Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Race day.
It was finally here.
Clover Field was so crowded that the entire expansive airport property had no more space for even a single vehicle to park.
Only the runway and parking ramp were free of cars, and both of them were lined with vehicles.
People had to park on the road outside the airfield and hike the rest of the way in to see the shiny new airplanes and the brave women piloting them.
Cliff Henderson’s gamble on using female pilots to draw attention to aviation was paying off big.
The excitement buzzing around the women and their racing planes was electric.
Flashbulbs exploded, reporters shouted, and the women in their leather jackets and helmets posed beside their planes, flashing cocky smiles at the press.
Thousands of spectators strolled among the aircraft and aviators without any regard for the planes. Pancho gritted her teeth as countless people ran their hands over her plane’s wings and tail, kicked the tires, and even tried to open the engine cowling to help themselves to a look at the engine.
She appreciated their avid interest, but the public had no idea how expensive and fragile these racing planes were.
Her Travel Air D-4000’s wings were made of Sitka spruce spars and plywood ribs, for crying out loud.
Only the fuselage was made of sturdier welded steel tubing.
And the whole thing was covered with nothing more than fabric and glue.
An incautious fan could easily put a hand right through her plane’s skin and render the plane unflyable.
Security was nonexistent. It fell to each pilot to defend her own airplane from harm by the overeager, ham-handed fans intent on pawing the planes.
“Hands off the wings!” Pancho hollered for what must have been the hundredth time.
The oil from people’s skin wasn’t good for the dope that gave the wing covering its rigidity and waterproofing.
She’d already crawled under her plane this morning, lain on her back beneath it, and wiped off bugs and leaked oil until it was as clean as a nun’s whistle.
Smooth fuselage was the way to race. Nothing to create drag in the air.
Wiping off the wings with a soft rag, she gazed critically down the fuselage of her Travel Air, making sure she hadn’t missed a speck of dirt.
Marvel, parked on Pancho’s right, was flying a brand-new Travel Air Model 11—a racing version of the Travel Air 2000 with a single seat, a slimmed-down fuselage, thinner racing wings appropriately called Speedwings, and a first-of-its-kind engine.
Assembly of the plane had been completed just in time for one flight around the factory the previous week before Marvel flew it from Wichita, Kansas, to Santa Monica.
Marvel had mentioned to Pancho at the banquet that she’d had engine trouble on the way out to Clover Field, and Walter Beech, founder of the Beechcraft airplane manufacturing company, had ordered a new engine built and delivered to whatever stop along the race Marvel was at when it was ready.
Pancho had made a few modifications to her Travel Air D-4000, opting for thinner-than-normal wings and a full cowling enclosing her engine.
The trade-off with thin wings was less drag and more speed but longer takeoff and landing distances and a higher stall speed.
Particularly at high altitude, when they crossed over various mountain ranges in the cross-country race, she would have to be careful not to lose so much lift that she literally fell out of the sky.
To Pancho’s left was Blanche Noyes’s Travel Air 4000, a standard bi-wing version with an open cockpit and an open-air engine.
It did have a snazzy paint job, though—cream fuselage with red wings and red racing stripes, and its name, Miss Cleveland, painted in fancy red script along its sides.
The flashy plane and its equally flashy pilot were drawing lots of photographers.
Even more spectators were hoping to pose with Blanche and her plane.
Louise Thaden, parked in the row behind Pancho, was also flying a modified Travel Air 4000. Sure enough, the modified pipe was there.
Pancho had never had a problem with carbon monoxide in her cockpit. But it did worry her that, as she pushed her engine to the limits of its performance in this race, she might encounter it.
Any of them might.
“Hello? Hello?” Joe Nikrent, the race’s official timer, called over the speakers, pointing at the bleachers erected at the departure end of the huge grassy field.
The race organizers had laughably underestimated the size of the crowd that would turn out to watch the start of the race.
The bleachers had room for five hundred spectators.
Closer to ten thousand crammed the airfield and were starting to line up, dozens of people deep, along the entire length of both sides of the runway.
Joe’s voice carried to where the planes were lined up.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to the inaugural National Women’s Air Derby sponsored by the National Exchange Club as part of the 1929 National Air Races! ”
A huge cheer went up from the crowd, and Pancho felt goose bumps rise on her arms. This was it.
The biggest race of her life—of all their lives—was about to begin.
She was ready. She’d flown the entire route twice already over the summer.
She’d been over every inch of her plane, and it was tuned to perfection, fueled up, and ready to race.
She’d carefully plotted the route of the first leg, memorizing every detail of the terrain between Santa Monica and San Bernardino.
She knew to the minute where she should be at each landmark along the way.
“A very good morning to you all, and welcome to Clover Field,” Nikrent continued.
“It’s not morning anymore,” Amelia groused from under the high, single wing of her red five-passenger Lockheed Vega with its fancy enclosed cockpit, parked directly in front of Pancho’s.
Pancho glanced at her oversize wristwatch, a modified gentleman’s pocket watch fitted for a wrist strap.
It was two minutes past noon. The race ceremonies were closer to getting started on time than she’d expected.
She tucked her sleeve under the watch to keep sweat from getting on it and pulled the knit cuff of her leather jacket over it to protect the crystal face from getting scratched. After all, it was a vital tool.
In flight, she used the watch to time how long it took to travel between landmarks on the ground that were a known distance apart and calculate her ground speed in miles per hour by dividing the distance by the time and multiplying by sixty.
By comparing her ground speed to her airspeed indicator, she could estimate the winds aloft and guess their approximate headwind or tailwind component.
Using this information, she’d decide which direction to land at airfields and how much power she had to carry down the final approach to go fast enough not to stall but slow enough not to damage her fragile landing gear.
Based on her compass heading and how much she drifted right or left of landmarks along her route, she could guess at the crosswinds aloft as well and estimate how much she had to “crab down final”—a technique where she pointed the nose into a crosswind to maintain a straight course over the ground.
It wasn’t a precise science, but it was the best information pilots had.
Today’s race wouldn’t start until two p.m. to give the press plenty of time to cover the prerace hoopla, and for spectators to get a good look at the planes, pilots, and gathered celebrities.
The distance from here to San Bernardino was the shortest leg of the race, at just over sixty-eight miles.
If nothing went wrong, Pancho expected the whole flight to take around twenty-five minutes.
A quick up-and-down. Easy peasy. And then there would be more crowds and ceremonial foolishness at the other end.
As Nikrent thanked various sponsors and introduced famous guests attending the race, the crowd surged toward the grandstand to catch a glimpse of the various stars.
Thank goodness. Now the spectators will stop mauling the airplanes. After a last quick check of her plane to make sure it had survived the crowd intact, Pancho stepped out in front of it to watch the festivities over at the grandstand.
Marvel had finished inspecting her plane and came over to stand beside her.
They both gazed at the raised stage where the race officials and stars were clustered.
Long lines of fans snaked away from it, waiting for autographs and pictures with their favorite celebrity.
Will Rogers’s line was the longest of all.
“He’s signing his name and posing as if he’s in this race,” Marvel grumbled.
Amelia, who was just rounding the tail of her airplane in front of them commented, “Rogers can sign all day for all I care, as long as they get us into the air on time.”
Marvel, who’d already shed her leather jacket, undid the top two buttons of her white blouse and fanned herself with a folded map. “Thank goodness I’m first to take off. I can’t stand this heat! I’m an Alaskan girl and used to much cooler weather.”
Pancho laughed. “We’re only a few miles from the ocean here, and the sea breezes cool this area significantly. Wait till you land in San Bernardino, which is well inland. I’ll bet it’s over a hundred degrees by the time we get there.”
Marvel shot her a look of alarm. “Nobody’s ever flown these new racing wings of mine into that kind of heat. I have no idea how they’ll perform.”