Page 33 - Volume 13 Number 9

board as a passenger. The Breese monoplane Aloha took off next, followed two minutes later by the Woolaroc and then the Dallas Spirit. Of the airplanes that did manage to get into the air that day, the Miss Doran soon returned with engine trouble, as did the Oklahoma, and the Dallas Spirit landed trailing a long sheet of fabric that had torn loose from the fuselage aft of the navigator’s station.
Pilots at the Oakland airport speculated that, of the four airplanes that took off, the Golden Eagle was favored to win because it was the fastest ship, followed by Aloha and Woolaroc with the slowest ship, Miss Doran, finishing fourth. As the crowds began to fade away, they could not have known that the Miss Doran and the Golden Eagle would never be seen or heard from again. Meanwhile, mechanics were scrambling to repair the torn fabric on the Dallas Spirit. Undeterred by the unfortunate mishap, William Erwin was determined to take off and head for Hawaii, still in pursuit of the Easterwood prize.
As for the two Travel Air monoplanes, one was out of the race with engine trouble, but the Woolaroc had climbed safely above a cloud deck as Art Goebel and navigator Bill Davis settled in for the long night ahead. Goebel flew Great Circle routes given to him by Davis as he laid out each one as the Travel Air flew westward. The initial course had been 250 degrees before changing to about 230 degrees until dawn would allow Davis to determine if they were still close to being on course for Hawaii.
Flying straight and level at 4,000 feet, with the Wright J-5 engine singing its constant, reassuring song of power, the two men and their airplane were slowly swallowed up by the Pacific darkness. By midnight Goebel had climbed the airplane to 6,000 feet, just above a layer of stratus clouds. Davis, sitting in the cramped navigator’s station behind the cockpit, used a string telegraph to exchange messages with Goebel and took sightings on Polaris, tuned the radio set for a signal code and attempted to transmit position reports.
About 8 o’clock that evening the radio operator aboard the passenger liner SS Wilhemina steaming eastward 500 miles from San Francisco, began receiving the “dah-dit” Morse code sent by Davis as he transmitted the Woolaroc’s position.
As the night wore on Davis was able to give a series of progress reports that were quickly relayed to Honolulu and San Francisco. Unfortunately, the other three airplanes did not have radio transmitters or receivers installed for the flight. There were, however, indications that at least two unidentified aircraft had been heard flying over vessels late into the night.
As dawn approached on August 17, Davis prepared to drop smoke bombs to determine if the wind had shifted during the night so he could give Goebel course corrections to the islands. White lines had been painted on the Travel Air’s elevator panels at various angles.
SEPTEMBER 2019
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 31
The other Travel Air in the race, the Oklahoma, never made it to the skies that August day due to engine problems.
(Frank Phillips Museum)