On 10 December 1911, adventurer CALBRAITH PERRY RODGERS landed his airplane, the VIN FIZ FLYER, on the beach in Long Beach, California, completing the first transcontinental flight across the United States. The grandnephew of naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry, RODGERS had earlier in the year taken about 90 minutes of flight instruction from Orville Wright and then became the first private citizen to buy a Wright airplane. The Wright Model EX had a 35-horsepower engine that gave the airplane a top speed of around 50 mph (80 km/h). Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst had offered a US$50,000 prize to the first aviator to fly coast to coast, in either direction, in less than 30 days from start to finish, and RODGERS decided to attempt the feat with his new toy. He got meatpacker Odgen Armour to sponsor the flight, in exchange for sponsoring Armours new Vin Fiz grape drink. So RODGERS, who intended to fly above railroad tracks, named his aircraft the VIN FIZ FLYER, and his support team rode below him in a three-car train known of the Vin Fiz Special. The flight began on 17 September 1911, when RODGERS took off from Sheepshead Bay, New York. It soon became clear that the VIN FIZ FLYER would not meet the 30-day requirement set by Hearst, but RODGERS decided to push on anyway. There were a total of 75 stops along the way, including landings in Alpine and Marfa, Texas, on 28 October. Sixteen of those stops were actually crashes, including a crash in Sanderson, Texas, and the mechanics riding in the Vin Fiz Special had to rebuild the VIN FIZ FLYER so many times that probably only a few pieces of the original airplane actually completed the trip. The most serious crash was near the end of the journey, when RODGERS crashed after taking off in front of a crowd of 20,000 people in Pasadena, California. Following a three-week hospitalization for a brain concussion and a spinal twist, RODGERS finally landed on the beach and taxied the VIN FIZ FLYER into the Pacific Ocean on 10 December, completing the first transcontinental flight in U.S. history. RODGERS was not able to enjoy his fame for very long - on 3 April 1912, flying a Wright Model B, he was killed when his aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean after hitting a flock of birds. The VIN FIZ FLYER was acquired by Smithsonian Institution in 1934 and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:46:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015