“We are out to win!”

In September 1936, Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes became the first famous female pilots to capture the coveted Bendix Trophy, and they did it flying a stock Beechcraft

“We think you’ve won the Bendix!” yelled a man as he ran along beside the biplane as it taxied across the grass at Mines Field near Los Angeles. Pilots Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes were puzzled why more and more men came running up to their Beechcraft C17R. They were certain they had made some mistake and were about to be reprimanded. Determined to learn what all the fuss was about, Louise ordered Blanche to “find out what they want.” Her co-pilot cranked down the window and heard a startling statement – “You’ve won the Bendix!” The two ladies thought he was joking, and besides, they were too tired after nearly 15 hours in the air to care what anybody had to say.¹

After reaching a safe spot to stop, Louise shut down the Wright R-975 static, air-cooled radial engine that had faithfully propelled their ship from New York to California in a flying time of 14 hours, 55 minutes and one second. Amidst a raucous, noisy herd of reporters and officials that included race sponsor Vincent Bendix and Cliff Henderson, manager of the National Air Races, Louise and Blanche slowly exited the Beechcraft and were hurried off to the announcer’s stand to address a cheering crowd of thousands. To their surprise and initial disbelief, the two women had not only won the prestigious Bendix competition, but would pocket a handsome $9,250 for their efforts. That award was a significant amount of cash in the midst of the worst economic depression America had ever experienced up to that time.

As they stepped down from the stand they were greeted by Olive Ann Beech, who ran up to them with tears in her eyes, threw her arms around them and said with emotion in her voice, “So a woman could not win, eh?” Indeed, they had won, beating the likes of Amelia Earhart, Laura Ingalls, Helen Richey and above all, the best male pilots in the country. Among those men were the dapper “Colonel” Roscoe Turner, flying his 1,000-hp Wedell-Williams racer; Benny Howard, whose custom-built monoplane Mr. Mulligan shed a propeller blade high over New Mexico and crashed, seriously injuring Howard and his wife, Maxine; and Joe Jacobson, who had to bail out of his crippled Northrop Gamma all-metal monoplane above Kansas.

Louise and Blanche’s flight adventure had begun a month earlier when Walter Beech decided to enter a new Beechcraft in the nation’s premier, free-for-all speed dash from coast-to-coast. In 1931, the inaugural Bendix event was won by James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle flying a Laird Super Solution biplane. The race remained a male-only event until 1936 when officials finally (and perhaps reluctantly) agreed to allow female pilots to compete in a special category. To encourage participation, Vincent Bendix promised a $2,500 prize for the aviatrix posting the fastest flying time to Los Angeles. As Thaden recalled after the race, O.A. Beech had once remarked to her, “I think we ought to have that money, don’t you?” ²

In August, Walter had yet to decide who would fly the blue and cream C17R he had selected as the Beech Aircraft Company’s entrant. Would it be a man or a woman? Olive Ann argued for a woman, but her husband was seriously considering Bill Ong, a salesman and factory test pilot, for the job. At the behest of his wife, however, Mr. Beech eventually agreed with her choice of Louise Thaden. In 1927, he had helped the young woman enter aviation by sending her to California to work alongside D.C. Warren, a well-known and successful dealer/distributor for the Travel Air Manufacturing Company, of which Walter was president at that time. She quickly proved herself a capable pilot, and at one time held the women’s speed, altitude and endurance records in the United States.

When Louise received Walter’s offer, she was surprised. She knew the competition would be formidable, and she also knew that speed was the quintessential element of the Bendix. Louise doubted that a humble Beechcraft could defeat the hard-flying Turner, Howard, Earhart, Ingalls and others, all of whom would be flying ships built for speed above all. When Thaden was tapped to fly the race she and Blanche Noyes were working for the Bureau of Air Commerce as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Project Administration. Their job was to convince Texas officials to install airmarkers at 600 cities and towns to help pilots navigate across the Lone Star State.

After talking with Noyes about the race, the two women decided to team up and fly Walter’s C17R the 3,000 miles from New York to California. They harbored no thoughts of winning – just finishing the grueling journey would be sufficient compensation. Louise telephoned Olive Ann and accepted the offer. From that moment on, time was of the essence. Only two weeks remained until September 4, and rules stipulated that all contestants had to arrive at Floyd Bennett Field no later than 48 hours before midnight on September 3, 1936. A week later Louise and Blanche arrived at the Beech factory and were introduced to the C17R registered NC15835. Resplendent in its colorful Sherwin Williams blue with white accent stripes, the ship had already been sold to the Honduran Government as a replacement for a B17L that had crashed during service with the country’s Escuela Militar de Aviacion.

Thaden later wrote that the Beechcraft had the appearance of “a trim, blue princess of the air, as though she was impatiently poised for instant flight … as sleek and as fast as a greyhound, strong and sturdy as an ox.”³ The only modifications to the airframe were installation of a 56-gallon aluminum alloy auxiliary fuel tank that replaced the rear seat, and a 12-gallon oil tank mounted in the baggage compartment (oil from the tank had to be pumped forward to the engine’s tank using a wobble pump installed between the two front seats). The only complaint Louise voiced was her dissatisfaction with the obsolete radio receiver and the absence of gyroscopic heading indicator instrument.

The Wichita newspapers knew a good story when they saw one, and two women pilots willing to pit their skills against those of their contemporaries, both male and female, made for sensational press. When asked about their chances of winning the race, Louise replied, “Don’t say that we are entered in the women’s division of the Bendix. We are in the Bendix and out to win first prize. If the men take it away from us they will have to do some flying because the Beechcraft can make any of them open their power, and we will hold our engine open all the way.”⁴ That was tough talk, but both Louise and Blanche intended to fight for the win from takeoff to landing.

The duo departed Wichita on August 31 and made an uneventful flight to New York City. During the next two days, the C17R was inspected by race officials and a few minor problems corrected. The ancient radio set was checked by a technician, new spark plugs were installed in all nine cylinders of the Wright radial engine, a few adjustments were made to the landing gear, and a heading indicator was installed, thanks to the generosity of a fellow pilot. In the early morning hours of September 4,
the Beechcraft was waved into position for takeoff. The moment of truth had finally arrived.

The C17R’s engine rumbled impatiently as the flagman yelled to Louise, “One minute!” She eased the throttle forward to 800 rpm. “Fifteen seconds!” the flagman screamed. She inched the throttle forward a little more. “Good luck!” he yelled as he dropped a handkerchief. The R-975 responded eagerly as Louise pushed the throttle full forward. “The ship gathered speed down the concrete whiteness of the runway. Faster and faster we rolled until with a thunderous paean of triumph, the engine lifted the earth-bound wheels clear, and we, too, became a part of the night,”⁵ Louise recalled years later. Floyd Bennett Field quickly disappeared into the darkness.

After one hour in the air, Louise and Blanche were glad to see the horizon behind them begin to glow as the sun began its slow climb above the eastern horizon. The aviators were unsure of their position because a layer of fog blanketed the ground, denying them an early opportunity to check the Beechcraft’s groundspeed between pre-planned checkpoints. Just as Louise had feared, the Lear radio proved useless due to an avalanche of static, preventing them from tuning in to radio stations. Another 30 minutes passed. Gradually a few holes in the fog bank revealed enough of the landscape below that Blanche guessed they were somewhere over Ohio. A few minutes later Blanche was thrilled to see an airmarker! It confirmed that the C17R was in Ohio airspace. Remarkably, after flying nearly two hours without any reference to the ground, Blanche calculated that they were only a mere 10 miles off course, Better yet, their groundspeed was about 211 mph.

Although Louise had told the newshawks in Wichita that she intended to fly the race with the Wright radial roaring at full throttle, she set power at 65% and continued flying at 8,000 feet toward the next major checkpoint, St. Louis, Missouri. Two hours later the mighty Mississippi River slipped away beneath the Beechcraft as it sped toward its first and only fuel stop – Wichita, Kansas. Still 150 miles away from the city, Louise established a shallow, high-speed descent of about 200 feet per minute. Less than an hour later, the airport hove into view, and despite visibility being limited to six miles, Thaden was intimately familiar with the area and had no trouble using landmarks to home-in on the field.

With gear down and flaps set, the biplane touched down gently on Kansas turf. Louise quickly taxied to the designated refueling area where two trucks awaited the ship’s arrival. There to supervise the refueling process and check on the ladies and their airplane was none other than Walter Beech, a ubiquitous pipe clenched between his teeth. The engine was allowed to rest for only eight minutes as 170 gallons of avgas were pumped into the tanks, the oil tank was replenished and Louise and Blanche washed down sandwiches with bottles of ice-cold Coca-Cola. Beech calmly enquired what power setting Louise was using. Reluctantly, she told the truth: “65% power.” Walter exploded. “What the hell do you think you’re in, a potato race?” he roared in response, almost biting his pipe stem in two. “Open this damned thing up!”⁶ Reeling from Beech’s verbal broadside, Louise firmly replied, “Yes, sir!” That was the answer Walter wanted to hear, but Thaden had no intention of obeying Mr. Beech. She had already resolved to fly the remaining distance at 65% power.

What happened next, however, nearly ended the women’s quest to win the Bendix. The Beechcraft was on its takeoff roll when Louise suddenly noticed another airplane to her right, on final approach to land. Without hesitation she chose to continue the takeoff and ignore the other airplane’s right-of-way to land. The two aircraft were very near each other when Louise forced the C17R into the air, threw it into a sharp turn and avoided a collision. As the story goes (perhaps embellished over time but possibly close to the truth), the scary event had been witnessed by Walter Beech. Bristling with rage, he reportedly bit his pipe stem in two, tore his hat to shreds, cussed a blue streak and gave the other pilot a tongue lashing that he would not soon forget.

After departing Wichita, the C17R climbed upward through a rain-laden sky until it broke out of the clouds into a brilliant sunlit sky. Heading ever westward toward Los Angeles, Blanche estimated the Beechcraft was encountering headwinds of about 60 mph that slowed its progress across the ground to only 150 mph. Both women knew they had to land before 6:00 p.m. or be disqualified, and “With such a slow time, we decided there was no alternative but that we should finish the race as the “cow’s tail,” Louise later recalled.⁷ Despite being discouraged, they continued flying toward their next major checkpoint, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If the duo had known what had happened to their competitors that day, perhaps they would not have felt so sullen. Benny Howard was out of the race, as was Joe Jacobsen, and Amelia Earhart and co-pilot Helen Richey’s twin-engine, all-metal Lockheed Electra had fallen far behind because a stubborn hatch had refused to close, doing irreparable damage to their chance for victory. Thaden and Noyes were in the lead, but close behind was petit Laura Ingalls flying her black Lockheed Orion monoplane. She would later prove to be Louise Thaden’s chief adversary in a race to the finish line. Oblivious to all that was happening elsewhere that day, the two lady aviators left New Mexico behind and sped across Arizona’s bleak desert landscape to California. Ahead of them, however, lay a range of high mountains that would have to be crossed at an altitude of at least 14,000 feet. The Wright engine roared steadily as the C17R climbed into the cold, autumn skies above the snow-capped peaks.

By the time the airplane cleared the mountains, it became obvious that the sun had beaten the Beechcraft westward, and was slowly sinking toward the horizon. Louise reduced power and began a long but speedy descent in the general direction of Los Angeles. Looking at their watches both women breathed a sigh of relief – they would arrive before the deadline. All that remained was to guide their ship to the designated airport, fly across the finish line in the correct direction, and land safely. Years later, Louise remembered her thoughts as the final miles droned by: “Believing I had lost all chance of landing in the money, I felt elated that anyhow, perhaps from the thrill of finishing a race in which you have given your best, perhaps because I knew I had tried hard in the face of many obstacles.”⁸

Weary but alert, Louise and Blanche had put 2,600 miles between them and Floyd Bennett Field, but they faced one more challenge – locate Mines Field and do it quickly. Thaden leveled off at 2,000 feet as both women kept a keen vigil for any sign of the airport. The glare of a setting sun, coupled with the haze and smog that pervaded the area, reduced visibility to only a few miles. Blanche had calculated that they should be over the field at any moment, but it remained hidden. Suddenly she cried out, “There it is!” Louise put the Beechcraft into a shallow dive and flashed across the finish line at more than 200 mph, “with thundering reverberations we swept low across the airport, my eyes too busy looking for planes to notice anything on the ground.” She nearly jumped out of her seat when Blanche punched her and exclaimed, “You’ve shot the airport instead of the finish line on the race field. It’s over here!” as she gestured frantically down and to the right.⁹

Without hesitation Louise pulled the C17R up, rolled the ship into a hard right 180-degree turn and, after avoiding a flock of U.S. Marine Corps fighters, ripped the air asunder as the airplane crossed the white line on the ground. Relieved to be on terra firma once again, the two pilots could not have imagined that they had won the Bendix. About 45 minutes later, Laura Ingalls’ fast Lockheed crossed the line to finish second, while Amelia Earhart and Helen Richey finished a distant fifth behind William Warner in a Vultee V-1A, and George Pomeroy in a Douglas DC-2 airline transport. When Walter Beech received news that the C17R had won, he was surprised, but was quick to express his confidence in Thaden and Noyes: “Those girls did a wonderful job and deserve every bit of praise they get.” The next day he boarded a TWA DC-2 and flew to Los Angeles, where he joined Olive Ann.

He warmly congratulated Louise and Blanche. “Nice work, fella,” he told Thaden. “The old man knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t he?” She replied, “You certainly do, except we cruised out from Wichita, too.” Beech was stunned. “The devil you did,” he exclaimed, laughing until his face was red and tears rolled down his cheeks. Walter, however, had the last laugh. “A woman winning the Bendix flying a stock airplane at cruising speed … that’s the best I’ve ever heard, particularly since the engine has more than 1,200 hours on it!” Thaden gasped, “1,200 hours! Why, that engine’s practically a grandfather! Darn you for giving us a worn out engine!”¹⁰

In the wake of the Bendix win, Walter Beech planned to send Louise and the C17R on a nationwide tour to celebrate the triumph. The only problem was that he had already sold the ship to the Honduran Government, and their agent was growing increasingly impatient for delivery. Beech had to deliver the Beechcraft and had no other C17R available. The solution was pure Walter Beech. He ordered that C17R-81, then on the production line, be painted in Sherwin Williams blue with white accent stripes identical to the Bendix winner, as well as the same registration, NC15835. Early in October, Louise and the imposter Beechcraft departed Wichita and spent the next few weeks visiting Beechcraft dealerships and airports across the country.

As for the genuine victor, after the race C17R-77 was refurbished at the factory and finally delivered on September 12, 1936. It served with the Escuela Militar de Aviacion and was still in service as late as 1947. For her success in the Bendix race Louise received the Harmon Trophy from the Ligue Internationale des Aviateurs, and accepted a position with the newly renamed Beech Aircraft Corporation as a sales agent and demonstration pilot.

NOTES:

1. Thaden, Louise; “High, Wide and Frightened;” Air Facts Press, New York; 1973

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. Ibid

5. Ibid

6. Phillips, Edward H.; “The Staggerwing Story;” Flying Books International, Eagan, Minnesota; 1996.

7. Ibid

8. Ibid

9. Ibid

10. Ibid