Sky Girls

by Gene Nora Jessen

  Repeatedly, Thaden leaned her head out the side of the open cockpit into the slipstream. Her cloth flying helmet kept her hair contained from the wind, but sweat dripped onto her once-starched shirt collar. She wore goggles to protect her eyes, and her face had a farmer’s suntan. Instead of a white forehead though, Thaden, like other racers, sported owl eyes—white circles around her protected eyes, with sun- and wind-burned cheeks and forehead. Later, when they were on display at social events en route, the racers’ tanned V-necks presented a startling contrast in their party dresses.

  Thaden and Beech departed Kansas to the south, having opted for the lower route to California. Kansas and Oklahoma were then, as they are now, laid out in one-mile section lines, county roads and farmers’ fence lines defining the points of the compass. In fact, a pilot could cut across the section lines at a consistent angle, hardly needing a wet (swimming in alcohol) compass. Once across the Red River into Texas, the section lines curved and disappeared as if the designer had run out of paint. The swaying wheat and tall grasses, along with laundry hanging out on the lines and little whitecaps on farm ponds served as a wind indicator for direction and velocity.

  Thaden could then turn west after Fort Worth, taking the southern route to the coast. Seventy-five hundred feet in altitude would just about clear every terrestrial obstacle. It was certainly lower than crossing mountainous Colorado. This would also give her a chance to experience some of the airports they’d be landing on in the actual race. They could not fly after sunset, for there were no lights with which to read the instruments. Thaden and Beech would run out of daylight at Fort Worth, a good place for their remaining overnight (RON) stop.

  Thaden flew with her head down below the rim of the open cockpit, pulling up periodically to check her position against her road map. “Dead reckoning” it was called, kind of an unfortunate term. She called on all the grit and experience she could muster to overcome her strange lightheadedness. But good judgment was slipping away as if it were used-up fuel, irretrievable.

  Louise resorted to murmuring aloud, “One hundred-eighty degrees, 180 degrees, hold a heading of 180 degrees.” Holding a heading turned into a difficult chore. Maintaining altitude was worse. She commanded her eyes to stay open, against their willful desire to close. A piercing headache hammered, while the roar of the engine grew faint in her ears. Thaden cherished the freedom and beauty of flight. She couldn’t remember ever wishing a flight to hasten to its conclusion, but that was her desperate wish this day.

  The terrain and the map didn’t jibe as she tried to concentrate on matching the roads and towns she saw below to the highway map clutched in her left hand. Fort Worth simply had to be near. Her thoughts ran hot and cold, from “I’m just about on it” to “I must be hopelessly lost.” She knew she had passed the Oklahoma Arbuckle Mountains. She’d seen the place out the right side where a “giant foot” had stomped the earth millions of years ago, causing layers of subsurface rock to rise at a forty-five-degree angle. Thaden always got a chuckle that the flatlanders called those little bumps mountains. But the Arbuckles meant she was on course. The higher Ouachita Mountains were off to the left, and they led to home, Arkansas.

  Pilots consistently swore they were never lost, simply “momentarily disoriented.” Thaden knew not to wander looking for an identifiable landmark. Holding the course would bring her within a reasonable proximity to her destination. Well, it always had, she thought. But she’d never been so befuddled, and crossing the Red River to the south had taken away her backup compass, the section lines. She had only limited time to find herself, for fuel was the defining factor for distance. There were plenty of good farmers’ fields if she ran it dry, but Beech was waiting for her in Fort Worth.

  Louise Thaden with her plane.

  Miraculously, the suffering pilot soon spotted the Fort Worth airport twenty degrees off the nose. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what direction the wind was or how many airplanes were in the traffic pattern. Louise Thaden desperately seized the conviction that she was going to get this brand-new airplane on the ground in one piece. The well-known “pilot’s ego” snapped into place. No matter how sick, Thaden knew she could land the airplane. She headed straight in to the airport with no thought of the good manners of complying with traffic. She simply aimed the nose downward for a powered descent.

  Walter Beech had been worriedly scanning for Thaden when someone yelled, “There she is, against traffic.” Walter immediately rejected what he was seeing. Louise Thaden was too good a pilot to ignore traffic pattern rules. Another airplane on track to meet her head-on swerved out of her way. Her approach was sloppy. She was much too fast. “FLARE, FLARE!” Beech yelled, as if she could hear him. Something was very wrong.

  Once a safe height above the ground, she pulled the power and bounced the plane on in. As the airplane hopped down the field, witnesses presumed they were watching the antics of an inexperienced student pilot who would probably lose directional control next and make a sharp turn into a ground loop. The pilot didn’t seem to be doing anything to salvage the shabby landing.

  Not pretty, but both Thaden and the airplane were through flying. She finally seemed to wake up and pull the stick back, killing off the remaining flying speed, making the bucking bronco settle. She didn’t even clear the landing area, but shut the engine down while finally fanning the rudder pedals to forestall a ground loop as the airplane slowed. Too dazed to fathom how or where to taxi the plane and park, Thaden immediately climbed out of the cockpit and folded over the side. Standing up was too difficult. Her legs wouldn’t work any better than her head. A curtain of darkness closed in as the Travel Air’s lower wing broke her fall.

  Walter Beech and others made a dash for the blue and gold Travel Air and Thaden, who was collapsed on the ground. She came around pretty quickly, but her sponsor was badly scared.

  “I shouldn’t have let you leave Tulsa,” Beech berated himself. “I thought you didn’t look good.”

  “I don’t feel very well,” Louise responded.

  The men pulled the airplane over to a corner of the field, but found nothing wrong with the engine or the controls. Thaden’s physical condition, a strong headache and near unconsciousness, made it obvious that she had succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Despite the open-cockpit airplane and her tall stature, Thaden was getting exhaust fumes from the engine while sitting down low behind the Wright J5 engine.

  Walter Beech hastened to jerry-rig a solution so Thaden could continue and race. He ran a four-inch pipe back from the leading edge of the cowling into the cockpit for a source of fresh air. Louise judged the solution as satisfactory.

  The racer’s predawn arrival at her airplane the next morning found Thaden in an optimistic state of mind. Her first-day troubles were simply break-in glitches, and she was confident of the coming day’s promising flight. As the morning sun first hinted of its approach in the eastern sky, Louise said goodbye to Walter Beech and was airborne, actually singing in her happiness, despite what was sure to be a long, hot day ahead.

  Thaden was flying the reverse of the race route, taking a look at the airports, the terrain, the checkpoints, the challenges ahead. West Texas was huge country—no wonder those Texans bragged on it. The early morning shadows turned the barren ground into rainbows of brilliant reds and yellows. Whenever she stopped for fuel, the people fell all over themselves being kind and helpful. They let her know they were rooting for her, even those who had no idea who she was, and they would watch for her going back the other direction.

  Finally, after exiting Texas, Thaden flew the U.S.–Mexican border, crossing the very bottom of New Mexico. The day heated up, and the puffy white marshmallow clouds dug potholes in the airway. Summertime wind jolts rocked the airplane, but they were not unexpected. The oasis of Phoenix, Arizona, meant green trees, brilliant flowers, and prompt, professional service for the airplane. Several of the racers had reverse-flown the race route, and the fuelers were eager to meet these daring women.
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  Thaden had had enough desert and heat, and cut straight across from Phoenix toward San Bernardino, California, then Santa Monica. The airplane was running well, and she was getting anxious to meet the other racers. Thaden flew the trip to California, and the entire race, with her face up close to Walter Beech’s four-inch fresh-air pipe, her make-do source of life-sustaining atmosphere. Oddly enough, the others racing Travel Airs didn’t seem to have the same problem.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1929

  SANTA MONICA, CLOVER FIELD

  If your time is worth anything, travel by air. If not, you might just as well walk.

  Yours, Will Rogers

  Syndicated newspaper column

  Jim and Clema Granger’s aviation operation at Clover Field in Santa Monica, California, was a madhouse, and Clema declared herself the Mad Hatter. She was trying to keep up with the sponsors’ ever-changing race rules, even as the racers had been arriving and checking in all day.  Jim, a Swallow Airplane distributor, was sponsoring Ruth Elder in the race, since Clema didn’t have enough flying hours to be eligible. Some other racers had fudged, making the decision that a little Parker Pen time padding their log books to meet the experience requirement wouldn’t hurt.

  With the motion-picture industry nearby, stunt flying was common, and the movie royalty hung around or kept their airplanes on the field with one of the nearly dozen fixed-base operators. Large wooden hangar buildings, derived from barns and even an old movie studio, lined the perimeter of Clover Field. The imposing Douglas Aircraft Company factory along the boulevard nearby was already a major factor in Santa Monica’s prosperity.

  Pilots claimed to believe that all city fathers had perversely pledged to place telephone lines and the tallest trees around airports to challenge pilot skills. Cemeteries were often sited next to airports, causing a plethora of facetious comments among the pilot population. However, Clover Field shared open space with the Santa Monica Municipal Golf Course, giving it an open feeling despite being situated just west of the city and right in the Los Angeles Basin.

  Amid all this, the Grangers had a large new metal hangar for their flying school they used to host the air racers.

  Aviation received a generous boost from a private source in the mid-twenties when the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics provided bequests totaling $2.5 million to support aeronautics. A national safe-airplane competition led to the Curtiss-Wright Corporation’s successful design of an early STOL (short takeoff and landing) aircraft. The event that impacted aviation most dramatically was a single man’s audacious act in 1927: Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Though the ocean had been crossed numerous times, Lindbergh was the first to do it alone. He galvanized the public to believe airplanes were viable transportation of the future.

  The Grangers’ hangar and ramp boasted the finest racing ships of the day, with the world’s elite female pilots doting on them. The military promoted early air racing as a way to improve aircraft design and cultivate more pilots. The public supported the exciting and dangerous sport; their enthusiasm made successful pilots household names.

  Manufacturers, eager for military patronage, took advantage of the ongoing rivalry between the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy civilian teams and, in turn, tried to beat out both military services. The Curtiss racing airplanes dominated these national air races. Cross-country derby races had been added, terminating at the nationals in Cleveland. Now, in 1929, there was to be a new trophy event sponsored by manufacturer Charles E. Thompson. The Thompson, as the race was dubbed, would be a fifty-mile race open to all. Walter Beech had big plans for his secret new airplane to beat the government planes and to take the Thompson trophy home to Kansas.

  Roscoe Turner was equally ready to claim the Thompson for his own, flying a Lockheed Vega. A flamboyant Southern gentleman, Colonel Roscoe Turner was the master promoter, equally as famous for his attire as for his exceptional flying ability. Turner’s self-designed uniform was immaculate (forget greasy, white coveralls)—a soft, blue coat with Sam Browne belt, spiffy riding breeches, boots shined to a fare-thee-well, and, of course, a white silk scarf, an aviator’s helmet, and goggles. Roscoe’s waxed mustache and inspired mascot, a live lion, completed his costume. Fortunately, he was good enough in the saddle to carry off his splendiferous attire.

  The Women’s Air Derby had brought the women together. They were fierce competitors, but they were totally united in their effort to force open the door to the male pilots’ world. As they became acquainted, the eastern racers regaled the western girls with their descriptions of life in the sophisticated East, especially the New York musical theater. George Gershwin’s Funny Face and Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat were enjoying long runs on Broadway. Babe Ruth had hit sixty home runs for the Yankees, and Maestro Toscanini was the new conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The New York Times had installed an astonishing moving electric sign around One Times Square.

  The air derby brought women pilots from different backgrounds together. Front: Vera Dawn Walker and Louise Thaden. Back: Thea Rasche, Margaret Perry, Neva Paris, Chubbie Keith-Miller, Ruth Elder, and Edith Foltz.

  The western girls could brag on their more relaxed lifestyle and the nearby movie industry, the first talking movie The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, and Disney’s first Mickey Mouse cartoon film, Steamboat Willie. Everyone was singing “Bye Bye Blackbird,” and the slow fox-trot was the fashionable dance. A sharp crystal ball of the immediate future would have shown Richard Byrd’s flight over the South Pole coming up, Chicago’s gang war and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, astronomer Edward Hubble’s measurements of extragalactic nebulae, and the Nazi party gaining 107 seats in the German elections. Within two months, the world would see Black Thursday collapse the New York Stock Exchange. Hard times were coming, even to the skies.

  Clema had set up a table in the hangar where all the competitors were gathered to process papers and compare rumors and tips. Louise Thaden was frantic, and her co-competitor Marvel Crosson matched her pacing in the hangar. Thaden ranted, alluding to the worst possible cause of competitor Mary Haizlip’s tardiness, “If Mary is alive, I’ll kill her! Where is she? If she’s down and safe somewhere, why doesn’t she call?”

  Crosson cast about for a soothing explanation. “Louise, Mary has simply put it down somewhere and can’t get to a phone. Or she’s seen the fog and turned back across the mountains.”

  Thaden looked at Crosson blankly. That comment was a mistake. They both knew Mary Haizlip wouldn’t have enough fuel to get back east of the low stratus, and probably the whole basin was socked in by now. Whenever the low stratus clouds drifted off the ocean into the Los Angeles Basin, all airplanes had best find a safe harbor immediately or they’d be stuck “on top.” It would be clear and beautiful above the undercast of low, flat clouds. A pilot would feel as if she were flying above an ocean of cotton. But that was on top.

  Crosson’s comment reminded them that below, hidden in that benign-looking layer of moist air, were buildings and trees and other “airplane catchers”—hard things. The pilots jokingly called mountains in clouds cumulo granite, or a cloud with a rock in it. In those days, there was no way to fly down through the clouds safely, and if stuck on top and out of fuel, a pilot could only “take to the silk,” parachuting and abandoning the airplane. Los Angeles pilots knew that if low stratus filled the basin, the mountains to the east would often halt the clouds like a barricade. The only safety for a pilot on top of that cotton was on the desert side, and one needed fuel to get that far. Where was Mary? She should’ve been in by now.

  Like Louise Thaden, Mary Haizlip was a favorite of those who had watched her flying skills evolve from timid to poised. Haizlip’s flying could be laid at the door of oil prospecting, because her father had been drilling for oil in Oklahoma. In fact, the unlucky man had drilled nineteen dry holes. Out visiting her father, Mary heard about a handsome pilot, Jim Haizlip, recently returned from the Great War. He had learne
d to fly in France, and he was now running a flight school while taking an engineering course at the University of Oklahoma. Mary made it a point to meet the charming young man, and, ten days later, the teenager and the glamorous pilot were married. “It took me that long to lure him away from all the other girls,” Mary explained. “He had to break a date with the campus queen to get married.”

  Jim had a slightly different version. “Her parents were horrified. We had to wait ’til they left town to elope.” Of course, he taught Mary to fly. Their romance lasted for the rest of their lives. But for the moment, nineteen-year-old race pilot Mary Haizlip was missing.

  A stir at the hangar door revealed Amelia Earhart trying to tell the crowd the news she had, while making her way to Thaden. “There’s an airplane down in a field just outside the airport. It’s a woman pilot, and she’s being taken by the Feds to the sheriff’s office. They think she’s a dope smuggler.”

  It took Thaden a minute to take that in. Then she laughed. “Well, it must be Mary. She’s overdue, and leave it to her to find the sheriff. She’ll probably trade him an airplane ride for the keys to the jail.”

  Thaden was still uneasy, but Crosson assured her it was too logical to be anyone else. They started looking for a ride to wherever the sheriff was. Since Earhart had a car, she gathered up Thaden and Crosson to locate the airplane. A line boy described the airplane’s location and how to get there, adding, “You can’t miss it.”