Historic race full of triumph, tragedy

Editor’s note: Information for this article was taken from the book “Sky Girls: The True Story of the First Women’s Cross Country Air Race” and the documentary “Breaking Through the Clouds: The First Women’s National Air Derby,” written and directed by Heather A. Taylor.

It was 1929. The stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression would happen in October.

But for most of the year, the American economy was roaring as it had throughout the decade, and society along with it.

Lavish, iconic shows like “Show Boat” were on the Broadway stage, and

the nascent film industry in Hollywood was rapidly taking over the public consciousness.

The roar of propellerdriven airplane engines was also captivating men and women, boys and girls alike, as air races and flying circuses took to the skies.

Passenger service wasn’t common yet, so for most Americans the pilots took on an elevated status, closer to the heavens.

Women had won the right to vote in the U.S. for just nine years. The still-young aviation industry was dominated by men — as it is to this day, especially for pilots.

But it was luring a brand of courageous, resourceful woman, drawn to the skies and ready to prove her abilities

against any male pilot out there.

At the top echelon, some were engaged in friendly rivalries, each trying to set a new aviation record by beating the one set by their competitor a week or two earlier.

In 1928, Amelia Earhart had topped them all as the first female to match Charles Lindbergh’s feat of flying solo across the Atlantic.

So the time seemed right to hold a women’s air race, simultaneously with several others that were to be held during the National Air Races and Aeronautic Expedition in August.

Race promoter Cliff Henderson was pitched the idea, and decided in May to add it — with a men’s service club, the National Exchange Club, as the sponsor. The course would run from Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland.

It drew 20 of the most prominent female pilots of the day, known as “aviatrixes.” These included Earhart, but it was truly an ensemble of accomplishments and personalities.

Phoebe Omlie had 2,000 hours of flight time, was a transport pilot over the flooded Mississippi River and had performed aerial wing stunts for crowds as a teenager, walking on wings and hanging by her teeth.

Louise Thaden had started flying only a couple of years earlier, when she could no longer hide her dream of becoming a pilot while selling coal for a company with ties to the airplane business. She also had a transport license, and had set the women’s altitude record, reaching 20,260 feet in an open cockpit.

Florence Lowe “Pancho” Barnes was raised in luxury as the son her father and longed for, and after marriage and the birth of her son, she signed up as a man onto a Mexican boat which turned out to be running guns to revolutionaries. Her colorful language and personality endeared her to the Hollywood set, and led her to become a pilot.

Marvel Crosson and her brother Joe built their own plane in their San Diego backyard, before they went to Alaska to seek their flying fortune. She was the derby’s first entrant, and with her vast experience and a powerful plane was one of the favorites to win.

The other contestants were: Ruth Elder, Claire Fahy, Edith Foltz, Mary Hazlip, Opal Kunz, Jessie Keith-Miller, Ruth Nichols, Blanche Noyes, Gladys O’Donnell, Neva Paris, Margaret Perry, Thea Rasche, Bobbi Trout, Mary Von Mach and Vera Walker.

As these women converged at the opening banquet before the first day of flight, their hosts from the National Exchange Club were a bit flummoxed, author Gene Nora Jessen wrote in “Sky Girls,” a book about the derby and its contestants first published in 2002.

“Some of the hosts were clearly cowed by this gregarious group of astonishing ladies. Not one of them took orders. Each wanted to change the rules. And, adding to their insubordination, they possessed an unsettling, outdoorsy look. This was an extraordinary experience,” Jessen wrote.

In this era, airplanes were so new and engines were so exposed to the elements that all pilots needed to be capable mechanics as well, or pretty much had to have one with them at all times.

At one point, the derby’s pilots were going to be required to bring a mechanic with them, but Earhart and the others strongly protested.

The derby had attracted attention from the Hollywood set as a publicity stunt, and promoters started announcing the starlets they represented had become “pilots,” with the assumption they’d be entered as contestants, with a male mechanic who would actually fly the plane. And they prevailed. “The Women’s Air Derby had brought these women together. They were fierce competitors, but they were totally united in their effort to force open the door to the male pilots’ world,”

The 20 pilots took off Aug. 18, 1929, at 2 p.m. The derby was plagued with hard landings, breakdowns and other travails, especially in the beginning.

Yuma wouldn’t have been on the derby’s route at all if it hadn’t been for the pilots.

When they finally got their instructions on where to go after their first short leg to San Bernardino, the next stop was Calexico, which many of them thought had too short a runway, especially for the larger planes in the race.

Barnes started a petition to move the stop to what was then known as Fly Field in Yuma, getting unanimous support. It was decided the women would fly to Yuma by way of Calexico, so they could wave to the crowd gathered to greet them.

The race was plagued by mishaps and engine trouble, especially in the first few days. Many grew suspicious of sabotage, especially after one, Fahy, was forced to land on the way to Yuma after a wire holding the upper and lower wings together broke.

Earhart crash-landed in Yuma, after contending with a jammed starter at takeoff in Santa Monica. Two more flyers landed in cattle pastures in Mexico while heading into or out of Yuma, while navigating by paper maps and railroad tracks.

The women decided to wait for Earhart’s new propeller to come in from Los Angeles, which extended their stay to four hours. As they sat under their wings to try to shield themselves from the sun, “The kind people of Yuma went home to bring cold drinks, sandwiches and ice as the women roasted in the intensifying heat,” Jessen said.

The worst of the accidents claimed Crosson’s life, after her plane plunged into a dense riparian area of tangled mesquite trees near Wellton, on the north bank of the Gila River.

Four ranchers saw her plane soaring at about 2,000 feet above ground, then wobble and start spinning to the ground. The most likely scenario is she was overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning, a common threat in open-cockpit flight.

The same thing happened to Thaden on the way to the race, though she was still able to land her plane. Hers and Crosson’s planes were produced by the same company, Travel Air, which immediately modified the other planes it had in the race, with no more problems reported.

Initially, there were reports the race could be delayed at least three days while the crash was investigated. The distraught pilots, who got the news in Phoenix, rallied in their friend’s memory, committing to continue the race and finish it well.

The derby ran a total of nine days, and there were numerous other stops, the best-known cities being El Paso and Ft. Worth, Texas, East St. Louis, Ill., and Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio.

In most cases the pilots had to end a long day of flying by dressing in evening wear, sometimes worn under their flying clothes, for a banquet being held in their honor. The race was captivating many in the nation.

A crowd of about 5,000 watched their takeoffs in Santa Monica, and some 20,000 were at the finish line in Cleveland. People flooded the fields soon after they landed, despite initial concerns about security in the face of sabotage.

Syndicated humorist and aviation enthusiast Will Rogers followed and wrote about the race from the beginning. He immediately dubbing it the “Powder Puff Derby,” a name that stuck and was used again for another transcontinental derby for women pilots founded in 1947.

Fourteen out of the 20 pilots in the race made it to Cleveland. There were two categories: heavier planes, won by Thaden, and lighter craft, for which Omlie was the victor. Earhart finished third among the heavier class entrants.

A 15th, Bobbi Trout, lost too much time to her aircraft mishaps, but pushed ahead to finish, untimed. Barnes and Nichols’ planes got wrecked beyond repair, and Perry became ill with typhoid fever.

Thaden had to cut her engine off quickly as hordes of spectators and reporters ran toward her plane. A horseshoe of roses was plopped onto her neck, thorns still attached. So she asked that it be placed on her plane instead.

A cigarette in hand, she told the crowd, “The sunburn derby is over, and I happened to come in first place. I’m sorry we couldn’t all come in first, because they all deserve it as much as I. They’re all great flyers.”

That November, several of the same pilots came back together to begin the process of forming an association, created for the mutual support of female pilots. Earhart became the first president of the club two years later, which was called “The Ninety-Nines” after the number of charter members.

The Ninety-Nines, or International Organization for Women Pilots, continues today, with more than 5,000 members worldwide, and maintains the Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship Fund, which fully funds training for an entire pilot license or rating for qualified members.

According to a 2018 study from the Australia-based Centre for Aviation, known as CAPA, only 7 percent of all U.S. pilot certificates are held by women, the figure dropping to 4.4 percent for airline pilots.

This number is fairly consistent with other nations researched by CAPA with the exceptions of some airlines in India, Australia and Canada, where more than 10 percent of women are pilots.