The Fun of It/Chapter 12

by Amelia Earhart

WE TAKE TO THE AIR

THE event which started concerted activity among women fliers was the cross country air derby for women of 1929. This was a race which started on the West Coast and ended eight days later at Cleveland, Ohio.

Sunday afternoon August 18, nineteen planes with propellers turning, lined up at Clover Field, Santa Monica, California. Will Rogers was on the loud speaker to point out the humorous aspects of such an event. Taking their cue from him, news­ paper men coined descriptive names for the affair before contestants reached their first stop. It was generally called the “powder puff derby” and those who flew in it variously as “Ladybirds”, “Angels” or “Sweethearts of the Air”. (We are still trying to get ourselves called just “pilots”.)

Finishing a race, as in anything else, is as important as starting, and sixteen of the women crossed the white line at the end. This was the highest per cent of “finishers” in any cross country derby, up to that time, for men or women.

This first air derby was won by Louise Thaden of Pittsburgh, with Gladys O’Donnell of Califor­nia, second and me third. It captured the public interest and proved invaluable in interesting other women in aviation. A large part of the crowds which greeted the derby at the prearranged stops along the route were women. They came to see what the powder puffers themselves looked like and after that what kind of airplanes they had. Some were so interested in these they poked umbrellas through the fabric on the wings to discover what was inside. Since then I have maintained that women’s hesitancy in accepting air travel is simply because they are uninformed about it. What peo­ple don’t understand, they usually fear.

Funny and serious situations continuously arose behind the scenes on the race. Blanche Noyes dis­covered fire in the baggage compartment of her plane and had to come down on a mesquite covered section of western Texas to put it out. No one knows how she managed to land without damaging the plane nor how she took off again from such a place.

Now and then some of the inexperienced pilots got lost, some ran out of gasoline, some were forced down by motor trouble. During the course of the race, more than one had to pick out the best spot available and make an unscheduled descent. Of course, when a pilot finds it necessary to land away from an established airport he—or she—heads for a good big pasture if one is around. One day one of the girls had to seek a pasture for some reason and the best one she saw had animals in it. Never­theless she landed safely and then to her consterna­tion watched the creatures solemnly walk toward her. Her version of the story is that she promptly offered up a little prayer. It was “Dear God, let them all be cows.”

Speaking of cows, I am reminded of one of the most famous of air mail stories. Dean Smith flew the route from New York to Cleveland for a good many years. On one occasion, when his motor failed him, he too sought a pasture for a landing. Unfor­tunately, the “animals” in it were not well behaved for they stood in his way and he landed directly on one. The following is in substance the account of the accident which he telegraphed to his chief—

“Motor cut. Forced landing. Hit cow. Cow died. Scared me.”

To return to the derby, it is but fair to give credit where it is due. The race was arranged and its prizes financed by the National Exchange Clubs, an organization which I believe has done more to aid aviation than any other non-professional group in America.

It is interesting to compare the status of women flying in 1929 with their position today. To be eligible for the 1929 derby, a current license and a minimum of one hundred hours’ solo flying were required. I doubt whether more than thirty Amer­ican women could have qualified. But of this pos­sible thirty, twenty turned out.

In 1929, only seven women held Department of Commerce Transport licenses and six of these were in the race. Today, as I have said before, there are more than seven times this number. In addi­tion to these and the 450 LC’s and Privates, twelve women hold glider licenses and five are li­censed mechanics.

Although only two years separates them, it is a far cry from the pioneering derby performance to women’s share in the National Air Races in Cleve­land in 1931, There for the first time in the United States men and women participated in a cross coun­try derby together. There were about fifty en­trants whose planes had been handicapped on the basis of their top speeds.

Unlike the British, the Americans have done little mixed racing, nor have they favored any sys­tem of handicapping. The method of determining classes has been almost universally based on size of motors. Thus, a cabin airplane built to carry six passengers might be placed in the same class with a strictly racing plane carrying only the pilot because both had engines with the same cubic inch displace­ment.

In England, on the other hand, almost all racing has been carried on with the fast planes starting late to give the slower ones a chance—motors not being considered. So that, barring an accident, good piloting wins or loses. The King’s Cup Race, the most famous annual cross country event, is run in this manner, and is open to all pilots of both sexes. Miss Winifred Brown is the only woman who has won it (1930).

While the 1931 American derby pilots raced over the same course, made the same stops, and were judged by the same officials, there were separate prizes in the men’s classification and so, also, for the women. However, a sweepstakes was offered to the winner, irrespective of sex, who had the highest total of points. This prize, $2500.00, and a new automobile was won by a woman, Phoebe Omlie, of Memphis, Tennessee. Mrs. Omlie, by the way, won several thousand dollars in addition to this in the closed course races, and was one of the heaviest winners among competing women pilots. Among other prize winners were May Haizlip, Maude Tait, Gladys O’Donnell and Florence Klingensmith.

One of the best races for men is the justly famous Thompson Trophy event. It is to land planes what the Schneider Cup has been to seaplanes. In other words it is the aerial speed classic of the year.

Corresponding to this is the Aerol Trophy Race for women for maximum speed over a closed course. In 1931 the distance was fifty miles, made in five laps of a ten-mile course, the flyer rounding four markers. The home pylon, as the markers are called, is directly in front of the grandstand, while the other three simply define the boundaries of the course to be flown.

The highest speed made in this race was 187 miles an hour, attained by Maude Tait in her Gee Bee sport plane. This time, it is interesting to no­tice, is less than fifteen miles slower than that of the best record made by men in the Thompson Trophy race of the year before—which goes to show that selected women flyers, if given opportunity and equipment, may be expected to tread pretty closely upon the heels of their male competitors.

In the 1931 National Air Races, men and women had separate events as usual. However, during the year, throughout the country there were an increas­ing number of contests in which both sexes partici­pated, solely as pilots. Slowly the prejudice against women is lessening, and it appears probable that before long they will compete in major speed events on equal terms.

Whatever handicaps in tradition, training or ex­perience women face they do not have to overcome any as far as Department of Commerce licenses are concerned. In this connection, they are more fortunate than some of their sisters abroad. Some countries issue only restricted licenses to women and in some, women cannot hold any, so far as I can find out. England is the notable exception and fol­lows the same rule as does the United States, i.e., if a candidate passes physical and flying tests a li­cense is issued according to qualifications irrespec­tive of sex.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale governs the aeronautical sporting events here and abroad, and is in charge of all record flights. The National Aeronautic Association is the representa­tive in the United States of that body. No pilot can make an official test for altitude, speed or dis­tance without its sanction. Its representatives are on hand to supervise all efforts at record making.

Since the establishment of the F. A. I. twenty-five years ago, there had been only one category for aeronautical attainments. No one could have fore­seen what limits of speed or endurance or altitude airplanes would reach. In 1905 there were so few pilots, that classifying them would have been a joke, During the war, however, the number of pilots and airplanes increased tremendously and records thought impossible once, began to be made. But women didn’t really become very active until 1929, as I have described previously. Certainly they had not progressed to the point where they figured in any of the records made. They had neither the experience nor the equipment to attain world rec­ognition in any of the classifications. Conse­quently, any efforts they made were labeled unoffi­cial despite the fact they were as carefully judged and tabulated as were those which men were con­tinuously writing in the annals of the F. A. I.

“Why,” asked Mr. General Public, “is Mary Smith’s altitude record of umpty-ump thousand feet not official? That’s higher than any other woman has flown, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” was the answer, “but it isn’t higher than men have gone. As there are not separate records for women, the only ones which are official must ex­ceed theirs.”

After earnest requests from various women fliers separate classifications were set up. Thus, they can fly as high and as fast and as far as they are able, and if they exceed what other women have done, they may earn official recognition. If they exceed the marks made by any other flyer whomsoever, they may hold title to world records.

While no woman at present holds a world record, Maryse Bastie of France has been officially credited with staying aloft for thirty-seven hours and fifty-five minutes consecutively—longer than anyone else has ever done alone. She does not rate a world rec­ord, however, as a solo performance is not differen­tiated from that where two or more pilots are to­gether and can “spell” each other. As a matter of fact, the United States holds this particular Inter­national one with eighty-four hours and thirty-two minutes.

Perhaps I should explain what world records are. There are only five of them and they are—greatest altitude, maximum speed over a three kilometer straightaway course, greatest distance measured in a straight line, endurance flying around a closed cir­cuit, and endurance flying just staying aloft and landing at the place of take off.

In other words the most successful performance in any of these fields rates as a world record, no matter who makes it nor what type of aircraft he or she uses. However, there are many, many other official records besides these to be tried for. They are in a group classified not as World but as Inter­national and are subdivided into many categories. Thus there are altitude and speed records for small land planes, for example, and similar ones for large models. Speed runs may be made empty or with specified loads over specified distances, depending on just which record the pilot aims to establish. Thus, on the list of women record holders, May Haizlip is credited with an altitude record of 18,097 feet in a light airplane. That means she has gone higher in that class (18,097 feet) than any other woman and so holds the international record. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to compare what her little Bull Pup can do with what a plane with a motor twice as powerful could accomplish—which is an illustration of the reason for the subdivisions.

INTERNATIONAL FEMININE RECORDS

Landplanes

Duration (France) Maryse Bastie, 37 hours 55 minutes:
Klemm airplane, Salmson 40 h.p. engine
Le Bourget, September 2, 3, 4, 1930

Altitude (United States) Ruth Nichols, 28,743 feet:
Lockheed Vega monoplane, Pratt and Whitney Wasp 420 h.p.
Jersey City Airport, New Jersey, March 6, 1931

Maximum speed (U. S.) Ruth Nichols, 210.63 miles per hour:
Lockheed Vega monoplane, P and W “Wasp” 420 h.p.
Carleton, Michigan, April 13, 1931

Distance—airline (U. S.)—Ruth Nichols, 1977.6 miles:
Lockheed Vega monoplane

Speed for 100 kilometers (U. S.) Amelia Earhart, 174.89 mph:
Lockheed Vega monoplane, P and W Wasp, 420 h.p.
Detroit, Michigan, June 25, 1930.

Speed for 100 kilometers with payload of 500 kilograms (U. S.):
Amelia Earhart, 171.43 miles per hour
Lockheed Vega monoplane, P and W Wasp, 420 h.p.
Detroit, Michigan, June 25, 1930

Duration with refueling in flight (United States):
Evelyn Trout and Edna May Cooper, 123 hours
Curtiss Robin monoplane. Challenger 170 h.p. engine
Los Angeles, California, January 4–9, 1931

Light Airplanes

Distance airline (France) Maryse Bastie, 1849.76 miles:
Klemm airplane, Salmson 40 h.p. engine
Le Bourget, France, to Urino, Russia, June 28–30, 1930

Altitude (United States) May Haizlip, 18,097 feet
Buhl “Bull Pup,” Szekeley 85 h.p. engine
St. Clair, Michigan, June 13, 1931

Seaplanes

Altitude (United States) Marion Eddy Conrad, 13,461.25 feet
Savoia-Marchetti airplane, Kinner 125 h.p. engine
Port Washington, Long Island, October 20, 1930

Records as such may or may not be important, but at least the more of them women make, the more forcefully is it demonstrated that they can and do fly. Directly or indirectly, more opportu­nities for those who wish to enter the aviation world should be opened by such evidence.

During the last few years a dozen or more Amer­ican women have been doing progressively fine fly­ing. Much of it has been true pioneering, for a number of those who are most active are really pro­fessionals and make their living from aviation.

What are women flyers like? What do they do when not flying? How do they look? These ques­tions are still asked so often that I am going to de­scribe a few of those I know.

Of course, they are not different as individuals from any other group. There are slim ones and plump ones and quiet ones and those who talk all the time. They’re large and small, young and old, about half the list are married and many of these have children. In a word, they are simply thor­oughly normal girls and women who happen to have taken up flying rather than golf, swimming or steeplechasing.

Ruth Nichols is one of the most active record holders among women flyers, yet flying does not fill her time by any means. She lives at Rye, New York, not far from my own home, so I see her driv­ing her car, swimming, riding, and doing just about everything you would expect a modern young woman to do outdoors as well as in. She is a gradu­ate of Wellesley College and during her college career majored in Bible History and Literature. In her third year there she approached the dean with the idea of flying.

“Miss Blank, I think I should like to learn to fly.”

“Fly?” queried the dean. “My dear young lady, I have enough to do with several hundred students as it is. Motor cars brought trouble of their own. Now I certainly am not going to add any more by admitting airplanes, too. No, you may not fly.”

Despite her arguments, she could not change that decree. So Ruth abandoned Wellesley for one year and took her flying lessons off campus. Her instructor was Harry Rodgers and in a short time he soloed her on seaplanes at Port Washington, Long Island. Later, with Captain Rodgers, she made the first non-stop flight from New York to Miami in twelve hours.

After graduation—she returned to college to get her degree—she became assistant to the head of the woman’s department of the National City Bank of New York. This was the beginning of her business career. She subsequently became the first woman director of a large aviation corporation.

In 1928 Miss Nichols had an important part in the organization of Aviation Country Clubs, formed by a group of sportsmen pilots who wanted the advantages of a country club with flying added. The first of these clubs was opened at Hicksville, Long Island. In their interest Ruth made a 12,000 mile solo flight with an escorting plane. On this long journey she landed in 96 cities and 48 states without a forced landing.

She was one of the competitors in the famous 1929 transcontinental derby. And since then she has done her share of distinguished flying. In solo flight, she has been to date officially higher, faster and farther in a straight line than any other woman. On March 6, 1931, she attained an altitude of 27,740 feet, besting the record previously held by Elinor Smith. In April of 1931, in her Wasp powered Lockheed, she established a speed record at Carleton, Michigan, attaining 210 miles per hour. In this, she excelled the record of 181 miles per hour I had set the year before. Then in October, 1931, on an attempted non-stop flight from Cali­fornia to New York, she established a new long dis­tance record for women. She landed in Louisville, Kentucky, after covering 1977 miles without a stop—568 miles farther than Maryse Bastie of France had flown.

Miss Nichols has also to her credit an east-west transcontinental record of sixteen hours, fifty-nine and one-half minutes and a women’s west-east transcontinental record of thirteen hours twenty-one minutes. Both of these, of course, are reckoned on actual flying time and not elapsed time. That is, when she stopped for motor check and to refuel and over night at Wichita, time was taken out. Up to now, no women have made non stop transcon­tinental hops. But perhaps by the time you read this that statement may not be true.

Miss Nichols’ flying advisor is Clarence Cham­berlin, the famous pilot who took Levine across the Atlantic in 1927. It is he who helped her in her plans for a solo transatlantic flight. While the first plane she obtained for this was damaged in a small field at St. John, New Brunswick, I suspect it is only a matter of time before she tries again.

I think Miss Nichols is probably the only woman in captivity who has delivered by plane one brother to an army air training station. Recently, she fer­ried the elder of her two younger brothers to Kelly Field where he is completing his training. By the way, the other one is working at one of the Long Island airports and is earning his license there. Her sister is secretary for a flyer, and that puts the whole family into aviation as far as the younger generation goes. The others only ride.

Ruth Nichols always dresses with charm and dis­tinction. Even in the air she is apt to be garbed in her favorite color, which happens to be purple, and she owns a specially made purple leather flying suit and helmet.

Another well known flyer is Elinor Smith. Be­fore Miss Nichols captured it, she held the altitude record for women with a mark of 27,418 feet. After it was taken from her, she promptly went up to get it back. In this attempt she fainted at 25,000 feet, when her oxygen tube broke, and fell four miles through the air before she regained consciousness. She was only two thousand feet above the earth at that moment, yet managed to get control of her plane and land in a vacant lot. Then, just to show she hadn’t lost her nerve, she tried again for the al­titude record the following week.

It has been said of Miss Smith that she learned to fly almost as soon as she learned to walk. Be that as it may, she made her first official flight, at least, at the age of eight. In those days the Smith family lived near the old Curtiss Field on Long Island and Elinor’s father, who is an actor, found himself succumbing to the lure of flying. Elinor, then about ten, used to play around while her father took instruction. Various pilots were forever tak­ing her up and letting her handle the controls in the air.

I believe she was fifteen when her father bought a plane, and it was hard for her to learn that she could not solo until she was eighteen. It appears that she couldn’t wait, for she arranged for some lessons with a little money of her own. Every morning she arose at five and sneaked away for her instruction, returning home to be “waked” for school. By the time her parents discovered what she was up to, she really felt herself a pretty good pilot.

Elinor Smith commenced making her mark in flying when she was only eighteen. In October, 1928, she attracted plenty of attention—and trouble for herself—by flying under all the East River bridges one Sunday afternoon. This prank caused the Department of Commerce to sus­pend her license temporarily. Three months later, she went up after the solo endurance record for women held by Bobby Trout. It was the end of January and for thirteen hours in an open cockpit plane she circled the Long Island flying fields. Then, the story goes, she saw lights flashing from

Ruth Nichols

Ballooning in Germany

the ground which she thought were signals that something was wrong. So she landed, half frozen—only to find out that she was an hour—but only an hour—on the long side of the previous record. Then Bobby Trout took the record back and after that Louise Thaden had it for a while, until Elinor Smith went up again and stayed for twenty-six hours or more. In this country that mark still stands.

In 1929 she and Bobby Trout tried a refueling flight in California. In a ship that was not really fit for the job, they contrived to stay aloft forty-two hours. They only came down then because their refueling partners had motor trouble and couldn't service them longer.

Miss Smith has flown many kinds of planes and flown them well. She likes to fly big ones, and I think she has a real philosophy for doing so. At least, she is quoted as having said, “If you come in with a light plane, nobody pays any attention to you. Heavy planes aren’t really any harder to handle, but people think they are. They think women can only handle little ones.” In which there is a great deal of truth.

In flying, as in many modern pursuits, a certain amount of showmanship helps one to get over the rough spots—especially if flying is a profession and competition hard.

Among the jobs connected with aviation which Miss Smith has developed is broadcasting a weekly aviation news radio talk. She has also proved very successful as radio announcer at air meets, for she speaks fluently, has real wit, and knows nearly everyone in the field.

Miss Smith’s clothes can usually be counted on for a surprise. She is apt to wear whatever fancy or comfort of the moment dictates. At air meets I have seen her in costumes that range from conventional riding breeches to bright red beach overalls or shorts.

Verily, clothes don't make a pilot, and pilots, men or women, may wear almost any kind they choose and still fly.

I think I should pause and emphasize this point a bit. Since the public has only recently learned that flying is not a thing totally apart from other human activities, only recently have pilots been able to fly in everyday clothes. At one time unless they dressed as “aviators,” they were likely to be regarded with suspicion. To do my part in making aviation appear as normal as possible, I decided several years ago to abandon special togs and to wear only conventional sport clothes, with skirts, around airports and while flying. Sometimes I even omitted a helmet and pulled on my goggles over a close fitting hat. Thus I entered my plane as matter-of-factly as I did a car—and nearly always surprised onlookers thereby.

Those days are over. The increasing familiarity of people with cabin planes and aviation in general has lightened this and other loads which devotees such as I assumed for the good of the cause. We can now wear nearly anything we choose with practicality—and sometimes price—the deciding factors. Of course an exception is the case of airline pilots who must wear uniforms while on duty. Then, too, there is one of the women pilots who insists she doesn’t get service at airports if she wears street clothing even though she arrives in a closed plane where there is no necessity for trousers of any sort. When she does venture forth in skirts, she keeps a helmet on the seat beside her to clap on her head after landing to impress attendants.

So clothes have an important relation to aviation. I have mentioned them throughout this book because I think they not only may characterize individuals but throw a side light on the development of the industry as a whole.

To return to Elinor Smith, these days she has a fast Lockheed, such as Miss Nichols has used, and no one knows what is up her sleeve.