Slumped in his Manhattan apartment one early morning last week Ivan Rhuele Gates said to his wife: "I think I'll jump out of the window." His wife ran to him, clutched his waist, pleaded with him to listen. Brawny Ivan Gates ignored her, walked to the window, climbed upon the sill and—nearly dragging his small wife with him—jumped. Thus, dismally, died "Van" Gates, 42, Ringling of the flying circus era. Frustrated by the boom of commercial aviation. Van Gates had lost his money, his health. Few weeks ago he was operating "museums" on Broadway and at Coney Island where indigent artists exhibited paintings of nudes for 15¢ admission.
With typical extravagance Gates used to say that "more than 1,200,000 Americans took their first flights in Gates ships." Probably less exaggerated is the estimate that he promoted 2.000 air meets in 44
States during his quarter-century of barnstorming with Gates's Flying Circus. Many a youngster still in his 'teens may remember the flashy posters screaming about the "Spine Chilling, Nerve Tingling'' feats of Gates's "Airdevils" to be seen at the fair grounds, the race track, a certain cow pasture, or whatever passed for a flying field.
Born in Rockford, Minn., Van Gates was an automobile salesman and occasional racer in San Francisco in 1910, when he saw the French Aeronaut Louis Paulhan thrilling crowds at Tanforan Track. He decided there was money to be made in exhibition flying. For $2,000 he picked up a flimsy biplane built by a Kansas City doctor, took a Swiss aviator as partner. The Swiss looked once, briefly, at the biplane and vanished. Rather than see the machine rot on its wheels, Gates started the engine one day, mounted the rickety seat, started taxiing about the field just for the fun of "grass-cutting.'' To his astonishment the plane rose some 20 ft. Hastily Gates shoved a lever, landed with a bang. On the strength of that maiden flight, Gates booked himself for a number of engagements as an aviator. Perhaps fortunately, a taxicab accident put him on crutches and he was forced to seek a substitute. He found Didier Masson. Paulhan's mechanic. Thus Gates became a showman, a role to which he took naturally. In the next 20 years he logged only 600 hr. at the controls.
As years rolled by Showman Gates built up a substantial troupe. Names like Silas Christofferson, Lincoln Beachey, Art Smith, Katherine Stinson appeared on his flamboyant handbills. In early days he netted perhaps $2,000 merely for a 10-minute flight above the fair grounds, and not always did his patched-up planes stay up ten minutes. Later it was stunting, wing-walking, plane-to-plane jumps, standing on looping planes, that brought in gate receipts.
One of Van Gates's performers was Clyde Pangborn who flew around the world last year and got into trouble with Japanese authorities for taking photographs over forbidden area. Said "Cy" Caldwell, associate editor of Aero Digest: ". . . If Ivan had been on the job, Clyde not only could have taken the pictures but Ivan would have charged the Mikado $10 for looking at them and sold him a snapshot of himself and a bag of peanuts for $1 more."