THIS week we have a short story by renowned pulp author Frederick C. Davis. Davis is probably best remembered for his work on Operator 5 where he penned the first 20 stories, as well as the Moon Man series for Ten Detective Aces and several other continuing series for various Popular Publications. He also wrote a number of aviation stories that appeared in Aces, Wings and Air Stories.

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Tip-Top, the biggest photoplay production corporation in the world, finally makes a choice as to which newsreel service to go with and feature in all their theaters. Will it be the double dealing Compass outfit or the square-shootin’ World News Reel service? It all comes down to a “Showdown in the Sky!” From the August 1928 Wings.

“Get those shots and the reel’s made!” And Nick Royce, World News Reel flyer, hurtles his plane into the clouds to get them. But a man must play the air-game square—even when blazing skies bring strange showdown!

• Download “Showdown in the Sky” (August 1928, Wings)

THIS week we have another exciting adventure in those Hell-skies with Alexis Rossoff’s Hell-Cat Squadron! The adventures of the Hell-Cat Brood ran in War Birds, War Stories and Flying Aces. The Seventy-Seventh Squadron had a reputation of being short on technique and long on defying every regulation in the book. The squadron was the cause of many gray hairs on the pates of the star-spangled ones back in G.H.Q. They flew their merry way like nobody’s business, and played hell with any Jerry who tried to dispute their intention of going places. This bunch of cloud-hopping war birds were known from one end of the Western front to the other as the “Hell-cats”—and sometimes the “Unholy Dozen!”

There was one man responsible for “Silent” Peters’ warped outlook on life. One man who turned a brilliant engineer into a man who hates the world, God and life itself. An Ace who was tall, gaunt and taciturn with the eyes of a saint—and the face of a devil with nothing but hate in his heart! And Silent Peters believed he would find this man in the death-torn Hell skies over Germany and settle the score once and for all! From the pages of the August 30th, 1928 issue of War Stories, it’s Alexis Rossoff’s “Silent Peters—Hell-cat!”

He was lean and tall and firm-jawad, this Yank of the Seventy-Seventh Squadron. That was the bunch of cloud-hopping war birds they called the “Hell-cats,” and sometimes the “Unholy Dozen.” But “Silent” Peters was a lone eagle without a buddie in the squadron. He had a reason for his war—a reason that meant more than life.

• Download “Silent Peters—Hell-cat” (August 30, 1928, War Stories)

THIS week we have a short story by renowned pulp author Frederick C. Davis. Davis is probably best remembered for his work on Operator 5 where he penned the first 20 stories, as well as the Moon Man series for Ten Detective Aces and several other continuing series for various Popular Publications. He also wrote a number of aviation stories that appeared in Aces, Wings and Air Stories.

It all rested on winning the Air Derby for Ned Knight and Alton Airlines whose plane he was piloting. Alton hoped to dispel the bad rumors swirling around their planes and secure lucrative business deals at various airports; and Ned, he hoped to win the $5,000 purse so he could get a nice place and some furniture and ask his girl to marry him. Only problem is, their biggest competition, Stormbird, will do whatever it takes to win—whatever it takes. From the August 1928 issue of Air Stories it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Plane Jane!”

“When you fly tomorrow—you fly to win!”—Ned Knight, pilot of the racing plane, climbed into the cockpit with those words ringing in his ears—but when the finish line neared, his hand faltered, and his ears shut out everything save the roar of another motor, beckoning him to destruction.

• Download “Plane Jane” (August 1928, Air Stories)