In the meantime Ruth Law had been thinking about exactly the same flight. The plane she had was a Curtiss D pusher with a fuel capacity of 53 gallons.
So, a couple of weeks after Carlstrom’s flight, she left Chicago. It was a gusty day and the pilot had a hard time getting the plane out of Grant Park. Even without her extra load of gasoline, that place offered a pretty restricted area. Once off, her troubles were not over for she had to skim along over the city at a 200 foot altitude, dodging in and out among the buildings, until she reached open country.
Profiting by Carlstrom’s misfortune. Miss Law had installed a rubber hose as a fuel line, so that she would not be troubled with its breaking. Her instruments, in contrast to those used today, were a compass and a clock! However, because she hoped to make a record, she also carried a barograph to show she had not landed.
Her clothes for the flight consisted of “two layers of wool and two layers of leather.” She chose the popular knickers of the day and a wool hockey cap. Even with this warm attire, it must have been bitterly cold stitting forward on the little machine entirely unprotected against the wind.
Nevertheless Ruth Law remained in the air for five hours and 45 minutes or until she had used her last drop of gasoline. She landed at Hornell, New York, 590 miles from Chicago and 128 miles beyond Erie.
