Page 35 - Volume 13 Number 8

Time was running out for entrants to arrive at Oakland, California, for inspections prior to race day, and both Griffin and Goebel flew west, the former arriving Aug. 6 and the latter Aug. 9. Of the original 15 contenders, only eight remained. Three aircraft had been wrecked and one was disqualified as totally unsuitable for a transoceanic dash. The other three withdrew because of funding, construction issues or second thoughts about flying to Hawaii.
Race officials emphasized that a navigation error of only two or three degrees across a distance of 2,500 miles would result in missing the Hawaiian Islands entirely, with certain death awaiting in the cold depths of the Pacific Ocean. A few of the airplanes were poorly equipped to undertake the flight, with only two magnetic compasses to guide their brave airmen, but others, including the three ships built in Wichita – Oklahoma, Woolaroc and Dallas Spirit – were equipped with state­of­the­art earth in­ ductor compasses developed by the Pioneer Instrument Company.
AUGUST 2019
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 33
Publicity photograph show- ing the Travel Air’s wing tanks being filled to the brim with Phillips Petro- leum’s Nu-Aviation fuel, while Jane Phillips, Frank’s wife, prepares to christen the Woolaroc before its flight to Oakland.
(Frank Phillips Foundation, Inc., Bartlesville, Oklahoma)
Al Henley (left) and Bennett Griffin posed for the camera at the Travel Air factory before departing Wichita for Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to allow Frank Phillips to inspect the monoplane. (Frank Phillips Foundation, Inc., Bartlesville, Oklahoma)