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In 1911, a legally deaf, beginner pilot with limited training and only 90 minutes of solo flying experience took on newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst's $50,000 challenge to be the first aviator to fly across America in 30 days or less. The transcontinental flight was considered by most to be an extremely dangerous and nearly impossible feat, considering roughly half of all pilots perished in the early years of aviation. Less than a decade since the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, a time when less than two percent of the country had even seen an airplane, Calbraith "Cal" Perry Rodgers drew tens of thousands of people to watch him fly. He survived a grueling journey, making history by becoming the first person to complete an east-to-west transcontinental flight.
In a flimsy aircraft prone to mechanical failure, Rodgers crashed an astonishing 16 times, narrowly avoiding death on numerous occasions. By the time he had reached California and the coast where he would land, on the sand at Long Beach, his story of courage and determination had captured the imagination of an entire nation. This book chronicles the life of Cal Rodgers and depicts the world of aviation during its adventurous, if dangerous, beginnings.
List of contents
Table of ContentsPreface
¿1.¿"I am a part of all that I have met"
¿2.¿"Death by scientific suicide"
¿3.¿"There is nothing in your old, flat world"
¿4.¿"The Windy City"
¿5.¿"[The] people below seemed to belong to the past"
¿6.¿"It was the only one of its kind the Wrights ever built"
¿7.¿"Carried by Rodgers aeroplane, Vin Fiz"
¿8.¿"I Endure.... I Conquer"
¿9.¿"Once you have left the ground to fly through the air"
10.¿"I hope I never have any more trouble in the air than I had today"
11.¿"There were five thousand pairs of eyes"
12.¿"The panorama of little villages spread out ahead"
13.¿"I breathed when I sailed over the edge of the cloud"
14.¿"Ambition coupled with energy is the driving force of mankind"
15.¿"For all of his back of steel determination"
16.¿"All the population that could get out of doors gazed"
17.¿"[Cal] is going to master the air and fly to the Pacific coast"
18.¿"[The] American people were melting down old heroes"
19.¿"I will not stop until I have reached the Pacific"
20.¿"Thrilled as they never were before"
21.¿"But as long as someone had to establish the long-distance record"
22.¿"He [Rodgers] remains outwardly unimpressed"
23.¿"I am proud to have blazed the way to the Pacific"
24.¿"The spirit of man and his willingness to sacrifice his life"
Afterword: "The Iron Aviator"
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Christopher C. Wehner is a professional screenwriter with a Netflix original film to his credit. He is also the curator of the online Civil War Soldier Letter Archive, Soldier Studies, a database of hundreds of searchable letters and soldier profiles.
