THIS week we have a story by Franklin M. Ritchie. Ritchie only wrote aviation yarns and his entire output—roughly three dozen stories—was between 1927 and 1930, but Ritchie was not your typical pulp author—he was a lawyer who wrote pulp stories on the side to satisfy his yen for flying.

Jack Gorham flew in a trance. “Thirty hours to live!” he muttered, talking to himself under the roar of the motor and the fierce screaming of the wind in his wires. “That’s all a pilot has on the front!” And mechanically he fell into the formation. Swiftly they winged toward the front. The trenches zigzagged under them, and suddenly Gorham realized that he was over German territory, “Thirty hours to live!” he repeated to himself. . .

With a weird shrieking whir, the airplane streaked for earth like a flaming comet. The pilot’s chum turned yellow and fled, but—read it and see for yourself!

• Download “Thirty Hours to Live” (April 1929, Sky Birds)

As a bonus, here’s a letter from Franklin M. Ritchie that Flying Aces published in the March issue—the month before the issue this story ran.

THIS week we have another story by Franklin M. Ritchie. Ritchie only wrote aviation yarns and his entire output—roughly three dozen stories—was between 1927 and 1930. Today we have another one from the lawyer who wrote pulp stories on the side to satisfy his yen for flying. From an early issue of Sky Birds, Ritchie gives us a tale of the chivalry of the air—but from the German point of view. Enter young Oberleutnant Fritz von Hullesheim who gets himself into a real mess over his flight leaders use of incendiary bullets in his air battles.

From the April 1929 issue of Sky Birds, it’s Franklin M. Ritchie’s “Flaming Bullets!”

The amazing chivalry of the men of the air astounded the whole world during the war. They were true sportsmen, those sky-fighters. Here is a breath-taking yarn from behind the enemy lines showing how the picture looked through the eyes of German War Flyers!

• Download “Flaming Bullets” (April 1929, Sky Birds)