AIR HEADS Chapter Three

I figure that Cal Rogers (above)  was feeling pretty confident on the morning of Saturday, 23 September, 1911.  True, Cal Rogers gave the air of always being pretty confident. But this morning in particular he had received word that one of his competitors, Jimmy Ward,  had dropped out of the “Hearst Coast-to-Coast Race” after crashing (yet again!) 5 miles outside of Addison, New York.  Cal already knew that his other competitor,  Bob Fowler had failed on his third attempt to get over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, finally cracking up near the summit, and reducing his Cole Flyer to kindling and canvas. That left just himself, Cal Rogers, the six foot four inch deaf adventurer from Pittsburgh in the running for the $50,000.00 first place prize.

Of course, Cal still had to get to California within the time limit.  He was barely a tenth of the way across the continent now, and he had already crashed three times. He was already decorated with bandages from all the scrapes and scratches he had suffered.  The problem was that Cal had been a pilot for all of four months. He had less than 60 hours of flying experience. He knew nothing about navigation by air, and there was no one to teach him. The longest flight so far in the United States had been one from St. Louis to New York City, completed just the month before,  by somebody else.  In short, Cal was at the very edge of human experience in flight, both physically and mechanically. 



The Wright engine (above) on his “Vin Fiz Flyer" had no throttle. The 4 cylinder engine was either on or off, at full power or at zero. The pilot had only one way to alter his speed, and that was to “advance the spark”, meaning to alter the instant in the compression cycle when the spark plug fired. In a modern internal combustion engine of the 1920's this would be controlled mechanically. But in the Wright engine of 1911 it was done by physically unscrewing one or two of the spark plugs a fraction of an inch into or out of the cylinder by hand. The engines' designer and builder, Charlie Taylor,  had taken a leave of absence from the Wright workshop in Ohio to accompany the "Vin Fiz Flyer" across the country, and with all the other pressing redesigns required on the engine,  this was the best one for altering speed that Charlie had come with so far.

It took two days to repair the Vin Fiz after the crash at Middletown, New York on 17 September. So Cal did not return to the race until Thursday, 21 September, 1911.  His first leg that day was to be a hop to Hancock, New York, 40 miles east of Binghamton.  But half way there Cal noticed his radiator had sprung a leak. He kept an eye on the precious fluid dripping out of his engine and then, just as he was over the town - POP! -  A spark plug flew out of engine.  Unscrewing the spark plug to adjust the engine speed evidently also made the plug prone to vibrating itself right out of the engine.  In an instant, the 4 cylinder Wright engine  lost 25% of its power, and the plane had precious little to spare. Cal suddenly found himself plummeting for the ground. Cal managed to steer for an open field,  pulling the "Vin Fiz's" nose up at just the last second to make a cash landing. But it was still a crash. Again, there was nothing to do but wait for the his service train, the "Vin Fiz Special".

The next two weeks would prove to be difficult, as California receded farther and farther away in distance and in time. While making a normal landing at Binghamton, New York,  Cal would later say, “…There was a snap of breaking timber and my right skid had gone". The broken skid was easily replaced over night, from the supplies carried on board the “Vin Fiz Special”,  the three car train that followed and led Cal across the country.  It carried fuel and a rolling repair shop, and a Pullman sleeping car, Cal’s wife Mable, and his mother Maude (nee Rodgers) Sweitzer -  for the time being.

Cal's mother, Maude (nee Rodgers) Sweitzer was on that Pullman, giving solidity to her second husband, Henrey Sweitzer's divorce suit, which he had filed in July. The wealthy businessman had charged Maude with "cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities...and desertion without cause".  Henrey might have named Cal at the co-respondent in the divorce, since it seemed Maude had abandoned her wealthy second husband for her son....her married son.Whose wife was sharing the Pullman with her and Cal, as well as  chief mechanic Charley Tailor. Also sleeping on board was the second mechanic, Charles (Wiggie) Wiggen, three assistant mechanics and assorted newspaper reporters and photographers, most of whom worked for Mr. Hearst..

With such generous support, Cal was airborne again on Friday morning of 22 September, 1911. But that afternoon, as Cal approached a landing at Elmira, New York,  he snagged some telegraph wires. More repairs were required. As Cal traversed the border lands between Pennsylvania and western New York State, he hit a patch of good weather and made up some time, at least until late on Sunday afternoon of 24 September. Just after Cal had taken off from Salamanca, New York, high up on the Allegheny River, .another spark plug vibrated its way out of the Wright engine. But this time Cal coolly reached behind his back, grabbed the hot plug in his glove just before it popped completely out. He twisted it back into the cylinder and held it in place as he made a perfect landing (with one hand) on the Allegheny Indian reservation outside of Red House, N.Y.

Cal now screwed the spark plug firmly back in and,  with help of a couple of native Americans, turned the plane around for take off.  But he couldn’t work up enough speed and had to abort. He tried again, but the second attempt also failed to get airborne.  Each time the two helpful locals had tried to warn Cal that he was aiming at a barbed wire fence. But either because he didn’t understand what they were saying (he was deaf,) or because he was in such a rush, Cal ignored their warnings and the third time proved to be the charm. Cal taxied directly into the barbed wire fence, ripping the fabric covering the right wing to shreds, and wrapping the prickly barbed wire around the frame. It would take two days to free the “Vin Fiz Flyer” to fly yet again.

Cal was back in the air on Wednesday, 27 September , and had safe landings that day and the next. But on Friday, 29 September he was grounded by bad weather. Still, Saturday, 30 September saw him break out of the Alleghenies and enter the rolling farm lands of the old Middle West. The "Vin Fiz" covered 200 miles on 30 September, still 50 miles short of the distance he had intended to average.   He would have gone further but a clogged fuel line forced him down late in the day near Akron, Ohio. Cal spent that night fending off curious cows who seemed determined to crush his fragile airplane under their big fat hooves. Or maybe they were just looking to catch a flight to some place more respectful of vegetarians.

On Sunday, the first day of October, 1911,  Cal stopped at first Mansfield and then Marion, Ohio, before being forced down by another clogged fuel line at Rivare, Indiana, just over the state line. Under threatening skies Cal cleared the fuel line and took off again, only to fly directly into a thunderstorm, the first pilot to ever do so. As lightning snapped around his plane, Cal was the first pilot to experience downdrafts and wind shear, and as quickly as he could, Cal landed the "Vin Fiz" again, in the tiny Hoosier town of Geneva.  As soon as the weather cleared he flew on to Huntington, Indiana, where he was met by an enthusiastic crowd, and was able to spend the night on board the train with his dear Mable. And his dear mother Maria.

The next morning, Monday, 2 October, the winds were still gusting and again Cal had a hard time working up speed on his 35 horsepower Wright engine. Just as he felt his skids leave the ground he realized he was heading for a crowd of people.

Cal yanked the stick to the left, passed under telegraph wires, and bounced his left wing off the ground.  Cal was thrown out of his seat and scrapped his forehead. The left wing of the “Vin Fizz” was crumpled and folded up.  But the “lucky” bottle of soda dangling from the strut was unbroken, yet again. Or so said the Vin Fiz publicity agents.  It would take two days to repair the “Vin Fiz”, essentially its third complete rebuild since takeoff.

On Wednesday 4 October Cal flew to Hammond, Indiana, where he landed just before 6 P.M., on a plowed field on the Jarnecke Farm. He slept that night in the comfort of the Majestic Hotel. But high winds kept him grounded for another two days.

Finally, in desperation, on Saturday, 7 October, 1911, Cal loaded the “Vin Fiz” aboard his train and moved it to the village of Lansing, Illinois, where he found a fallow field with a wind break. This allowed him to finally take off again. As his journey westward by rail had not moved him closer to Chicago, technically, he had not advanced his position in the race.  Or so said the Fin Fiz spin doctors.

Cal Rogers finally reached the air field in Cicero, Illinois, on the west side of Chicago, on the Sunday afternoon of 8 October. This was near where, at the air show in Grant Park on the lake shore just two months before, Cal had made his public debut as a pilot.  By the rules, Cal now had less than two weeks to fly the remaining 3,000 miles across the Mississippi, the Kansas and Nebraska flatlands, the Rocky Mountains, the Great American desert and then the Sierra Nevada mountains. Cal Rogers was the only man still in the race, but he was running out of time.

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Chapter One

I suppose it seemed like a good idea in the beginning. There were three serious contestants, and a $50,000 first place prize.  But in retrospect, it should have been obvious that nobody was going to collect a dime of that money.  It was 1911; flying was still brand new and the world’s first two pilots were still flying - Wilbur and Orville Wright - and still learning to fly.  The world's third pilot was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, and he had died on 17 September, 1908, in a crash that also badly injured Orville. The second pilot to die was Charles Rolls (of Rolls-Royce fame), in a 1910 crash. Considering there were only about 100 men (and one woman) with flying licenses in America in 1911, two percent was an appalling death  rate, bad enough to make you wonder why anybody would have wanted to even try flying, let alone try it from coast to coast.

The world’s 49th licensed pilot was a shy, cocky, 6’4” thirty-something, cigar smoking, playboy and adrenaline junkie with a hearing loss and a speech impediment named Calbraith Perry Rogers (above -right). He was a romantic who favored action over words, as proven by the way he met his wife, 20 something Mabel Groves (above, left).  He saw her slip off a dock and fall into the water.  So assuming she was drowning,  he jumped in and pulled her to safety. Within a few months he married her, despite the hat.   He approached flying with the same spontaneity, but it was a passion which quickly developed into a mission..

Having seen his first airplane on a visit to Dayton, Ohio, in June of 1911,  Cal took the full Wright Brother’s flight course (above),  all 90 minutes of it.  Mabel explained that flying filled the hole in his life left by his deafness which had excluded a military career.  It was, she said "the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle". 

Then Cal talked his mother, Maria, into loaning him $5,000 so he could buy a Wright Model B Flyer “E-X”. The "X" was for experimental – which was a joke because every “airplane” was experimental in 1911.  But Cal may also have been the origin of the phrase to “take a flyer”,  because just two months later, in August, he entered his new Wright Flyer in an air show in Chicago and took home third prize, worth $11, 285.   Not bad: Cal had been a pilot for 60 days and already he had made six grand profit.  He suspected there might be money in this flying thing.

And this was confirmed in October of 1910 when the Hearst newspaper chain had offered $50,000 to the first pilot to make it across the continent in 30 days or less.  The offer was set to expire on 10 October.  So with his self supplied confidence,  Cal decided to go for it. Orville Wright tried to warn him. "There isn't a machine in existence that can be relied upon for 1,000 miles,  and here you want to go over 4,000.  It will vibrate itself to death before you get to Chicago."   But Cal refused to give up the idea.  He explained, "It's important because everything else I've done was unimportant."  Faced with that level of stubbornness,  Orville tried to look at the bright side. At least the Wright B Flyer was so light, said Orville "six good men could carry it across the country."

 What Cal needed, as any NASCAR driver can tell you, was a sponsor.  He found his ‘sticker sucker’ in  Mr. J. Odgen Armour, owner of Armour Meat Packing Company, and his new soft drink called “VIN FIZ”.   Allegedly it was grape favored soda water, but one critic thought it tasted more like  “a fine blend of river sludge and horse slop”   With a product like that Mr. Amour was going to need a heck of an advertising campaign. Enter Cal and his flying bill board.

With a guarantee of $23,000 from Amour, and a bonus of $5 per mile east of the Mississippi River, and $4 per mile to the west of the "big muddy",  and a corporate three rail car support train complete with a reservoir of spare parts, fuel and mechanics, and sleeping car accommodations for Mable, Cal’s mother Maria,  his cousin, his head mechanic Charlie Taylor, two other mechanics, two general assistants and assorted reporters from the Hearst news service, the flight was starting to look possible..

Armour even threw in an automobile (above) to track down Cal whenever he crash landed . With that much corporate funding behind him, Cal figured he had it all figured out. The first problem was that, before Cal even got airborne, his "Vin Fiz" was already in third place.

First off, from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, was motorcycle racer Bob Fowler (above). There were 10,000 cheering people there at 1:35 P.M., on Monday, 11 September,  1911 to see Bob takeoff.  Like Cal, Bob was piloting a Wright “B” Flyer, except his sponsor was Joseph J. Cole, founder and owner of the Cole Motor Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana.  Cole supplied Bob with one of their engines and $7,500.  The Cole engine was more powerful than the Wright engine, but it was also 200 lbs heavier. J.J. also gave Bob a support train, with spare parts and his own mother.  But "The Cole Flyer" lacked the publicity support that accompanied the "Vin Fizz  Flyer..

Making an average speed of about 55 miles an hour, Bob reached Sacramento in just under 2 hours, and after schmoozing with California Governor Hiram Johnson, Bob flew on to the foothill town of Auburn, for a total distance on the first day of 126 miles. Impressive. And on a Monday.  On Tuesday, 12 September,  he reached Alta, California, where he crashed into some trees.  Bob was now out of the race until repairs could be made.

Second to start was James J. (Jimmy) Ward (above),  pilot's license #52, and previously a jockey.  He was flying a Curtis Model D,  with floats, so he could land on any lakes and or rivers he happened to cross.  Jimmy took off from Governor’s Island in New York City harbor on Wednesday, 13 September, 1911. He immediately got lost over New Jersey, and made only twenty miles before crash landing. Then he too had to wait for repairs. The basic tempo of the race had thus been set right from the start; take off, crash, wait for repairs, take off, crash, wait for repairs, and repeat as necessary for 4,000 miles. It was going to be very hard to finish this race, let alone win it.

Before starting himself, Cal Rogers tied a bottle Vin Fiz to one of his wing struts (white circle on the left), “for luck”.  For reality, he tied a pair of crutches to another strut, in case he needed them later. He would.

Before a paying crowd of 2,000, a chorus girl poured a bottle of grape soda over the landing skids and proclaimed, “I dub thee “Vin Fiz Flyer””. Cal actually called his plane “Betsy” but he recognized the value of naming fees even back then.

Cal took off from the race course at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, 17 September. And if anybody noticed that it was the third anniversary of the crash that had killed Lieutenant Selfridge, they were polite enough to keep it to themselves.

After take off, Cal buzzed Coney Island and dropped coupons for free Vin Fiz soda (above). Then he flew across Manhattan as the breathless reporters breathlessly reported, “…with its death-trap of tall buildings, ragged roofs and narrow streets”.  Cal landed safely in Middleton, New York that night to a cheering crowd reported as 10,000 – not to be bettered by San Francisco. He had made all of 84 miles that first day. His plan was to average 250 miles a day.

That night the reporters wrote that Cal claimed he would be in Chicago in four days. But Cal  rarely talked to reporters because he barely heard their questions, the byproduct of a scarlet fever attack in his childhood.  And he spoke in the clumsy monotone of someone who never heard a human voice, clearly.   So it was easier if the the reporters just made up heroic quotes for Cal. They invented more heroic quotes for him the next morning when, on take off,  the "Vin Fiz" hit a tree and ended up in a chicken coop.  The bottle of Vin Fiz was "miraculously" undamaged, as proved because it would have been impossible to find another bottle of Vin Fizz aboard a train car named "The Vin Fiz Special".   But now it was Cal’s turn to wait for repairs.  The race was on!  It just wasn't going anywhere very quickly.

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part Three

I figure that Cal Rogers (above)  was feeling pretty confident on the morning of Saturday, 23 September, 1911.  True, Cal Rogers gave the air of always being pretty confident. But this morning in particular he had received word that one of his competitors, Jimmy Ward,  had dropped out of the “Hearst Coast-to-Coast Race” after crashing (yet again!) 5 miles outside of Addison, New York.  Cal already knew that his other competitor,  Bob Fowler had failed on his third attempt to get over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, finally cracking up near the summit, and reducing his Cole Flyer to kindling and canvas. That left just himself, Cal Rogers, the six foot four inch deaf adventurer from Pittsburgh in the running for the $50,000.00 first place prize.

Of course, Cal still had to get to California within the time limit.  He was barely a tenth of the way across the continent now, and he had already crashed three times. He was already decorated with bandages from all the scrapes and scratches he had suffered.  The problem was that Cal had been a pilot for all of four months. He had less than 60 hours of flying experience. He knew nothing about navigation by air, and there was no one to teach him. The longest flight so far in the United States had been one from St. Louis to New York City, completed just the month before,  by somebody else.  In short, Cal was at the very edge of human experience in flight, both physically and mechanically. 



The Wright engine (above) on his “Vin Fiz Flyer" had no throttle. The 4 cylinder engine was either on or off, at full power or at zero. The pilot had only one way to alter his speed, and that was to “advance the spark”, meaning to alter the instant in the compression cycle when the spark plug fired. In a modern internal combustion engine of the 1920's this would be controlled mechanically. But in the Wright engine of 1911 it was done by physically unscrewing one or two of the spark plugs a fraction of an inch into or out of the cylinder by hand. The engines' designer and builder, Charlie Taylor,  had taken a leave of absence from the Wright workshop in Ohio to accompany the "Vin Fiz Flyer" across the country, and with all the other pressing redesigns required on the engine,  this was the best one for altering speed that Charlie had come with so far.

It took two days to repair the Vin Fiz after the crash at Middletown, New York on 17 September. So Cal did not return to the race until Thursday, 21 September, 1911.  His first leg that day was to be a hop to Hancock, New York, 40 miles east of Binghamton.  But half way there Cal noticed his radiator had sprung a leak. He kept an eye on the precious fluid dripping out of his engine and then, just as he was over the town - POP! -  A spark plug flew out of engine.  Unscrewing the spark plug to adjust the engine speed evidently also made the plug prone to vibrating itself right out of the engine.  In an instant, the 4 cylinder Wright engine  lost 25% of its power, and the plane had precious little to spare. Cal suddenly found himself plummeting for the ground. Cal managed to steer for an open field,  pulling the "Vin Fiz's" nose up at just the last second to make a cash landing. But it was still a crash. Again, there was nothing to do but wait for the his service train, the "Vin Fiz Special".

The next two weeks would prove to be difficult, as California receded farther and farther away in distance and in time. While making a normal landing at Binghamton, New York,  Cal would later say, “…There was a snap of breaking timber and my right skid had gone". The broken skid was easily replaced over night, from the supplies carried on board the “Vin Fiz Special”,  the three car train that followed and led Cal across the country.  It carried fuel and a rolling repair shop, and a Pullman sleeping car, Cal’s wife Mable, and his mother Maude (nee Rodgers) Sweitzer -  for the time being.

Cal's mother, Maude (nee Rodgers) Sweitzer was on that Pullman, giving solidity to her second husband, Henrey Sweitzer's divorce suit, which he had filed in July. The wealthy businessman had charged Maude with "cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities...and desertion without cause".  Henrey might have named Cal at the co-respondent in the divorce, since it seemed Maude had abandoned her wealthy second husband for her son....her married son.Whose wife was sharing the Pullman with her and Cal, as well as  chief mechanic Charley Tailor. Also sleeping on board was the second mechanic, Charles (Wiggie) Wiggen, three assistant mechanics and assorted newspaper reporters and photographers, most of whom worked for Mr. Hearst..

With such generous support, Cal was airborne again on Friday morning of 22 September, 1911. But that afternoon, as Cal approached a landing at Elmira, New York,  he snagged some telegraph wires. More repairs were required. As Cal traversed the border lands between Pennsylvania and western New York State, he hit a patch of good weather and made up some time, at least until late on Sunday afternoon of 24 September. Just after Cal had taken off from Salamanca, New York, high up on the Allegheny River, .another spark plug vibrated its way out of the Wright engine. But this time Cal coolly reached behind his back, grabbed the hot plug in his glove just before it popped completely out. He twisted it back into the cylinder and held it in place as he made a perfect landing (with one hand) on the Allegheny Indian reservation outside of Red House, N.Y.

Cal now screwed the spark plug firmly back in and,  with help of a couple of native Americans, turned the plane around for take off.  But he couldn’t work up enough speed and had to abort. He tried again, but the second attempt also failed to get airborne.  Each time the two helpful locals had tried to warn Cal that he was aiming at a barbed wire fence. But either because he didn’t understand what they were saying (he was deaf,) or because he was in such a rush, Cal ignored their warnings and the third time proved to be the charm. Cal taxied directly into the barbed wire fence, ripping the fabric covering the right wing to shreds, and wrapping the prickly barbed wire around the frame. It would take two days to free the “Vin Fiz Flyer” to fly yet again.

Cal was back in the air on Wednesday, 27 September , and had safe landings that day and the next. But on Friday, 29 September he was grounded by bad weather. Still, Saturday, 30 September saw him break out of the Alleghenies and enter the rolling farm lands of the old Middle West. The "Vin Fiz" covered 200 miles on 30 September, still 50 miles short of the distance he had intended to average.   He would have gone further but a clogged fuel line forced him down late in the day near Akron, Ohio. Cal spent that night fending off curious cows who seemed determined to crush his fragile airplane under their big fat hooves. Or maybe they were just looking to catch a flight to some place more respectful of vegetarians.

On Sunday, the first day of October, 1911,  Cal stopped at first Mansfield and then Marion, Ohio, before being forced down by another clogged fuel line at Rivare, Indiana, just over the state line. Under threatening skies Cal cleared the fuel line and took off again, only to fly directly into a thunderstorm, the first pilot to ever do so. As lightning snapped around his plane, Cal was the first pilot to experience downdrafts and wind shear, and as quickly as he could, Cal landed the "Vin Fiz" again, in the tiny Hoosier town of Geneva.  As soon as the weather cleared he flew on to Huntington, Indiana, where he was met by an enthusiastic crowd, and was able to spend the night on board the train with his dear Mable. And his dear mother Maria.

The next morning, Monday, 2 October, the winds were still gusting and again Cal had a hard time working up speed on his 35 horsepower Wright engine. Just as he felt his skids leave the ground he realized he was heading for a crowd of people.

Cal yanked the stick to the left, passed under telegraph wires, and bounced his left wing off the ground.  Cal was thrown out of his seat and scrapped his forehead. The left wing of the “Vin Fizz” was crumpled and folded up.  But the “lucky” bottle of soda dangling from the strut was unbroken, yet again. Or so said the Vin Fiz publicity agents.  It would take two days to repair the “Vin Fiz”, essentially its third complete rebuild since takeoff.

On Wednesday 4 October Cal flew to Hammond, Indiana, where he landed just before 6 P.M., on a plowed field on the Jarnecke Farm. He slept that night in the comfort of the Majestic Hotel. But high winds kept him grounded for another two days.

Finally, in desperation, on Saturday, 7 October, 1911, Cal loaded the “Vin Fiz” aboard his train and moved it to the village of Lansing, Illinois, where he found a fallow field with a wind break. This allowed him to finally take off again. As his journey westward by rail had not moved him closer to Chicago, technically, he had not advanced his position in the race.  Or so said the Fin Fiz spin doctors.

Cal Rogers finally reached the air field in Cicero, Illinois, on the west side of Chicago, on the Sunday afternoon of 8 October. This was near where, at the air show in Grant Park on the lake shore just two months before, Cal had made his public debut as a pilot.  By the rules, Cal now had less than two weeks to fly the remaining 3,000 miles across the Mississippi, the Kansas and Nebraska flatlands, the Rocky Mountains, the Great American desert and then the Sierra Nevada mountains. Cal Rogers was the only man still in the race, but he was running out of time.

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part One

I suppose it seemed like a good idea in the beginning. There were three serious contestants, and a $50,000 first place prize.  But in retrospect, it should have been obvious that nobody was going to collect a dime of that money.  It was 1911; flying was still brand new and the world’s first two pilots were still flying - Wilbur and Orville Wright - and still learning to fly.  The world's third pilot was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, and he had died on 17 September, 1908, in a crash that also badly injured Orville. The second pilot to die was Charles Rolls (of Rolls-Royce fame), in a 1910 crash. Considering there were only about 100 men (and one woman) with flying licenses in America in 1911, two percent was an appalling death  rate, bad enough to make you wonder why anybody would have wanted to even try flying, let alone try it from coast to coast.

The world’s 49th licensed pilot was a shy, cocky, 6’4” thirty-something, cigar smoking, playboy and adrenaline junkie with a hearing loss and a speech impediment named Calbraith Perry Rogers (above -right). He was a romantic who favored action over words, as proven by the way he met his wife, 20 something Mabel Groves (above, left).  He saw her slip off a dock and fall into the water.  So assuming she was drowning,  he jumped in and pulled her to safety. Within a few months he married her, despite the hat.   He approached flying with the same spontaneity, but it was a passion which quickly developed into a mission..

Having seen his first airplane on a visit to Dayton, Ohio, in June of 1911,  Cal took the full Wright Brother’s flight course (above),  all 90 minutes of it.  Mabel explained that flying filled the hole in his life left by his deafness which had excluded a military career.  It was, she said "the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle". 

Then Cal talked his mother, Maria, into loaning him $5,000 so he could buy a Wright Model B Flyer “E-X”. The "X" was for experimental – which was a joke because every “airplane” was experimental in 1911.  But Cal may also have been the origin of the phrase to “take a flyer”,  because just two months later, in August, he entered his new Wright Flyer in an air show in Chicago and took home third prize, worth $11, 285.   Not bad: Cal had been a pilot for 60 days and already he had made six grand profit.  He suspected there might be money in this flying thing.

And this was confirmed in October of 1910 when the Hearst newspaper chain had offered $50,000 to the first pilot to make it across the continent in 30 days or less.  The offer was set to expire on 10 October.  So with his self supplied confidence,  Cal decided to go for it. Orville Wright tried to warn him. "There isn't a machine in existence that can be relied upon for 1,000 miles,  and here you want to go over 4,000.  It will vibrate itself to death before you get to Chicago."   But Cal refused to give up the idea.  He explained, "It's important because everything else I've done was unimportant."  Faced with that level of stubbornness,  Orville tried to look at the bright side. At least the Wright B Flyer was so light, said Orville "six good men could carry it across the country."

 What Cal needed, as any NASCAR driver can tell you, was a sponsor.  He found his ‘sticker sucker’ in  Mr. J. Odgen Armour, owner of Armour Meat Packing Company, and his new soft drink called “VIN FIZ”.   Allegedly it was grape favored soda water, but one critic thought it tasted more like  “a fine blend of river sludge and horse slop”   With a product like that Mr. Amour was going to need a heck of an advertising campaign. Enter Cal and his flying bill board.

With a guarantee of $23,000 from Amour, and a bonus of $5 per mile east of the Mississippi River, and $4 per mile to the west of the "big muddy",  and a corporate three rail car support train complete with a reservoir of spare parts, fuel and mechanics, and sleeping car accommodations for Mable, Cal’s mother Maria,  his cousin, his head mechanic Charlie Taylor, two other mechanics, two general assistants and assorted reporters from the Hearst news service, the flight was starting to look possible..

Armour even threw in an automobile (above) to track down Cal whenever he crash landed . With that much corporate funding behind him, Cal figured he had it all figured out. The first problem was that, before Cal even got airborne, his "Vin Fiz" was already in third place.

First off, from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, was motorcycle racer Bob Fowler (above). There were 10,000 cheering people there at 1:35 P.M., on Monday, 11 September,  1911 to see Bob takeoff.  Like Cal, Bob was piloting a Wright “B” Flyer, except his sponsor was Joseph J. Cole, founder and owner of the Cole Motor Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana.  Cole supplied Bob with one of their engines and $7,500.  The Cole engine was more powerful than the Wright engine, but it was also 200 lbs heavier. J.J. also gave Bob a support train, with spare parts and his own mother.  But "The Cole Flyer" lacked the publicity support that accompanied the "Vin Fizz  Flyer..

Making an average speed of about 55 miles an hour, Bob reached Sacramento in just under 2 hours, and after schmoozing with California Governor Hiram Johnson, Bob flew on to the foothill town of Auburn, for a total distance on the first day of 126 miles. Impressive. And on a Monday.  On Tuesday, 12 September,  he reached Alta, California, where he crashed into some trees.  Bob was now out of the race until repairs could be made.

Second to start was James J. (Jimmy) Ward (above),  pilot's license #52, and previously a jockey.  He was flying a Curtis Model D,  with floats, so he could land on any lakes and or rivers he happened to cross.  Jimmy took off from Governor’s Island in New York harbor on Wednesday, 13 September, 1911. He immediately got lost over New Jersey, and made only twenty miles before crash landing. Then he too had to wait for repairs. The basic tempo of the race had thus been set right from the start; take off, crash, wait for repairs, take off, crash, wait for repairs, and repeat as necessary for 4,000 miles. It was going to be very hard to finish this race, let alone win it.

Before starting himself, Cal Rogers tied a bottle Vin Fiz to one of his wing struts (white circle on the left), “for luck”.  For reality, he tied a pair of crutches to another strut, in case he needed them later. He would.

Before a paying crowd of 2,000, a chorus girl poured a bottle of grape soda over the landing skids and proclaimed, “I dub thee “Vin Fiz Flyer””. Cal actually called his plane “Betsy” but he recognized the value of naming fees even back then.

Cal took off from the race course at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, 17 September. And if anybody noticed that it was the third anniversary of the crash that had killed Lieutenant Selfridge, they were polite enough to keep it to themselves.

After take off, Cal buzzed Coney Island and dropped coupons for free Vin Fiz soda (above). Then he flew across Manhattan as the breathless reporters breathlessly reported, “…with its death-trap of tall buildings, ragged roofs and narrow streets”.  Cal landed safely in Middleton, New York that night to a cheering crowd reported as 10,000 – not to be bettered by San Francisco. He had made all of 84 miles that first day. His plan was to average 250 miles a day.

That night the reporters wrote that Cal claimed he would be in Chicago in four days. But Cal  rarely talked to reporters because he barely heard their questions, the byproduct of a scarlet fever attack in his childhood.  And he spoke in the clumsy monotone of someone who never heard a human voice, clearly.   So it was easier if the the reporters just made up heroic quotes for Cal. They invented more heroic quotes for him the next morning when, on take off,  the "Vin Fiz" hit a tree and ended up in a chicken coop.  The bottle of Vin Fiz was "miraculously" undamaged, as proved because it would have been impossible to find another bottle of Vin Fizz aboard a train car named "The Vin Fiz Special".   But now it was Cal’s turn to wait for repairs.  The race was on!  It just wasn't going anywhere very quickly.

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