Page 31 - Volume 10 Number 9

Type 3000 powered by a Wright-Hispano Suiza V-8 engine rated at 180 horsepower. Louise and the company’s mechanics, whom she worked with almost every day and shared their dirty hands working on airplanes, had rigged the airframe, tuned the engine and equipped the open cockpit with a very crude supplemental oxygen system based largely on hospital equipment.
Donning her heavy, fur-lined flying suit, leather helmet, goggles and gloves, Mrs. Thaden clambered into the aft cockpit. Mechanics swung the prop and the Wright-Hispano came to life, belching puffs of smoke before settling into a steady, staccato idle. Minutes later Louise and the Type 3000 were airborne, climbing steadily over the Oakland airport. For more than an hour she nursed the biplane upward, eventually reaching an indicated altitude of 27,000 feet according to one altimeter, but another altimeter indicated 29,000 feet.
The engine was gasping for breath and the wings had given up their last shred of lift. As she tried in vain to nurse the ship just a little higher, she slowly succumbed to hypoxia because of the frozen oxygen equipment, and lost consciousness. Fortunately, she regained consciousness at 16,500 feet as the Travel Air roared toward the earth in wide spirals at the rate of 1,500 feet per minute. Taking control, Thaden began a long descent back to the flying field.
When the barograph was removed from its perch in the fuselage, officials of the National Aeronautic Association, which had sanctioned the attempt, confirmed that Louise had attained an altitude of 20,200 feet. She now held the altitude record for women, and later followed up that feat by capturing the women’s records for speed (156 mph) and endurance (22 hours 33 minutes). Thaden was the only female aviator to simultaneously hold all three records, albeit only briefly.
Two of Louise Thaden’s most significant accom- plishments, however, were her victory in the 1929 Women’s Air Derby, and along with co-pilot Blanche Noyes, took first place in 1936 Bendix cross-country from New York City to Los Angeles, California. The Derby was held in August 1929. The 20 women pilots took off from Santa Monica, California, and flew a circuitous route to Cleveland, Ohio, site of that year’s annual National Air Races. Thaden flew a specially-prepared Travel Air Type D4000 biplane fitted with “speed wings,” an NACA cowling around the 300-horsepower Wright J6-9 static, air-cooled radial engine, and carried race number “04” for the event. Thanks largely to careful dead-reckoning navigation and a reliable airplane, Louise placed first in the heavyweight airplane class after flying 2,500 miles during a period of 10 days. Her friend and well-known aviatrix, Phoebe Omlie, won the lightweight class in her Velie-powered Monocoupe.
SEPTEMBER 2016 KING AIR MAGAZINE • 29