AVIATION PRIZE OVERVIEW

Throughout the history of aviation, prizes have propelled major advances in speed, distance, technology and endurance. During the early part of the 20th Century, a host of cash awards encouraged designers and pilots to accomplish great feats in the fledgling aeronautical industry - in spite of the difficulties and the risks. It is doubtful that Charles Lindbergh would have made his historic flight across the Atlantic had there not been $25,000 at stake. In the early part of this century, visionaries realized that incentives would help push forward the fledgling aeronautical industry by rewarding advancements in speed, distance, safety and endurance. By 1929 over 50 major aeronautical prizes had been offered by government, businesses, and individuals. Between 1926 and 1927, Daniel Guggenheim alone offered more than $2.5 million in aviation-related cash awards and trophies (worth in excess of $100 million in 1995 dollars).

As mentioned, prizes are a method to help humans achieve difficult, seemingly impossible feats. They do this by focusing human ingenuity on a very well articulated goal without specifying a particular solution or technology. Prizes are not new to the aerospace world. Select prizes brought forward adventurers, dreamers, and doers, and tempted individuals into taking freat strides toward the unknown, despite the risk.

One of the best-known prizes of this type was the $25,000 Orteig Prize (Raymond Orteig was a wealthy hotel owner), which was set out near the turn of the century for the first person(s) to cross by airplane nonstop between New York and Paris. Where no government filled the need and no immediate profit could pay the bill, the Orteig Prize stiumulated not one, but at last nine different attempts to cross the Atlantic. Where $25,000 was offered, nearly$400,000 (or 16 times the prize value) was spent to win the prize because it was there to be won.

A wonderful consequence of the Orteig Prize concept was that Raymond Orteig did not have to pay out one cent to any of the losers--by offering a prize, he automatically backed Lindbergh, the winner. It is worth noting, that most of the favorite pilots who sported twin, or tri-engine aircraft, failed miserably, and Lindbergh, considered the underdog, won the prize. One additional financial note for corporate aerospace interests: after Lindbergh's successful flight, aeronautical stocks rose steeply for the following year.

Prizes remain a proven and effective way to advance technology and to achieve what is commonly thought to be impossible. A modern example is the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight. This prize, originally valued at £5000, grew to £50,000 and inspired dozens of private individuals and university teams to advance the state of the art. In 1977, a team led by Dr. Paul MacCready captured the prize by flying a figure eight along a half-mile course. Two weeks later, Kremer offered a prize of £100,000 for the first human-powered airplane to cross the English Channel. In only two years, a lightweight human powered craft named the Gossamer Albatross made history by flying the 22.5 miles separating England from France.


COAST-TO-COAST


The early days of aviation were filled with danger, feats of extraordinary courage, and undying determination. The European newspapers had offered huge cash prizes for feats such as flying across the English Channel. Not to be outdone, American tycoons such as William Randolph Hearst began to offer aviation prizes, in part to increase newspaper circulation. Pilots such as Calbraith Perry Rodgers exemplified the bold aviation pioneering spirit needed to capture those prizes.

Rodgers was a 6-foot-four college football star, an avid motorcycle and yacht racer, and the great-grandson of Commodore Matthew Perry, the naval hero who had opened the doors of Japan to the West. In 1911, Perry decided to accept newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst's prize challenge of $50,000 to accomplish a U.S. coast-to-coast flight within less than 30 days. It didn't bother Rodgers that he was nearly deaf as a result of childhood scarlet fever, nor did it bother him that he had only 60 hours of flight time. Rodgers had learned to fly the year before at the Wright brothers' school in Dayton, Ohio. Rodgers soloed after only ninety minutes of flight instruction, a new record for the school. Two months later Rodgers won the $11,285 prize for durability at a Chicago international air meet by logging 27 hours in the air. As Rodgers stated, "I looked over the prize list, picked the biggest one, and determined to bend all my energies toward winning it."

And so, the flamboyant, cigar-chomping, 32-year-old Rodgers set out to find the sponsors for his heroic flight. J. Ogden Armour agreed to sponsor the flight at five dollars for every mile Rodgers covered, and Rodgers agreed to use his plane as a billboard to advertise for Armour company's soft drink, Vin Fiz The Wright brothers built the Wright Model EX biplane especially for Rodgers. It was a smaller single-seat version of their Model B, equipped with both skids and wheels and reaching a top speed of 60 miles per hour. Rodgers christened the plane, Vin Fiz.

Following the airplane were a Pullman car and day coach for Rodgers's wife and mother, a mechanics specialty hangar car that carried the backup aircraft, $4000 worth of spare parts and gasoline, and a special raciing car to get to Rodgers quickly in case of an accident.

No one accepted Hearst's prize challenge until one month before the deadline. Two other prize competitors failed early in their journey. A novice pilot named Robert Fowler set off eastward from San Francisco, but gave up when his radiator started boiling while attempting to fly over Donner Pass. Robert Ward, an ex-jockey, was convinced to turn back as he never made it past New York State. But on September 17, 1911 Rogers climbed into the Vin Fiz Flyer and set out to make history. The layers of sweaters under his flight jacket reflected the icy cold he would encouter during his cross-country trip in the open-seat biplane. Rodgers took off near a racetrack at Sheepshead Bay, New York, and proceeded to follow white canvas strips that had been laid out at intervals along the railroad tracks. He made good time on the first 84-mile leg to Middleton, New York, boasting on his landing "I didn't even knock the ashes off my cigar." Unfortunately, the first leg was to be the easiest. The next day, Rodgers clipped a tree on takeoff and landed upside down in a chicken coop, with his cigar still clenched in his teeth. The plane was quickly rebuilt, but on the next leg, Rodgers broke a skid during an ill-fated potato field landing, after a spark plug popped out of the cylinder head. Still, the next day Rodgers took a wrong turn at a railroad junction, and went south to Suranton, Pennsylvania. There, he almost lost his airplane to souvenir hunters. In fact, one man was caught trying to chisel off a valve from the engine!

Taking off again, Rodgers found himself flying with one hand, and holding the loose spark plug in place with the other. The airplane was again smashed when Rodgers snagged a barbwire fence on takeoff from the Allegheny Indian Reservation. Over Indiana he encountered a vast thunderstorm and later stated "The earth had disappeared. I might be a million miles up in space. I might be a hundred feet from earth." His next crash occurred while avoiding a crowd of zealous spectators. At Chicago, with only two days left of Hearst's time limit, Rodgers had only crossed 1/3 of the continent. He would not make the prize deadline, but the initial prize incentive had given Rodgers a fever. The fever to finish. He convinced Armour company to continue the sponsorship and bravely set out to reach the Pacific Ocean. Rodgers told reporters, "Prize or no prize, that's where I am bound, and if canvas steel, and wire -- together with a little brawn, tendon and brain -- stick with me, I mean to get there!"

Rodgers headed south to Texas to avoid the perils of the Rocky Mountains, only to again have his airplane totaled by a tree stump on takeoff. The journey became no easier in California, where at a cruising altitude of 4000 feet, a cylinder blew out, tearing the engine apart and driving steel shards into Rodgers's arm. The plane went into a dive, but Rodgers pulled out and landed safely at Imperial Junction to receive repairs to both man and airplane. Vin Fiz limped into Pasadena, 19 days too late to receive Hearst's prize, but nonetheless greeted by a crowd of 10,000 cheering Californians. However, Rodgers wasn't satisfied, as his goal was to literally fly his plane to the Pacific Ocean. He took off one week later to fly the final 20 miles to the coast. Just 8 miles later, the newly reconditioned engine failed and upon crashing, Rodgers sustained internal injuries and a broken ankle. Shortly after regaining consciousness, Rodgers calmly lit a cigar and proclaimed "I am going to finish that flight and finish it with the same machine." As it stood, the rudder and the oil drip pan were all that remained of the original aircraft! One month later the irrepressible Rodgers left the hospital, hobbled to the rebuilt plane, strapped his crutches to the wings, and flew onto the sands at Long Beach. A crowd of 50,000 cheered as Rodgers gleefully rolled his plane's wheels into the Pacific surf!

Rodgers had made 69 stops in all, (23 in Texas alone), 19 crashes (5 serious), and logged a total of 82 hours 4 minutes in the air along the 3,220 mile journey. He had crossed America coast-to-coast in 49 days. It is no wonder that Rodgers's epitaph reads : "I endure -- I conquer!"


ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA


The year is 1919. A lone bomber flies through the dark European skies bound for Australia. The registration letters G-EAOU painted on the wings have become symbolic of the crew's motto: "God 'Elp All Of Us." Onboard the aircraft are four Australian WWI veterans, making a treacherous 7, 388-mile journey from London back home. Australia has never been reached by air, and Captain Ross Smith knows that this mission will require at least 20 hazardous takeoffs and landings from runways that perhaps do not even deserve to be thought of as runways... No plane at the time has the range to reach Australia via the Pacific Ocean, so an eastbound flight has been planned to take the fearless aviators through Europe, the Middle East, to India and the Bay of Bengal, Indochina, Indonesia, and in one final treacherous leap, across the Timor Sea to Australia. Beyond the thrill of returning home, beyond the rapture of flying halfway around the world, there also lies a prize of 10,000 francs...

Australian Prime Minister William Hughes had taken part in peace negotiations at Versailles, and traveled between London and Paris by air. This experience convinced him that Australia needed aviation to expand ties with North America and Europe. After his flight experience, Hughes advocated that a prize be established for the first flight from England to Australia within 30 days.. By spring of 1919, preparations were underway by at least half a dozen teams to attempt to capture the prize.

One of the interested contenders was Ross Smith of the Australian Flying Corps. He had served in the Middle East as personal pilot to Lawrence of Arabia, and at war's end had helped to establish an air route from Cairo to Calcutta. Smith received a Vimy bomber from Vickers Ltd. in October 1919 for the attempt to reach Australia by air.

The perils of the grueling journey soon became all to evident to the competing teams. Captain George Campbell Matthews became snowbound in Germany. The French team was forced to land in Persia after experiencing engine trouble, only to be harrassed by hostile nomads who attempted to ignite their plane with a torch! Ross Smith set out from England in late pursuit of the French team, accompanied by his brother Keith, the navigator and two mechanics with the Australian Flying Corps, Sergeants Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers.

In order to overtake the French, the Aussies were forced to start their journey in pea-soup fog while leaving London. The first destination was Lyons, France, but the horrible weather of the English Channel soon caused chaos. Ice coated both wings and the fliers' goggles, so that they were literally flying blind. Smith's diary entry read " The cold is hell. I am silly for having ever embarked on the flight." But none of them were about to turn back. Soon the fog cleared and the crew realized it was only 40 miles from Lyons.

The next morning a landing in Pisa, Italy stranded the crew for two days, as the field was too muddy to allow takeoff. Tired of losing time, Smith revved the engines to full power while airfield employees pushed the plane. According to bystanders, Sergeant Bennett had to literally hold the plane's tail down to keep it from tipping on its nose. As the plane gathered speed, Bennett ran alongside, grabbed Sergeant Shier's hand, and flipped himself like an acrobat into the plane as it surged into the air!

The next peril occurred in the Apennine Mountains, where violent downdrafts caused the plane to plunge 1000 feet in just a few seconds. Conditions improved between Crete and Cairo, and the Aussie crew learned that the French team of Poulet and Benoist had been delayed for one week in Karachi, India while Benoist fought off malaria. As the Australians headed toward India, violent headwinds forced them down in Iraq. A sandstorm snapped a control cable causing the ailerons to flap wildly, until Smith ran into the swirling dust to start the engine and turn the plane into the wind. A nearby Indian lancer garrison was enlisted to post an all-night vigil to hold down the aircraft. The next morning, the control cable was repaired and the odyssey continued...

The Vimy was now crossing terrain so rugged that any emergency landing attempt would have been suicidal. In Karochi, they learned that Poulet and Benoist were only one day in the lead. As the Aussies touched down in Delhi on Nov. 25, the Frenchmen had just departed. A local newspaper told of the excitement throughout India: "One may well imagine the excitement among the residents of Delhi, at the departure of one Trans-planet aeroplane in the morning and the arrival of a second one in the afternoon."

Yet another forced desert landing occurred when one of the Vimy engine's oil pressure gauges dropped to zero. Luckily, it was only a faulty gauge, and did not in fact mean that the engine was about to seize! Two days laer in Akyab, Burma, the Aussies overtook Poulet and Benoist. That night the two competing crews swapped stories of their adventures. They took off together the next morning, then the Aussies left the French team behind for good in Rangoon.

Bangkok was to provide the last true airport between London and Australia. In Singora, on the Malay Peninsula, a strip had been cleared of trees by workers who did not realize that an airplane could not land amidst 18-inch tree stumps. Smith landed and managed to thread the Vimy through the perilous stumps, missing all but one. And of all the parts the stump could have damaged, a tail skid was broken, for which there was no spare. Bennett managed to find a laethe to turn a new skid, and a new runway was cleared. Water in the field slowed the plane, which was barely able to lift off. The crew headed to Singapore, racing to beat the prize deadline.

In Singapore, the runway turned out to be the straightaway stretch of a race track. Much to the chagrin of the Aussies, the runway was too short and their plane had no brakes. The fearless Bennett again climbed out of the cockpit and inched along the bouncing fuselage to weight down the planes tail and use it as a brake. The Vimy skirted disaster by stopping just short of the curving trackside fence, with Bennett clinging precariously to the tail.

Upon landing in Surabaya, Indonesia, a quagmire bog sank the Vimy up to its axles. The crew of the Vimy was rescued by local Indonesians, who provided hundreds of bamboo mats pegged to the ground to serve as a 300 yard "runway." This strip was built in less than a day, with many of the islanders contributing bamboo from their own homes. With luck and human kindness, the Vimy shot down the bamboo runway and flew to the island of Timor, the last stop before the 470-mile leap to Darwin, Australia and victory.

The crew became nervous, feeling that the Vimy could give out at any instant. But halfway to Darwin, the H.M.A.S. Sydney, an Australian warship, diverted to greet the fliers. The Vimy was running dry on fuel. At 3:40 p.m. on December 10, 1919, the Vimy ran out of fuel as it set down at Darwin's Fanny Bay airdrome. Sergeant Shiers cried "We almost fell into Darwin."

The journey had required 28 of the 30 days allowed to obtain the prize. The entire Australian nation had followed their countrymens' progress. Knighthoods were conferred upon Ross and Keith Smith, while Bennett and Shiers were promoted. The four men split the 10,000 franc prize equally.

Meanwhile, Poulet and Beroist were stranded east of Rangoon with a cracked cylinder in their engine. The Matthews crew that had been snowbound in Germany wound up crash-landing in Bali. Of the other 4 entrants, one crashed 5 minutes afte takeoff in England killing both the pilot and navigator. Another crew was killed when the plane was ditched in the Mediterranean off of Corfu. Still another mission gave up after mechanical trouble in Crete. And one entrant had never even left England as the brave Australians touched down in Darwin. Smith's crew had at last bridged the gap between England and the Australian frontier!


FIRST PACIFIC NON-STOP FLIGHT


In the early 1930s, the Japanese began offering aviation prizes. Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun newspaper created a 100,000 yen ($50,000) prize for a successful non-stop crossing of the Pacific by a Japanese pilot (half that money if foreigners made the flight). Japanese and American contenders quickly appeared. Among them were two American pilots, Clyde "Upside Down" Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr. left New York's Roosevelt Field on July 28, 1931 hoping to set an around-the-world speed record. Pangborn was famous as a stunt pilot and wing walker and felt he could beat the world speed record set by Post and Gatty. However, while landing the Bellanca Skyrocket Miss Veedol , the pilots slid off the runway and became trapped in mud. As there was no longer time to beat the world speed record, they decided to instead compete for the Asahi Shimbun prize.

As they waited to hear back on the status of their landing permit from the Japanese Aviation Bureau, the two pilots decided to take off from the now-dry field rather than risk getting stuck in the mud again. As a result, when they reached Tachikawa Airport, they were met by angry officials who demanded to see the still non-existent landing papers. Pangborn and Herndon ended up under house arrest in Tokyo's Imperial Hotel accused of espionage after they took sightseeing photos. In all, 55 charges were brought against the Americans, resulting in them being detained for two months in Tokyo following their August 8th landing. The two pilots had neglected to remember that China and Japan were at war, and that unannounced foreign aircraft were not welcome!

Finally, approval was given for the Bellanca to attempt one and only one overloaded takeoff from Japan. Pangborn thought of a way to extend the Bellanca's range. He removed the bolts from the landing gear to the fuselage, and instead placed clips and springs attached to a cable in such a way that the landing gear structure could be jettisoned on takeoff. For landing, the plane would have to rely on steel skid strips attached to the plane's belly. Pangborn stated "We determined that to make the transpacific we would have to take off with the heaviest wing loading (full load) ever attempted in a Bellanca." Enough fuel had to be allowed to make the 4,500 mile journey to the U.S.. By jettisoning the fixed landing gear, it was determined that speed would increase by 15 mph, adding 600 miles to the airplane's range during the 40-hour flight. The 735-gallon fuel tankage allowed the pilots to refuel in flight from 5-gallon gas tanks which the airmen carried.

On October 2, 1930, the Miss Veedol prepared for takeoff. Pangborn was extremely touched as a Japanese boy rushed forward from the crowd to present him with a gift of five apples from his father's orchard. To save weight, the plane had no radio, no survival equipment, no seat cushions, and food rations were limited to hot tea and fried chicken. In all, there were 915 gallons of fuel and 45 gallons of oil, with the plane still being 3,400 lbs. above the designed gross operating weight.

The 425-hp Wasp engine screamed down the beach, but the monoplane only reached 60 mph with 2/3 of the beach runway used up. A speed of 90 mph was needed for takeoff and the tension mounted inside the cockpit...Pangborn was forced to rock the aircraft from wheel to wheeel to try to keep from sinking into the sand, and upon seeing a pile of logs dead ahead, he later stated " I was determined to take off, or pile into those logs. We had permission for only the one attempt. With less than 200 yards to spare ,the aircraft lurched near a stall, inching above the waves. They turned toward the Aleutian islands, and proceeded to jettison the landing gear about three hours into the journey. Without the 300 pound landing gear and resulting parasitic drag, the plane climbed to 14,000 feet and picked up a tail wind.

As the sun went down, icing began to attack the airframe, and the pilots increased their alitude to 17,000 feet. The two pilots had the horrific realization that two dangling struts were remaining from the landing gear that would surely destroy the plane upon any attempts to land. Pangborn bravely faced the 100 mph slipstream, crawled out of the cockpit, balanced himself on the front strut, and removed the remains of the landing gear.

The night was unforgivingly cold. As the pilots stated "The water in our canteens and even our hot tea froze." A volcano in the Aleutian islands served as a welcome landmark. Then, yet another disaster struck. Hearndon forgot to transfer fuel using a hand-operated wobble pump, causing the propeller to suddenly stop dead, with no electric start possible! Pangborn reacted swiftly, diving the Bellanca in the hopes of getting the propeller to start from the wind pull of the air. Hearndon frantically pumped the fuel, as Pangborn steepened into a deathly dive, trying to turn the propeller. Time was running out. They had lost 13,000 feet, and were now plummeting only 1500 feet above the raging Pacific. The engine finally sputtered to life as the plane lurched away from the unforgiving seas.

Pangborn sighted the tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands off the NW coast of Canada. He had been awake 30 hours and decided to hand the controls to Hearndon. They wandered off course and missed both Vancouver and Seattle, instead heading directly for Mount Rainier. As Boise was surrounded in fog, Pangborn decided to head for his hometown of Wenatchee. Pangborn's mother had somehow guessed this would be the final destination, and so a crowd of reporters had gathered to greet the Pacific pilots. On October 5, 1931, the crowd exclaimed "No wheels!" as the red monoplane swooped over the hills dumping fuel to reduce the chances of fire on the belly landing. Herndon went to the rear of the cabin to attempt to hold the tail of the plane down during landing. A flying oil can cut Hearndon above the eye. As Pangborn cut off the fuel and ignition switches he flared close to the stall speed. The crowd held its breath as a cloud of dust plumed, and the airplane emerged undamaged, except to fall on its left wing tip. A representative of Asahi Shimbun immediately presented the fliers with a $25,000 check as they hopped from their plane.

Remembering the little Japanese boy's kind gift of apples, Pangborn arranged for five cuttings from Wenatchee's famed Richard Delicious apples to be sent to Misawa City, Japan. Today, Richard Delicious apples are grown everywhere in Japan, a legacy to the adventurers' daring Pacific crossing.


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