This Day In Tech Events That Shaped the Wired World
Sept. 17, 1911: First Transcontinental Flight Takes Weeks
1911: Pilot Cal Rodgers takes off from New York City and begins the first transcontinental flight across the United States. He hopes to win a $50,000 prize by completing the trip in 30 days, but the inexperienced pilot has little idea of what such a trip will actually entail.
Powered airplanes had been flying for only eight short years when Cal Rodgers departed from a field in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, at 4:30 p.m., Sept. 17, 1911. The young pilot had only 60 hours of flying experience in his log book. His Wright Flyer Model EX was as flimsy as a kite and could only manage 50 to 60 mph with its 35-horsepower engine.
Worst of all, there wasn’t a single airport or navigation beacon ahead of him for his roughly 4,000-plus–mile flight (accounts vary on the exact route and distance). But what Rodgers lacked in experience and equipment, he made up for with classic daredevil bravado.
Publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst had put up a $50,000 prize for the first person who could fly coast to coast in an airplane in less than 30 days. The prize (more than $1.1 million in today’s money) attracted Rodgers, and to make the trip he became the first private citizen to buy a Wright airplane.
The motorcycle and automobile racer had only learned to fly a few months earlier. After just 90 minutes of instruction from Orville Wright himself, Rodgers flew solo for the first time in June 1911. Then he won an $11,000 prize for flight endurance at an air meet in Chicago in August.
The plane, a modified Wright Flyer B called the Model EX, was top-of-the-line for the time, but quite primitive by the standards available just a decade later. The biplane didn’t even have what we would today call a cockpit. There was a simple seat on the lower wing along with the basic flight controls.
There were no instruments and no gauges, but Rodgers apparently was a realist, and he strapped a pair of crutches to the plane. They would come in handy more than once during the journey.
Like adventurers of today, Rodgers knew he couldn’t fund the trip himself, so he went looking for sponsors. The trip would require numerous spare parts including wings and major fuselage sections, as well as a crew of mechanics and support staff that ended up filling a three-car train.
Rodgers found a sponsor in J. Ogden Armour. The meatpacking tycoon wanted to promote a new grape soda drink, and with the sponsorship, the first aerial billboard was born.
The Vin Fiz, named after the grape drink, departed New York and headed west following roads and railroad tracks on a journey many said would end at the Hudson River just a few miles ahead. But on his first leg Rodgers managed to make it more than 100 miles, landing in a field in Middletown, New York.
The next morning, in what would become the first of many accidents along the way, the Vin Fiz snagged a tree on takeoff, and both pilot and airplane suffered damage. After a few days of repairs on the wing, the fuselage and Rodgers’ head, the Vin Fiz continued, eventually making it to Chicago three weeks later.
With the 30-day deadline looming, it was apparent there would be no prize. But Rodgers wanted to complete the trip, and continued with his entourage of mechanics and supporters.
The aircraft would end up making more than 70 stops before landing at the designated goal in Pasadena, California, on Nov. 5. Rodgers had missed the deadline by 19 days (and you think your flight delay was something).
Rodgers made more than 15 crash landings and numerous hospital visits during the trip. The plane had been repaired and rebuilt so many times during the trip that, like grandpa’s axe, little of the original aircraft made it to California.
Rodgers suffered numerous injuries during the flight: a broken leg in Arizona, shrapnel in his arm from a blown cylinder, and too many cuts, scrapes and bruises to count.
But after an amazing 82 hours in the air, Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz had completed the first-ever crossing of the United States by an airplane. More than 20,000 people gathered in Pasadena to witness Rodgers and his plane finish their flight.
Only months later, in April 1912, Rodgers was performing a test flight in Long Beach when he encountered a flock of seagulls. Just as bird strikes are a hazard today, one of the seagulls hit the plane, fouling the controls.
Rodgers crashed into the water below. Unfortunately, this crash was more severe than the dozens he experienced before: Rodgers died from a broken neck at age 33.
