AIR HEADS Chapter Two

I believe Bob Fowler was confident on Saturday, 23 September, 1911,  when the repairs to his "Cole Flyer" were finally completed, and he finally took off from Colfax, California - altitude  3,306 feet - in the Sierra foothills.  He certainly looks confident in this photo. His confidence was, however, seriously misplaced.  Immediately that he reached six thousand feet up the Sierra Nevada mountains, Bob hit headwinds that his 40 horsepower Cole motor just could not overcome. He was forced to return to Colfax.

That same Saturday - 23 September - back east, the little jockey Jimmy Ward was following the “iron compass”, as pilots referred to following railroad lines.  In this case he was tracking the Erie Railroad westward out of Middletown, N.Y.   Jimmy landed safely at Callicoon, New York (above) and refueled,at 10:05 a.m., as planned.  He refueled again at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and took off again at 2:15 P.M.

Two hours later, after avoiding crowds waiting for him at other landing fields, the shy James touched down on a farm outside of Owego, N.Y.  Here the jockey hitched a ride into town, where he ate a quick dinner while a local mechanic refueled his plane.  He wanted to make it to Corning, New.York. before dark.  So he hurried his take off.   But as the jockey lifted into the air his engine coughed, his wheels snagged a fence and he was yanked to an abrupt halt.  His lower left wing was bent, his wheels destroyed.  Jimmy Ward was unhurt, physically, but it would take almost two days before a crew on loan from the Curtis Airplane factory  could repair the damage.

 Back out in California, bright and early on Sunday, 24 September, Bob Fowler tried again to get over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This time he got as high as as Emigrant Gap, just below the Donner Pass, 7,500 feet above sea level.  But headwinds again forced him to retreat to Colfax.

On the Monday, 25 September,  Bob reached 8,000 feet before running into headwinds again.  This time Bob decided to land at Emigrant Gap,  to get a head start start the next day.  But flying in the thin air at high altitude was a skill not yet mastered by anyone,  including Bob,  and while turning around his wings lost lift and he plowed into the trees.  They had to send out a search party to locate him, and when they did he had two broken wings and and two broken propellers - I mean  his "Cole Flyer" did.   Bob himself was somehow uninjured, but for the time being his continental flight was… waiting for repairs, again.

Back in Owego, New York, the repaired Jimmy Ward’s Curitss airplane managed to limp into Corning and then on to the village of Addison, N.Y. (above) late on Monday,  25 September, 1911.  Jimmy was now 300 miles and 10 long days out of New York City.  But at this rate it could take him the better part of a year to reach California.  Anxious to make up for lost time, at 7:18 A.M. on Tuesday, 26 September, James took off from Addison.  And about five miles west of town he crashed again. He had to walk almost the whole way back to Addison, just to tell people he had crashed. This was getting really hard.

Back at the hotel, waiting for her husband,  Jimmy‘s wife, Maude Mae, overheard some gamblers taking five-to-one odds that her husband would be dead before he reached Buffalo, New York.  Now, Maude May knew that Jimmy was not actually planning on heading to Buffalo, but she also knew that town was still 60 miles further to the west. And at the rate Jimmy's flight was progressing, he could have been beaten by a Conestoga wagon, In fact,the way Maude Mae figured things, at the rate Jimmy was crashing, the gamblers were being a bit optimistic at about her husband's lifespan.  So Maude Mae decided to be practical - leave it to a woman to destroy a daredevil sporting event with practical thinking.  Maude Mae spoke to the shaken Jimmy that night. And after his long walk and his two crashes over the previous four days, Jimmy was inclined to listen.

Jimmy's manager announced his decision to the press the next morning, Wednesday, 27 September. He was dropping out of the race. Later, Jimmy Ward would explain his decision in less than pragmatic terms. “It was a plain case of a jinx”, he said.  And then he went on to prognosticate. “Rodgers is a mighty fine fellow, " said Jimmy, "and I wish him all kinds of luck, but...To win that $50,000 he's got to complete his journey by Oct. 10th.  He can't do it."  Given his skill at fortune telling,  I am surprised that Jimmy Ward had no inkling that just seven months later Maude Mae would have him arrested in Chattanooga and charged with bigamy.  She had discovered that Jimmy was never legally divorced from his first wife.  Poor Maude Mae.  Poor, Jimmy Ward. And  he may have been the pilot with the most common sense.  But without his common sense, the race went on. 

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part Two

I believe Bob Fowler was confident on Saturday, 23 September, 1911,  when the repairs to his "Cole Flyer" were finally completed, and he finally took off from Colfax, California - altitude  3,306 feet - in the Sierra foothills.  He certainly looks confident in this photo. His confidence was, however, seriously misplaced.  Immediately that he reached six thousand feet up the Sierra Nevada mountains, Bob hit headwinds that his 40 horsepower Cole motor just could not overcome. He was forced to return to Colfax.

That same Saturday - 23 September - back east, the little jockey Jimmy Ward was following the “iron compass”, as pilots referred to following railroad lines.  In this case he was tracking the Erie Railroad westward out of Middletown, N.Y.   Jimmy landed safely at Callicoon, New York (above) and refueled,at 10:05 a.m., as planned.  He refueled again at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and took off again at 2:15 P.M.

Two hours later, after avoiding crowds waiting for him at other landing fields, the shy James touched down on a farm outside of Owego, N.Y.  Here the jockey hitched a ride into town, where he ate a quick dinner while a local mechanic refueled his plane.  He wanted to make it to Corning, New.York. before dark.  So he hurried his take off.   But as the jockey lifted into the air his engine coughed, his wheels snagged a fence and he was yanked to an abrupt halt.  His lower left wing was bent, his wheels destroyed.  Jimmy Ward was unhurt, physically, but it would take almost two days before a crew on loan from the Curtis Airplane factory  could repair the damage.

 Back out in California, bright and early on Sunday, 24 September, Bob Fowler tried again to get over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This time he got as high as as Emigrant Gap, just below the Donner Pass, 7,500 feet above sea level.  But headwinds again forced him to retreat to Colfax.

On the Monday, 25 September,  Bob reached 8,000 feet before running into headwinds again.  This time Bob decided to land at Emigrant Gap,  to get a head start start the next day.  But flying in the thin air at high altitude was a skill not yet mastered by anyone,  including Bob,  and while turning around his wings lost lift and he plowed into the trees.  They had to send out a search party to locate him, and when they did he had two broken wings and and two broken propellers - I mean  his "Cole Flyer" did.   Bob himself was somehow uninjured, but for the time being his continental flight was… waiting for repairs, again.

Back in Owego, New York, the repaired Jimmy Ward’s Curitss airplane managed to limp into Corning and then on to the village of Addison, N.Y. (above) late on Monday,  25 September, 1911.  Jimmy was now 300 miles and 10 long days out of New York City.  But at this rate it could take him the better part of a year to reach California.  Anxious to make up for lost time, at 7:18 A.M. on Tuesday, 26 September, James took off from Addison.  And about five miles west of town he crashed again. He had to walk almost the whole way back to Addison, just to tell people he had crashed. This was getting really hard.

Back at the hotel, waiting for her husband,  Jimmy‘s wife, Maude Mae, overheard some gamblers taking five-to-one odds that her husband would be dead before he reached Buffalo, New York.  Now, Maude May knew that Jimmy was not actually planning on heading to Buffalo, but she also knew that town was still 60 miles further to the west. And at the rate Jimmy's flight was progressing, he could have been beaten by a Conestoga wagon, In fact,the way Maude Mae figured things, at the rate Jimmy was crashing, the gamblers were being a bit optimistic at about her husband's lifespan.  So Maude Mae decided to be practical - leave it to a woman to destroy a daredevil sporting event with practical thinking.  Maude Mae spoke to the shaken Jimmy that night. And after his long walk and his two crashes over the previous four days, Jimmy was inclined to listen.

Jimmy's manager announced his decision to the press the next morning, Wednesday, 27 September. He was dropping out of the race. Later, Jimmy Ward would explain his decision in less than pragmatic terms. “It was a plain case of a jinx”, he said.  And then he went on to prognosticate. “Rodgers is a mighty fine fellow, " said Jimmy, "and I wish him all kinds of luck, but...To win that $50,000 he's got to complete his journey by Oct. 10th.  He can't do it."  Given his skill at fortune telling,  I am surprised that Jimmy Ward had no inkling that just seven months later Maude Mae would have him arrested in Chattanooga and charged with bigamy.  She had discovered that Jimmy was never legally divorced from his first wife.  Poor Maude Mae.  Poor, Jimmy Ward. And  he may have been the pilot with the most common sense.  But without his common sense, the race went on. 

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AIR HEADS Part Ten

I wonder how many people worked in the advertising department at the Cole Motor Company in Indianapolis in 1911? Besides supporting Bob Fowler’s “Cole Flyer” transcontinental flight, they also had a big balloon that made appearances at county fairs, and they contributed a share in the founding of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As their slogan went, “There’s a Touch of Tomorrow in All Cole Does Today”. Well, the touch was not to last forever. Joe Cole (above) had built a fortune in horse buggies before he borrowed enough cash from Harvey Firestone to start his auto company in 1909. He ordered the parts from other manufacturers and assembled them in the Cole building. “A man’s car any woman can drive.”

Joe offered such innovations as “adjustable door glasses” (i.e., removable windows) a 15 foot long dashboard light and a speedometer that read up to 75 mph; unfortunately the car only went up to 45 mph. Bigwigs at General Motors wanted to buy out Cole, and when Joe wouldn’t sell they just bought up his suppliers and gradually cut him off. With the post war recession of 1920-21 Joe realized the jig was up and began a careful liquidation of his company. In 1924, after he closed up his firm, Joe died suddenly. His family rented out the building (above) in Indianapolis and kept the name, "the Cole Building" into the 1970’s; thus fared the man who sponsored Bob Fowler's flight. 

After he reached El Paso in 1911, it took Bob Fowler(above) a month just to escape Texas. He crash landed in a rice field outside of Seixas, Louisiana, on Christmas Eve. He landed in New Orleans at about 3 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. It took him until February of 1912 to reach Florida. He landed on the sand at Jacksonville Beach on 12 February 1912 -  not that anybody noticed, what with the Titanic going down just two months later.

Bob would later observe with understatement, “I was the first to start and the last to finish.” It had taken him 116 days and 72 hours of actual flight time to cover the 2,800 miles across America. The very next year Bob Fowler made the first non-stop transcontinental flight – and the shortest. Just 36 miles across the Isthmus of Panama. Bob Fowler was a pretty crafty fellow.

Bob sold The “Cole Flyer” in 1912, and after being used in the movie business for a few years, it was sold again, this time for scrap. The engine is still on display at the Exposition Museum in Los Angles. In 1916 Bob started the “Fowler Airplane Corporation” in his home town of San Francisco. He modified and sold Curtis JN-4’s (“Jennys”) to the U.S. Army as trainers, and after WWI he started Bluebird Airways, a passenger service. He retired to San Jose and died in 1966, at the healthy old age of 82.

Jimmy Ward (above), the ex-jockey who had the good sense to drop out of the Hearst race, died in Florida sometime after 1917, allegedly of stomach cancer. He was buried in an unmarked paupers grave. Some of his fellow aviation pioneers collected money to give him a more respectful funeral, but I can find no record of that ever happening. Perhaps somebody down in Florida can correct my mistake.

Cal Rodgers was testing a new airplane on Wednesday April 3, 1912, just off shore of Long Beach, California, when he ran into a flock of sea gulls. The plane banked sharply 45 degrees and slid into the surf, crashing just feet from where Cal had posed grinning in the surf with the “Vin Fiz” the previous December.

The engine broke loose from its mounts and crushed Cal, breaking his neck. He was still breathing when swimmers pulled him from the water, but he died soon after. Cal Rodgers was the 127th death since the Wright Brothers flight in 1903, and the 22nd American aviator killed. Considering the number of people flying in 1912, those were still terrible odds.

Cal's mother, Maria (Rodgers) Sweitzer, took procession of her son’s body and had it shipped back to Pittsburgh. There Calbraith Perry Rodgers was buried in Allegheny Cemetery under an elaborate tombstone (above), marked with the words “I Endure, I Conquer.”

Cal’s brother John took procession of the “Vin Fiz Flyer” and had it shipped back to Ohio, to the Wright Brother's shops, to be repaired. He offered the Flyer to the Smithsonian, but they already had a Wright B, so instead, in 1917, the Flyer was donated to the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1934 the Smithsonian changed their minds and bought the “Vin Fiz Flyer”. Refurbished and rebuilt, that is the plane that hangs from the ceiling in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

And little Maude was determined to endure and conquer as well. After lengthy court battles with her ex-mother-in-law in California, Maude was awarded legal possession of the “Vin Fiz Flyer”. How could this be? Wasn’t the Flyer back in Ohio, being rebuilt? It was. But the contents of the repair car of the “Vin Fiz Special” contained enough spare parts, many of which may have actually flown sections of the transcontinental voyage, to construct a second “Vin Fiz Flyer” and still claim it as an “original.”

Two years after Cal’s death, and after the court battles with Maria had finally been settled, Maude married Charlie “Wiggie” Wiggin, who had shown such faith and devotion to her Cal; two lonely souls who shared an adoration of another man. “Wiggie”, had, by this time, acquired his own pilot’s license. And Maude and Wiggie made a living for a few years barnstorming their “Vin Fiz Flyer” around the country. And then they quietly faded out of history.

It would be ten years later when Jimmy Doolittle would cross the continent in less than a day - 21 hours 19 minutes, with just one stop for fuel. And as you sit in your tiny passenger seat, crammed four to an aisle, held prisoner on the tarmac for endless hours, forced to use a toilet designed for a diminutive Marquise de Sade, charged extra for a micro-waved “snack”, a pillow, a blanket, a soda or a thimble full of peanuts, even the privilege of using the rest room...

...consider the sacrifices of those who suffered before you; landing in chicken coops, landing in tree tops, landing in barbed wire fences, landing in Texas for day after day. And remember the immortal words of Cal Rodgers; “I am not in this business because I like it, but because of what I can make out of it.” It has become the mantra of every airline passenger world wide.

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part Two

I believe Bob Fowler was confident on Saturday, 23 September, 1911,  when the repairs to his "Cole Flyer" were finally completed, and he finally took off from Colfax, California - altitude  3,306 feet - in the Sierra foothills.  He certainly looks confident in this photo. His confidence was, however, seriously misplaced.  Immediately that he reached six thousand feet up the Sierra Nevada mountains, Bob hit headwinds that his 40 horsepower Cole motor just could not overcome. He was forced to return to Colfax.

That same Saturday - 23 September - back east, the little jockey Jimmy Ward was following the “iron compass”, as pilots referred to following railroad lines.  In this case he was tracking the Erie Railroad westward out of Middletown, N.Y.   Jimmy landed safely at Callicoon, New York (above) and refueled,at 10:05 a.m., as planned.  He refueled again at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and took off again at 2:15 P.M.

Two hours later, after avoiding crowds waiting for him at other landing fields, the shy James touched down on a farm outside of Owego, N.Y.  Here the jockey hitched a ride into town, where he ate a quick dinner while a local mechanic refueled his plane.  He wanted to make it to Corning, New.York. before dark.  So he hurried his take off.   But as the jockey lifted into the air his engine coughed, his wheels snagged a fence and he was yanked to an abrupt halt.  His lower left wing was bent, his wheels destroyed.  Jimmy Ward was unhurt, physically, but it would take almost two days before a crew on loan from the Curtis Airplane factory  could repair the damage.

 Back out in California, bright and early on Sunday, 24 September, Bob Fowler tried again to get over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This time he got as high as as Emigrant Gap, just below the Donner Pass, 7,500 feet above sea level.  But headwinds again forced him to retreat to Colfax.

On the Monday, 25 September,  Bob reached 8,000 feet before running into headwinds again.  This time Bob decided to land at Emigrant Gap,  to get a head start start the next day.  But flying in the thin air at high altitude was a skill not yet mastered by anyone,  including Bob,  and while turning around his wings lost lift and he plowed into the trees.  They had to send out a search party to locate him, and when they did he had two broken wings and and two broken propellers - I mean  his "Cole Flyer" did.   Bob himself was somehow uninjured, but for the time being his continental flight was… waiting for repairs, again.

Back in Owego, New York, the repaired Jimmy Ward’s Curitss airplane managed to limp into Corning and then on to the village of Addison, N.Y. (above) late on Monday,  25 September, 1911.  Jimmy was now 300 miles and 10 long days out of New York City.  But at this rate it could take him the better part of a year to reach California.  Anxious to make up for lost time, at 7:18 A.M. on Tuesday, 26 September, James took off from Addison.  And about five miles west of town he crashed again. He had to walk almost the whole way back to Addison, just to tell people he had crashed. This was getting really hard.

Back at the hotel, waiting for her husband,  Jimmy‘s wife, Maude Mae, overheard some gamblers taking five-to-one odds that her husband would be dead before he reached Buffalo, New York.  Now, Maude May knew that Jimmy was not actually planning on heading to Buffalo, but she also knew that town was still 60 miles further to the west. And at the rate Jimmy's flight was progressing, he could have been beaten by a Conestoga wagon, In fact,the way Maude Mae figured things, at the rate Jimmy was crashing, the gamblers were being a bit optimistic at about her husband's lifespan.  So Maude Mae decided to be practical - leave it to a woman to destroy a daredevil sporting event with practical thinking.  Maude Mae spoke to the shaken Jimmy that night. And after his long walk and his two crashes over the previous four days, Jimmy was inclined to listen.

Jimmy's manager announced his decision to the press the next morning, Wednesday, 27 September. He was dropping out of the race. Later, Jimmy Ward would explain his decision in less than pragmatic terms. “It was a plain case of a jinx”, he said.  And then he went on to prognosticate. “Rodgers is a mighty fine fellow, " said Jimmy, "and I wish him all kinds of luck, but...To win that $50,000 he's got to complete his journey by Oct. 10th.  He can't do it."  Given his skill at fortune telling,  I am surprised that Jimmy Ward had no inkling that just seven months later Maude Mae would have him arrested in Chattanooga and charged with bigamy.  She had discovered that Jimmy was never legally divorced from his first wife.  Poor Maude Mae.  Poor, Jimmy Ward. And  he may have been the pilot with the most common sense.  But without his common sense, the race went on. 

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part Eleven

I wonder how many people worked in the advertising department at the Cole Motor Company in Indianapolis in 1911? Besides supporting Bob Fowler’s “Cole Flyer” transcontinental flight, they also had a big balloon that made appearances at county fairs, and they contributed a share in the founding of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As their slogan went, “There’s a Touch of Tomorrow in All Cole Does Today”. Well, the touch was not to last forever. Joe Cole (above) had built a fortune in horse buggies before he borrowed enough cash from Harvey Firestone to start his auto company in 1909. He ordered the parts from other manufacturers and assembled them in the Cole building. “A man’s car any woman can drive.”

Joe offered such innovations as “adjustable door glasses” (i.e., removable windows) a 15 foot long dashboard light and a speedometer that read up to 75 mph; unfortunately the car only went up to 45 mph. Bigwigs at General Motors wanted to buy out Cole, and when Joe wouldn’t sell they just bought up his suppliers and gradually cut him off. With the post war recession of 1920-21 Joe realized the jig was up and began a careful liquidation of his company. In 1924, after he closed up his firm, Joe died suddenly. His family rented out the building (above) in Indianapolis and kept the name, "the Cole Building" into the 1970’s; thus fared the man who sponsored Bob Fowler's flight. 

After he reached El Paso in 1911, it took Bob Fowler(above) a month just to escape Texas. He crash landed in a rice field outside of Seixas, Louisiana, on Christmas Eve. He landed in New Orleans at about 3 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. It took him until February of 1912 to reach Florida. He landed on the sand at Jacksonville Beach on 12 February 1912 -  not that anybody noticed, what with the Titanic going down just two months later.

Bob would later observe with understatement, “I was the first to start and the last to finish.” It had taken him 116 days and 72 hours of actual flight time to cover the 2,800 miles across America. The very next year Bob Fowler made the first non-stop transcontinental flight – and the shortest. Just 36 miles across the Isthmus of Panama. Bob Fowler was a pretty crafty fellow.

Bob sold The “Cole Flyer” in 1912, and after being used in the movie business for a few years, it was sold again, this time for scrap. The engine is still on display at the Exposition Museum in Los Angles. In 1916 Bob started the “Fowler Airplane Corporation” in his home town of San Francisco. He modified and sold Curtis JN-4’s (“Jennys”) to the U.S. Army as trainers, and after WWI he started Bluebird Airways, a passenger service. He retired to San Jose and died in 1966, at the healthy old age of 82.

Jimmy Ward (above), the ex-jockey who had the good sense to drop out of the Hearst race, died in Florida sometime after 1917, allegedly of stomach cancer. He was buried in an unmarked paupers grave. Some of his fellow aviation pioneers collected money to give him a more respectful funeral, but I can find no record of that ever happening. Perhaps somebody down in Florida can correct my mistake.

Cal Rodgers was testing a new airplane on Wednesday April 3, 1912, just off shore of Long Beach, California, when he ran into a flock of sea gulls. The plane banked sharply 45 degrees and slid into the surf, crashing just feet from where Cal had posed grinning in the surf with the “Vin Fiz” the previous December.

The engine broke loose from its mounts and crushed Cal, breaking his neck. He was still breathing when swimmers pulled him from the water, but he died soon after. Cal Rodgers was the 127th death since the Wright Brothers flight in 1903, and the 22nd American aviator killed. Considering the number of people flying in 1912, those were still terrible odds.

Cal's mother, Maria (Rodgers) Sweitzer, took procession of her son’s body and had it shipped back to Pittsburgh. There Calbraith Perry Rodgers was buried in Allegheny Cemetery under an elaborate tombstone (above), marked with the words “I Endure, I Conquer.”

Cal’s brother John took procession of the “Vin Fiz Flyer” and had it shipped back to Ohio, to the Wright Brother's shops, to be repaired. He offered the Flyer to the Smithsonian, but they already had a Wright B, so instead, in 1917, the Flyer was donated to the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1934 the Smithsonian changed their minds and bought the “Vin Fiz Flyer”. Refurbished and rebuilt, that is the plane that hangs from the ceiling in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

And little Maude was determined to endure and conquer as well. After lengthy court battles with her ex-mother-in-law in California, Maude was awarded legal possession of the “Vin Fiz Flyer”. How could this be? Wasn’t the Flyer back in Ohio, being rebuilt? It was. But the contents of the repair car of the “Vin Fiz Special” contained enough spare parts, many of which may have actually flown sections of the transcontinental voyage, to construct a second “Vin Fiz Flyer” and still claim it as an “original.”

Two years after Cal’s death, and after the court battles with Maria had finally been settled, Maude married Charlie “Wiggie” Wiggin, who had shown such faith and devotion to her Cal; two lonely souls who shared an adoration of another man. “Wiggie”, had, by this time, acquired his own pilot’s license. And Maude and Wiggie made a living for a few years barnstorming their “Vin Fiz Flyer” around the country. And then they quietly faded out of history.

It would be ten years later when Jimmy Doolittle would cross the continent in less than a day - 21 hours 19 minutes, with just one stop for fuel. And as you sit in your tiny passenger seat, crammed four to an aisle, held prisoner on the tarmac for endless hours, forced to use a toilet designed for a diminutive Marquise de Sade, charged extra for a micro-waved “snack”, a pillow, a blanket, a soda or a thimble full of peanuts, even the privilege of using the rest room...

...consider the sacrifices of those who suffered before you; landing in chicken coops, landing in tree tops, landing in barbed wire fences, landing in Texas for day after day. And remember the immortal words of Cal Rodgers; “I am not in this business because I like it, but because of what I can make out of it.” It has become the mantra of every airline passenger world wide.

- 30 -