= <a ye Nog ee Wye =_ . Soe. —_— gt eh re ”w. —_— ~ ae all tia pee PERG vod el ~ a * Iden dfl bh Crdaht There Went A US. Air Record WASHINGTON, Sept. I1€ ‘UPI)—Fifty years ago Sun day, a ramshackle biplane took off on what was to be the first successful transcontinenta! flight across the United States It left the ground in New| York on Sept. 17, 1911. Exactly ‘ended one occasion a “cylinder imbedded steel sliv- oars in his arm. It took a doc ‘or two hours to remove the “ragments. weeks before he coulc it resume the flight. This mis hap eccurred at Covina, Calif. 15 sep just. short of his Lens Beack | Beach,. Calif.— after 69 landings and |arate crashes; \ goal. hes The -pilot. was. “Calbraith|* The “Vin Fiz,” now restored. who and on display at the Smith| (Cal)« “Perry Rodgers named his plane “Vin Fiz,” aft- sonian Institution, was power a popular soft drink of the ered by a 35-horsepower en- day. The manufacturer fi- gine and had nanced the flight but Rodgers only 32 feet. spent far more than the $5per-mile flown that the gee | sor paid him. a wingspan of | _ Its top speed was 55 miles an hour—just half the landing speed of a modern jetliner. ae He had so many accidents, the “Vin Fiz’ was rebuilt The four times. flight that took Cal |Redgers 84 days is now comBy the time the cigar-smok- pleted by commercial Jeu in ing Rodgers finished his 4,321 five hours. jmile flight, the only original| The pioneering Rodgers died| parts left: on the plane were in a crash off Long Beach only the rudder, one wing strut and four months after his historic the engine drip pan, — flight. A seagull became THE HISTORIC trip actual- wedged in his controls and the} ly was in competition for a plane dived into the Pacific."4} $50,000 prize offered by the Hearst newspapers. Rodgers, ‘one of ‘several en: days. His sponsor was the Armour Co.,. then as now a meat-packing firm but. at. the! time also engaged in marketing the soft drink. CHARTERED a Rodgers navigated generally iS SD enw mh et by following’ railroad tracks across New York, Pennsyl»*|vania and Ohio to Chicago, --|then southwest to Texas, and inally west from the Lone tar State to avoid the Rockies. His only instrument was -a piece of string fastened: ‘to a wing brace. The direction in. which it waved indicated whether the plane was climbing, descend. ing or turning. Rodgers came close to death many times. Over Indiana, he flew into a thunderstorm and the only way he Kept the en- gine going was to cover | magneto with his hand. the He had a half dozen, forced landings because failure and was jured twice, — of engine ta in- Pet ott |. GS. three mechanics and the pilot’s wife and mother. Re ers across the country, carrying spare parts, an automobile, ad train which accompanied Rodg- sme Oe aR 7 TOst OG AH tries, was the only one to com-) plete the coast-to-coast flight} but not within the required 30 ARMOUR | DURING ONE crash land |” ng, he broke his ankle anc jad to hobble on crutches for several .84:.days. Jater, at Long On oxploded,