Afterword
We hope you enjoyed reading Where the Sky Begins half as much as we enjoyed researching and writing it!
Mary’s background as a historical costumer, reenactor, and historical fiction writer, combined with her upbringing only a few miles from where the race began, made this project especially meaningful and fun for her.
Cindy’s background as a civilian and military pilot came in awfully handy when it was time to write the flying scenes and explain aviation terms, but she did spend a lot of time during this project exclaiming that she would never attempt what these women did in the flimsy and primitive aircraft they flew.
For the sake of avoiding an overwhelming cast of characters in this book, we distilled down several groups of real people into single representative individuals.
For example, nearly a dozen BOI agents who investigated the various accidents and acts of sabotage are represented by the single fictional BOI agent Chet Pullman.
While he is fictional, the actions he takes were not.
Dr. Ayers and Mayor Mack were real race officials whom we chose to represent all the race officials on the ground making decisions at each of the race stops.
While evidence clearly suggests one or more of the race officials were in cahoots with someone to change the race route and force the women to land at Calexico, there is no evidence that it was Ayers and Mack or that they were in league with mobsters.
Horace Aldridge is a fictional character we created to represent the many investors who financed the race.
While there is no proof that any of the race investors tried to “fix” the outcome of the race, it’s clear that someone with direct access to the race committee did try to tamper with the route, get the race canceled partway through, and force the women to quit the race or stop the race altogether by sabotaging their planes.
To us, the most logical candidate(s) to have done so was a member of the race committee or an influential investor in the race.
Hence, our creation of Horace to represent that possible source of the sabotage.
Vito Lazovsky is a purely fictional character.
However, there’s ample evidence that mobsters, bookies, and high-rolling gamblers who had bet heavily on the race did try to influence the outcome by attempting to sabotage various women pilots during the race.
Vito represents that set of rumors and possible source of the sabotage.
Elizabeth Lippincott McQueen, founder of the Jerusalem News and wife of a prominent businessman, known for her relief work during World War I in Palestine, was also a prominent supporter of women in aviation. She first came up with the idea of a cross-country air race for women.
In the spring of 1929, she approached Cliff Henderson, promoter of the National Air Races held annually in Cleveland, Ohio, and suggested he host such a derby. Henderson was initially opposed to the idea, but Mrs. McQueen convinced him it would be a profitable venture and garner a lot of publicity.
The National Exchange Club agreed to sponsor the race as their annual project to promote women.
Invitations were sent to all forty women pilots who met the qualifications set for participants.
Each entrant was required to be a licensed pilot with at least one hundred hours of solo flying time, including twenty-five hours of cross-country time.
(At the time the race invitations were sent, a grand total of seventy women in the United States were licensed pilots.
Six months after the race, that number had doubled, and by May 1930, there were two hundred, constituting 1 percent of US pilots at that time.)
Publicity surrounding the race was intense and captured the imagination of the American people.
Movie studio executives, seeing an opportunity for advertising, hurried to get their prettiest starlets pilot’s licenses and enter them in the race.
However, most of these actresses “stuffed” their logbooks with false flying time, and Pancho argued stridently against their inclusion in the race for safety reasons.
After Pancho Barnes was invited to fly in the race in May 1929, she joined the race organizing committee and flew her airplane from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, following the proposed route of the race.
Pancho and Cliff Henderson are reported to have argued fiercely and frequently about the rules of the race, which changed on an almost daily basis right up until the race started.
Henderson was determined to let movie starlets compete in the race, arguing that the race was about promoting aviation in general.
To that end, he insisted all female participants race with a male “mechanic” riding along in their aircraft.
It was understood that the mechanics would be experienced pilots who actually flew the planes.
They would chauffeur the women across the country, and the actresses would use the expected blizzard of publicity to act as spokeswomen for the movie studios.
Pancho argued all summer that the race was meant to spotlight women in aviation.
She believed that only competent women pilots should race and should do it solo so there was no question of who’d done the flying.
Instead of being an advertising junket for movie studios and race sponsors, she thought the race should spotlight the accomplishments of women in aviation.
At the same time the women were to take a southerly route across the United States, the Men’s National Air Race would take a northerly route that was less hazardous than the one ultimately flown by the women.
The men’s cross-country race was mostly ignored in the hubbub over the women’s race, which is reported to have irked Cliff Henderson to no end.
Public interest in the race was so intense that many cities contacted the National Exchange Club and offered money to be added to the route.
The official fee was fifty dollars to become a race stop, but it’s reported that thousands of dollars unofficially changed hands.
Members of the National Exchange Club and the race organizing committee are reported to have taken bribes to make various adjustments to the race, including changes to rules and putting cities on the route.
There were copious rumors of mobsters, bookies, politicians, mayors, and businessmen making payoffs to any race official who could sway decisions in their favor.
Horace Aldridge and Vito Lazovsky are fictional characters but representative of the influence peddling that allegedly dogged the race throughout the summer of 1929, pushing and pulling the race rules and routes in ever-changing directions.
The end result was a zigzagging route that took two full days longer to fly than the original route. The final decision to have the women fly solo and eliminate the Hollywood starlets was not made until two days before the race.
Top male pilots in the late 1920s often refused to race against one another lest they lose their status and fame to better male pilots.
Not so with the women. Every famous or accomplished female pilot licensed in the United States at the time showed up for the 1929 race.
Never again has such an illustrious group of women aviators gathered for a single race against one another.
Not only were the rules of who would fly and the route sources of contention in the summer of 1929, but the race organizers were determined to limit the size and speed of the women’s airplanes in the race.
Pancho accused Henderson and the other men on the committee of being terrified that a woman would make the cross-country trip faster than the men and embarrass the boys.
The male committee members denied her claim .
. . but they stuck to their guns, insisting on limiting the horsepower of the women’s airplanes.
Almost all the women who flew in the race owned their own airplanes.
Many of them performed in air shows, barnstormed, or transported passengers, cargo, or mail with their planes.
Like male pilots of the time, they flew the biggest, fastest, most powerful airplanes they could afford.
This meant the majority of women who flew in the 1929 National Women’s Air Derby had to borrow smaller, lighter, less powerful planes than they were accustomed to flying to meet the engine power restrictions imposed by the race committee.
It also meant many of them were unfamiliar with the planes they were flying or were still working out the kinks of brand-new and, in a few cases, untested equipment.
Various airplane manufacturers and sponsors built or loaned the women airplanes for the race.
As portrayed in the story, many of the women had barely flown their planes before the race.
Nearly a dozen of the planes were fresh off assembly lines with only a few hours on the airframes before they were flown to California for the race.
Some of the women (Thea Rasche, for example) borrowed privately owned aircraft to fly in the race.
Her plane was only marginally airworthy when loaned to her, and she and her mechanic worked around the clock for days before the race to bring the Gipsy Moth up to a reasonable working condition.
By the time the race finished, she and her mechanic had it fine-tuned and fully fixed .
. . but not in time to make a good showing in the race results.
Pancho flew back to California at the beginning of August 1929, following in reverse the race route as it stood the day she left Ohio. Of note, she did not fly to Calexico as it was not on the race itinerary when she flew home.