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. 

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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.

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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 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.

- 30 -