Walking on Air (9 page)

Five months later, Phoebe appeared in the newspaper again, wearing braces and smiling after landing from her first flight since the accident. She reported that she was “almost thankful” for the crash. She explained that she hated to see any sort of aviation accident because it retarded the whole industry, but in this case, there was a benefit. Careful analysis of the accident revealed that a wing control cable had slipped off a pulley, causing the controls to lock and hurling the plane to the ground. As a result, the company modified the pulley on all subsequent Monocoupes.
³⁷
Still depending on a cane to help her walk on her damaged legs, Phoebe headed back to Moline to pick up a new ship to replace
Chiggers
. The Monocoupe 113 was powered by a new seven-cylinder Warner Scarab 110 hp motor and dubbed
Miss Moline
.
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Phoebe began making plans to break a record. First she considered attempting to shatter the women's endurance flight record of twenty-two hours.
³⁹
For unknown reasons, this quest was abandoned in favor of setting a new altitude record. The standing altitude record for women was set by Louise Thaden at 20,200 feet; the record for light planes was 24,000 made by Barney Zimmerling.
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Phoebe made arrangements to do the attempt during the Memorial Day program at the airport in St. Louis.
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Unfortunately the official sealed barograph sent from the National Aeronautical Association, which was necessary in order to substantiate a new record, was inadvertently given to another flier. So no attempt was made. Phoebe considered trying it again at the grand opening of the new Memphis Municipal Airport, but there was not enough time to get the necessary equipment in place since she was already committed to participate in the Michigan Air Tour, Indiana Air Tour, and a race in Iowa that summer.
⁴²
But she did not abandon the idea.

The new municipal airport opened in Memphis with appropriate fanfare that June. Pressed by Universal Aviation of Chicago, which wanted a route from Cincinnati to New Orleans to go through Memphis, and the increasing demand for passenger service demonstrated by Mid-South Airways, the airport commission finally responded. They leased about 200 acres of land at Winchester and Hollyford Road (now Airways) seven miles from downtown. The commission contracted with Standard Oil Company to construct a hangar and administration building in return for exclusive sales of aviation fuel. The result was a two-story filling station with airport offices on the second floor.
⁴³
Mid-South Airways, Curtiss-Wright, and Universal Aviation all bid for exclusive rights for a fixed base operation at the new airport.
The giant Curtiss-Wright won easily. They bought out Omlie's Mid-South Airways and employed Vernon Omlie, “one of the safest and most practical pilots in the South,” as chief pilot and operations manager.
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“Memphis is a full-fledged flying city now,” proclaimed the newspaper at the new Memphis Municipal Airport's official dedication on 15 June 1929. By midafternoon, Hollyfield Road was blocked for over a mile by cars trying to get to the celebration. “A wriggling mass of humanity … estimated at 25,000, moved about the sidelines under a blistering sun” to see the new facilities—three hangars and a sod-field runway—and the more than 200 airplanes that flew in for the opening.
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A military squadron from Pensacola Naval Base flew over in a perfect “V” formation, and a stunt flier named Freddie Lund, billed as the “Bronco Buster of the Skies,” was “responsible for many a sun-burned tonsil” as he thrilled the crowd with his aerial prowess. Summing it all up, the
Commercial Appeal
proclaimed, “A new era dawns which knows no boundaries, no roads, no limitations.”
⁴⁶
The stock market crashed four months later.

After the celebration, Phoebe flew back up to Moline to make one last attempt at an altitude record. Her ship was fitted with oxygen tanks and officials from the National Aeronautical Association tucked the sealed barograph into the small cabin. Dressed in a fur-lined flying suit and heavy gloves, she took off into the clear blue sky over the quad cities. For two hours, several thousand spectators anxiously scanned the sky. As she came in sight, she was flying a bit erratically and as she spiraled to earth, spectators could see that the front glass on her plane was covered with oil and frost. She stumbled from the cockpit, pale and bleeding from her nose, and collapsed.
⁴⁷
Once she got her bearings again, she told the press what had happened.

It began to get pretty cold. At 15,000 feet it was winter and the atmosphere began to thin out. I put on the oxygen mask and turned the oxygen tanks on. I thought the oxygen would run out and cut down the flow and right there I made a mistake. I had it too thin and it began to tell on me …. When the altimeter reached 25,400 feet my motor blew a spark plug. Almost at once the main oil line went bad and the oil began to spray back in my face. It blinded me and I was half dizzy from lack of sufficient oxygen. I nosed the ship down and started for earth. I guess I was pretty dizzy when I finally got down low enough to breathe well and peek out a little hole in the side of the cabin to see where I was heading. I managed to swing the plane around the field a couple of times and start side-slipping and fish-tailing in. The ship landed all right but I was groggy.
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Her altimeter topped at 25,400, smashing Thaden's record by 5,200 feet and Zimmerling's altitude record for light planes by nearly 1,500 feet. This was, said the newspaper, “a personal triumph and a convincing demonstration of the ruggedness and power of the Monocoupe.”
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The sealed barograph was lifted out of her plane and sent to Washington to be verified.

The press talked with Vernon that night. He expressed pleasure that his wife had been successful. “But I wasn't worried about it,” he said, “I knew she would make it.”
⁵⁰
Phoebe told her husband on the phone that she was “pretty thrilled and happy …. I'm coming home in about two weeks—just as soon as I can complete my plans for the Cleveland race.”
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She announced to the press that she would enter the Cleveland transcontinental race to be held in August “provided event officials permit feminine pilots to compete. It was announced recently that a special race would be arranged for women if five entries in each of the two classes could be secured.”
⁵²

Three weeks later, the Bureau of Standards announced that its calibration of the barograph carried by Phoebe Omlie did not substantiate the establishment of a new record. The calibration indicated she reached a maximum altitude of 17,467 feet. Bitterly disappointed, Phoebe said that she could not believe that her altimeter could vary by as much as 8,000 feet.
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She said she hoped to make another attempt and that when she did, two barographs would be carried along with a new altimeter for her Monocoupe.
⁵⁴

But first she had other obligations. She was booked to compete in an air race sponsored by the Iowa Aeronautical Association in connection with the state aviation show at Des Moines. The unusual format for the race provided that the pilot must start from some point outside the state of Iowa and arrive at Des Moines between 8
AM
and noon on 19 July. Prizes were awarded on the basis of speed, distance covered, and the combined weight of the pilot, plane, and baggage.
⁵⁵

Four Monocoupes entered the race, one starting from Hasting, Nebraska, another from Manhattan, Kansas, a third began in Dodge City, Kansas. Phoebe elected to make the longest flight of the race, beginning at Albany, New York.
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She flew nonstop from Albany to Moline, then continued on to Des Moines the following morning. Despite encountering two severe thunderstorms en route, she made excellent time and, given her great distance, was the clear winner. She was barred from the free-for-all light plane race at the meet, but handily defeated “all other feminine entries in the 30-mile race for women,” and shone “in various types of exhibition flying.”
⁵⁷
By this time it was the end of July and Phoebe was keen to join the
Cleveland air races, which had finally decided to let “the girls” have a transcontinental race of their own.

The National Air Races were a combination of major public spectacle and industrial fair. Calling itself the “Air Classic of the Century,” the ten-day extravaganza featured nine cross-country derbies, thirty-five closed-course race events, stunt flying in a wide variety of airplane sizes and capabilities, army and navy maneuvers, gliders, dirigibles, and parachute jumping. A new $10 million public hall in downtown Cleveland housed some 250 exhibits of aircraft, motors, and accessories. The “most expensive airplane ever placed on exhibition” was a jewel-encrusted model tri-motor airplane valued at $400,000. Boeing's newest tri-motor transport was on display outside Cleveland City Hall. Reflective of the ballyhoo of 1920s air-mindedness, the events and races had a kind of split personality. On the one hand, the stunts and daredevil aspects dazzled the crowd, but on the other, organizers were committed to winning public acceptance for commercial aviation by emphasizing safety, economy, comfort, and reliability.
⁵⁸

It was this second aspect that the organizers had in mind in sponsoring a women's derby. Having women participate would surely demonstrate that aviation was safe and easy. Marketing director for the derby, Frank Copeland, asserted that “If the … weaker sex accomplishes the art of flying, it is positive proof of the simplicity and universal practicality of individual flying.”
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Or, as Louise Thaden once put it, “Nothing impresses the safety of aviation on the public quite so much as to see a woman fly a plane.” If a woman can handle it, she said, “the public thinks it must be duck soup for men.”
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For their part, the women wanted to compete for the same reasons men did: to experience adventure, to make history, to demonstrate their abilities, “to show the world that we could do it.”
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German pilot Thea Rasche remarked, “Flying is more thrilling than love for a man and far less dangerous.”
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Since the announcement, race coordinators had been debating the ground rules, mostly designed to protect the women from potential hazards. Suggestions included requiring the women to carry (male) navigators so they wouldn't get lost, male mechanics to keep their planes running, and to begin the race somewhere east of the Rockies to spare them the dangerous mountains. These ideas were met with stiff protests from the women pilots who argued that should male navigators or mechanics accompany the women, any Hollywood starlet could enter and have her mechanic do the flying. Further, with a man along, women pilots would be assumed to have had the men do the flying. Amelia Earhart told the
New York Times
, “I for one and some of the other women fliers … think it is ridiculous to advertise
this as an important race and then set us down at Omaha for a level flight to Cleveland. As for suggesting that we carry a man to navigate our own course through the Rockies I, for one, won't enter. None of us will enter unless it is going to be a real sporting contest.”
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The suggestions were dropped. This first National Women's Air Derby, Santa Monica to Cleveland, would cover 2,700 miles over eight days, with seventeen stops in as many cities. It would be a real test of their navigational and piloting prowess and include tangible rewards. The Santa Monica Exchange Club, which sponsored the race, put up $8,000 in prize money and sponsors at the various overnight stops put up lap prizes for each leg of the race.
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The women's race was one of three cross-country races set to converge at the 1929 National Air Races and Aeronautical Exposition at Cleveland. The other two cross-country races for men began at Portland, Oregon, and Miami Beach, Florida.
⁶⁵
The Graf Zeppelin, in the course of its around-the-world flight, was also heading for the rendezvous in Cleveland.
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Seventy women held U.S. Department of Commerce licenses in the summer of 1929 (compared to over 9,500 men), but only forty met the Women's Derby requirements: one hundred hours of solo flight including twenty-five hours of solo cross-country flights of more than forty miles from the starting point. In addition to a Department of Commerce pilot's license, competitors had to hold a license issued by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) and an annual sporting license from the National Aeronautic Association, the American representative of the FAI.
⁶⁷

Twenty women signed up to participate. They came from across the United States and included Thea Rasche, Germany's first female stunt flier, and New Zealander Jessie “Chubby” Keith-Miller, the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
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More than half were experienced pilots like Phoebe and Ruth Nichols, who had both been flying since 1922.
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Phoebe had accumulated over 2,000 hours of flying time, making her the most experienced pilot in the race. Though she was still wearing braces on her legs and hobbled with a cane in each hand, that didn't seem to affect her flying. She had even come up with a method to reduce her fatigue in the air by rigging up a door spring on the stick to act as a stabilizer.
⁷⁰
Her most important asset was her experience in the Ford Reliability Air Tour. As a result, she was intimately familiar with what she and her machine were capable of as well as many of the challenges a cross-continental race entailed.

Seven women held transport licenses in 1929, and six of them were in the race.
⁷¹
Some of the women flew for a living, like Phoebe, Louise Thaden,
and Ruth Nichols, who demonstrated airplanes for their manufacturers, and Marvel Crosson, who was an experienced bush pilot in Alaska. Many had gone after records for endurance and altitude, but Louise Thaden held the trifecta: she had set a woman's altitude record at 20,200 feet in December 1928; a women's endurance record at 22 hours, 3 minutes, 28 seconds in March 1929; and a women's speed record at 156 miles per hour in April 1929.
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Ruth Elder had just made an unsuccessful attempt to be the first female to replicate Lindbergh's achievement of a solo transatlantic flight.
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More than half of the entrants were relative newcomers to flying, having acquired their licenses within the past year. And a few, like Opal Kunz, Gladys O'Donnell, and Mary Von Mach, had barely achieved the minimum flying hours in time for the race.
⁷⁴
Amelia Earhart, the most famous of the women competing, was better known for her writing and speaking tours following her famous transatlantic flight—as a passenger—the previous June. She was flying the derby to prepare herself to fly the Atlantic, this time as the pilot.
⁷⁵
G. P. Putman, Amelia's sponsor and later husband, offered Elinor Smith, a highly experienced pilot, a guaranteed two-year income if she would consent to be Amelia's pilot and mechanic during the derby. Smith would fly the plane while Amelia would appear to be doing it. Putnam indicated that Amelia was not “physically sturdy” nor experienced enough to fly herself. Smith refused. As a consequence, Smith was unable to secure a ship to fly in the derby, although she did compete in closed-course races in Cleveland at the end.
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