a clear wire to his relatives who had long since departed this vale of tears. Ectoplasm was her specialty, and it would be produced for the most skeptical—for the insignificant sum of five francs—payable in advance!

After Madame Mazola hit town with her astrology, it didn’t take Phineas “Taurus” Pinkham long to prove that Garrity was a crab, Gillis was a sucker, Goomer was two other guys, and Casey was the goat. But it wasn’t until Babette hit Phineas with her skillet that the transplanted star gazer from Boonetown really got his astral plane into the ascendancy. And then he hit into something himself—a double-talk play!

• Download “A Hunting We Will Go” (January 1939, Flying Aces)

WE’RE back with two more of Scott’s great covers! Scott painted covers for practically every genre of pulp—sports, western, detective, science fiction and aviation. Most notable of his aviation covers are the ones he did for Western Fiction Publishing’s Sky Devils, which only ran for seven issues. Scott was very adept at capturing people, so his aviation covers center on the pilots and gunners in the planes rather than the planes themselves for the most part. The issues contained no stories for these covers like other titles we’ve featured, but Scott’s magnificent work was just too good to not share! And besides, he captures the action so well, you can imagine the story that goes with the cover he’s painted.

Here are the next two covers Scott did for Sky Devils—the October 1938 and January 1939 issues!

Sky Devils, October 1938 by J.W. Scott

Sky Devils, January 1939 by J.W. Scott

Check out David Saunder’s page for J.W. Scott at his excellent Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists site for more great examples of Scott’s work. And check back in two weeks for two more of Scott’s covers for Sky Devils magazine!

A few career highlights beyond McWilliam’s piece: in 1942 Jackie was asked to organize the Women’s Flying Training Detatchment (WFTD) to train women to handle basic military flight support; the following year she was appointed to lead the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP); in 1953 she became the first woman to break the sound barrier, and set eight more speed records in 1967 when she was over 60 years old!

Jackie kept going until a serious cardiac condition finally grounded her. By the time of her death in 1980, Jackie had recieved more than 200 awards and trophies and set more speed and altitude records than any other pilot.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 24: “Jackie” Cochran” (January 1939, Flying Aces)

• Download “Stars for China” (January 1939, Sky Fighters)