The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 3 Nov 1932, Page 1, Columns 2–4, Vol. 92, Number 306
3 November 1932: In the late 1920s through mid-1930s, Miss Ruth Rowland Nichols was one of the best-known American women in aviation. She was the only person to have simultaneously held world records for speed, distance and altitude. She was at Floyd Bennett Airport, Brooklyn, New York, intending to fly across the North American continent to Burbank, California, and break Amelia Earhart’s record for the route. The flight was also intended to generate publicity for the re-election campaign of President Herbert Hoover.
Ruth Rowland Nichols
Miss Nichols’ airplane was a 1928 Lockheed Vega 5, s/n 619, NR496M, owned by Powell Crosley, Jr., founder of the Crosley Radio Corp. of Cincinnati, Ohio. This was the same airplane that she had crash-landed at a small airport near St. John, New Brunswick, Dominion of Canada, 22 June 1931. She had been severely injured.
At 2:48 a.m., (06:48 UTC) while taking off, the Vega drifted off of the 3,000-foot (914 meters) concrete-surfaced runway and the left wheel sank into the soft grass. The airplane spun around and the left wing hit the ground.
A contemporary newspaper reported:
Miss Nichols had expected to fly at an average speed of 200 miles an hour and be the first woman to cross the continent without a stop. On her way to Burbank, Cal., she was to drop Hoover leaflets.
The plane was loaded with 32 gallons of oil besides 650 gallons of gasoline. With Floyd Bennet [sic] Field lighted by the 4,000,000-candlepower flood light at the south end of the field, she started from the south end of he runway.
After speeding about 700 feet along the concrete runway the plane got out of control and switched off the concrete on to the grass. The girl flier tried desperately to steer it back to the runway, realized that here efforts would be in vain and to avoid an explosion cut off the ignition and pulled the stick.
The plane went into a loop and rolled over on its side, the left wing burying itself in the ground. The wing, running gears and left side of the fuselage were wrecked. Gasoline spurted in great streams from the fuel tank, forming large pools.
The small group of observers rushed in alarm to the wrecked plane. . . An ambulance, posted on the field for a possible emergency, hurried to the side of the plane.
Before they reached it Miss Nichols stepped out, exasperated but smiling and unhurt.
“Can’t hurt an old hand like me,’ she said. She added later that she was ‘through’ with night flying.
The plane was the same in which Miss Nichols had attempted a transatlantic flight when it crashed in New Brunswick, Canada. At that time, she suffered a spine injury.
Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, the Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear. It was flown by a single pilot in an open cockpit and could be configured to carry four to six passengers.
Designed by John Knudsen (“Jack”) Northrop and Gerrard Vultee, the Vega was a very state-of-the-art aircraft for its time. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of spiral strips of vertical grain spruce pressed into concrete molds and held together with glue. The prototype flew for the first time 4 July 1927 at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of molded plywood. The wing and tail surfaces were fully cantilevered, requiring no bracing wires or struts to support them.
The techniques used to build the Vega were very influential in aircraft design. It also began Lockheed’s tradition of naming its airplanes after stars and other astronomical objects.
The Model 5 Vega is 27 feet, 6 inches (8.382 meters) long with a wingspan of 41 feet (12.497 meters) and overall height of 8 feet, 2 inches (2.489 meters). Its empty weight is 2,595 pounds (1,177 kilograms) and gross weight is 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).
Nichols’ airplane was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp C nine-cylinder radial engine with a compression ratio of 5.25:1. It was rated at 420 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. at Sea Level, burning 58-octane gasoline. The engine drove a two-bladed controllable-pitch Hamilton Standard propeller through direct drive. The Wasp C was 3 feet, 6.63 inches (1.083 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.44 inches (1.3-7 meters) in diameter and weighed 745 pounds (338 kilograms).
The standard Vega 5 had a cruising speed of 165 miles per hour (266 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 185 miles per hour (298 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling was 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Range with standard fuel tanks was 725 miles (1,167 kilometers).
Ruth Rowland Nichols (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale 12430–1)
25 October 1931: At 5:17:30 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, Saturday afternoon (01:17:30, Sunday, 26 October, G.M.T.), Ruth Rowland Nichols took off from Oakland Municipal Airport, in California, and headed east. Her destination was New York City, New York, non-stop.
Miss Nichols was flying a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr. The airplane had just been repaired following a landing accident three months earlier, in which she had suffered five fractured vertabrae. [TDiA 22 June 1931] The Vega was white with gold wings. A list of records which had been previously set by Miss Nichols was lettered in gold on the forward fuselage.
At 7:35 p.m., Mountain Standard Time (02:35, Sunday, G.M.T.) the Vega was sighted over Reno, Nevada. It was over Salt Lake City, Utah, at 11:00, local time (06:00 G.M.T.), and Cheyenne, Wyoming, at 1:07 a.m., Sunday, Central Standard Time (07:07 G.M.T.).
Ruth Nichols and her Lockheed landed at Bowling Field, Louisville, Kentucky, at 9:40 a.m., Sunday, local time (15:40 G.M.T.). Though well short of her intended destination, she had set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Distance in a Straight Line Without Landing of 3 182,65 kilometers (1,977.607 statute miles). This broke the record set 29 June 1931 by Mlle Maryse Bastie during a flight from Paris, France, to Udino, Russia.²
Ruth Rowland Nichols’ Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, NR496M. (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale 12340–2)
Ruth Nichols described her flight for a newspaper syndicate:
Miss Nichols Tells the Story of Her Flight
Says High Altitudes During Trip Caused Dizziness.
The following account of her non-stop flight from Oakland, Calif., to Louisville was written by Miss Ruth Nichols for the Courier-Journal and the North American Newspaper Alliance.
By RUTH NICHOLS.
(Copyright, 1931, By North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.)
Twelve hours of darkness is a long time, particularly when the sky is overcast. Although the moon was out, the horizon line was hazy, and over the Western plains, where there are only a few towns, the only contact with civilization that a flier has is a twinkling beacon that is often lost behind a gigantic mountain peak.
Because of the difficulty in seeing the mountain passes easily, an average high altitude is wise, but I found that after eight hours of flying around 15,000 feet made me dizzy.
Used Oxygen Supply.
I had an oxygen tank with me, and I have spent a considerable amount of times at high altitudes, but the indistinctness of the night has a tendency to diffuse one’s senses, and the oxygen resulted in too much of a boost.
At times I felt myself soaring out of the ship, and, twice while the sky was overcast and the ship still heavily loaded, I had a nightmare of a time to keep from slipping off into a power spin.
At times like that, it is necessary to keep busy doing something. It keeps the circulation going.
The cube-like boundary lights of emergency fields are a welcome sight in those barren places. Many of the mountains are now snow-capped, and the lakes and rivers glisten white when the moon is out, making navigation simple.
About every hour I saw a cobweb of lights, which meant a large town, and marked off a milestone in the long night. There was a strong drift at times, but I always had a favorable wind.
The hour before dawn is certainly the darkest. Then the horizon seems often to disappear entirely. My, how welcome that streak of red dawn is!
To avoid low ceilings over the Alleghanies, I headed south, and thus ran low in gas, and landed here.
People often ask me what a flier thinks about. Much and many things! I wondered what the fields are like if a forced landing is necessary, how long will the batteries last, my goodness! There I dropped the coffee thermos.
Every time I took my foot off the rudder to pick it up by means of my toe and hand, teh ship slid off into a near spin.
I wondered how much gas that good old motor was using. I thought: Why, there is Orion!—and then wondered where the Little Bear constellation was hiding. And finally, I observed: That looks like nice country for a horseback trip!
Then there is the question: “What is the value of establishing all these records?”
The answer is that for a girl to fly long distances shows the facility and safety of handling a present-day airplane.
That ride over our country at night is really a most inspiring event. I advise everyone to try it!
—The Courier-Journal, Vol. CLIV. New Series—No, 22,944, Monday 26 October 1931, Page 1, Column 6, and Page 2, Column 7
Nichols had planned to resume her flight to New York at 9:00 a.m., Monday morning, 27 October. That was not to be, however:
WOMAN FLYER’S SHIP DESTROYED
Ruth Nichols Jumps From Blazing Plane
Defective Valve Deluges Craft With Gasoline
Aviatrix Unhurt in Leap From Cabin Window
LOUISVILLE (Ky.) Oct. 26. (AP)—Ruth Nichols’s monoplane caught fire today as she was warming up to take off for New York. She leaped from a window of the cockpit barely in time to escape the flames.
The young aviatrix stumbled as she reached the ground, but mechanics grabbed her and hustled her away from the fiery plane. The plane was reported almost a total loss.
The was caused by a stream of gasoline that suddenly burst from beneath the plane. Attendants at Bowman Field said they believed a dump valve had been released by the vibration of the engine.
The dump valve, Miss Nichols said, gave her some trouble in California, but she had a new one installed there. She talked while city firemen arrived and after a half hour’s work extinguished the flames.
The Rye (N.Y.) aviatrix, who landed here yesterday from Oakland, Cal., after getting lost in the early morning, but still making what is believed to be a new distance record for women, first noticed something wrong from the frantic signals of mechanics. It was doubtful if she heard their cries above the roar of the motor.
Miss Nichols throttled down her engine before getting out, but had only a moment in which to escape. The accident occurred just as she gave the motor “the gun” for warming up after she had inspected the refueling and checked up on the monoplane and had studied weather reports for the New York flight.
AVIATRIX SUFFERING FROM LAST CRASH
NEW YORK, Oct 26. (AP)—Friends of Ruth Nichols, pleased that she was unhurt when she leaped from the high cockpit of her burning plane at Louisville, recalled today she is still wearing a steel corset to protect the vertebra she smashed in the first stage of a proposed Atlantic flight last summer.
Miss Nichols crashed in landing at St. John, N.B., on the first leg of her projected ocean flight, which was abandoned. Her plane was demolished and she was injured seriously. For a long time she wore a plaster cast to protect her spine and this was recently replaced by the steel corset.
—Los Angeles Times, Vol. L., Tuesday, 27 October 1931, Part I, Page 3, Column 6
Ruth Rowland Nichols with “Akita,” the Crosley Radio Corporation’s Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, NR496M. Note the Detroit Aircraft Corporation/Lockheed Aircraft Company logo on the tail fin. Thanks to Tim Bradley Imaging for the digital restoration of this photograph. (NASM-NAM-A-45905-A)
Nichols’ airplane was a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr., founder of the Crosley Radio Corporation, a manufacturer of radio equipment and owner of a broadcast network based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had named the airplane The New Cincinnati. Miss Nichols called it Akita.
Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, the Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear. It was flown by a single pilot in an open cockpit and could be configured to carry four to six passengers.
The Lockheed Vega was a very state-of-the-art aircraft for its time. The prototype flew for the first time 4 July 1927 at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of molded plywood. The wing and tail surfaces were fully cantilevered, requiring no bracing wires or struts to support them.
The Model 5 Vega is 27 feet, 6 inches (8.382 meters) long with a wingspan of 41 feet (12.497 meters) and overall height of 8 feet, 2 inches (2.489 meters). Its empty weight is 2,595 pounds (1,177 kilograms) and gross weight is 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).
Nichols’ Lockheed Vega crashed at St. John, New Brunswick, 22 June 1931.
Nichols’ airplane was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp C nine-cylinder radial engine with a compression ratio of 5.25:1. It was rated at 420 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. at Sea Level, burning 58-octane gasoline. The engine drove a two-bladed controllable-pitch Hamilton Standard propeller through direct drive. The Wasp C was 3 feet, 6.63 inches (1.083 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.44 inches (1.3-7 meters) in diameter and weighed 745 pounds (338 kilograms).
The standard Vega 5 had a cruising speed of 165 miles per hour (266 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 185 miles per hour (298 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling was 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Range with standard fuel tanks was 725 miles (1,167 kilometers).
¹ FAI Record File Number 12340
² FAI Record File Numbers 12345, 12346 and 14886: 2 976,31 kilometers (1,849.39 statute miles)
Ruth Rowland Nichols (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale 12430–1)
24–25 October 1931: Ruth Rowland Nichols set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Distance in a Straight Line Without Landing when she flew from Oakland Municipal Airport, Oakland, California, to Bowman Field, Louisville, Kentucky. The official distance credited by the FAI was 3 182.65 kilometers (1,977.61 stature miles).¹
Flying a Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, Ruth Nichols took off from Oakland at 5:17:30 p.m., Pacific Standard Time (01:17:30 UTC), 24 October, after a takeoff roll of approximately 2,500 feet (762 meters). Present to observe her flight were National Aeronautic Association officials R. W. St. John and Eddie Cooper.
Her route took her to Reno, Nevada, where she was reported overhead at 6:35 p.m.; Salt Lake City, Utah, at 9:57 p.m.; and Cheyenne, Wyoming at 12:07 a.m., 25 October.
The flight had been in good weather until she passed Chicago, Illinois. Then with low ceilings and high winds, she was blown off course. After another hour, she decided to land at Louisville, Kentucky, to refuel. At 9:40 a.m., Central Standard Time (15:40 UTC), 25 October, she landed at Bowman Field, (now known as Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, LOU). Her flight took 14 hours, 23 minutes.
Nichols’ record broke the previous record which had been set by Maryse Bastié (née Marie-Louise Bombec) of 2 976,91 kilometers (1,849.77 statute miles), 29 June 1931, when she flew from Paris, France to Yurino, Mari Autonomous Oblast, USSR.²
Ruth Rowland Nichols with the Crossley Radio Corporation’s Lockheed Vega 1 NR496M, serial number 619, which she had named “Akita.” (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)
The Pomona Progress Bulletin had reported on 20 October that a shipment of 648 gallons of special aviation gasoline, along with 36 gallons of oil, consigned to Nichols, had arrived at Oakland from Baltimore, Maryland. There was speculation in several newspapers that she would fly from Oakland to Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Scranton Republican reported:
Society Flier Hangs Up New Distance Mark
Ruth Nichols Claims Record held by Frenchwoman Following Hop Of Over 2,000 Miles
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 25 (AP)—Ruth Nichols, Rye, N. Y., aviatrix who left Oakland, Ca., last night on a projected nonstop flight to New York, landed at Bowman field here at 9:40 a .m. today. Officials at the airport said she evidently had lost her way.
Although some distance from the end of her flight, the aviatrix apparently had achieved her goal, a new distance record for women. Airport officials said they were positive she had flown more than 2,000 miles, although the sealed instruments of the plane had not been examined. The air mileage from Oakland to Louisville is approximately 2,000 miles in a direct line.
Takes Off Today
The present woman’s distance record of 1.810 miles is held by Maryse Bastie, French woman.
Miss Nichols planned to refuel here and proceed to New York in the morning.
NEW YORK, Oct. 25 (AP) — Ruth Nichols, society aviatrix, Rye, N. Y., landed at Louisville, Ky., at 11 a. m. today, having flown from Oakland, Cal., somewhat more than 2,000 miles. In a long distance telephone message to her mother, at Floyd Bennett field here, she said she had said a new women’s distance record.
Miss Nichols left Oakland at 8:17:30 p.m. (E. S. T.) yesterday.
She planned to reach Floyd Bennett field tomorrow morning.
The world’s distance flight for women at which Miss Nichols aimed was established June 30, last, by Mlle. Maryse Bastie, Paris flyer,who flew from the French capital across southern Europe into Russia, a distance of 1,810 miles.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 25 (AP) — Ruth Nichols, who landed at Bowman field here today, plans to leave early Monday morning for New York, officials at the airport said. Miss Nichols was reported resting at the home of a friend.
Breaking aviation records is nothing new to Miss Nichols. She already has established women’s records for a one-stop transcontinental flight, altitude and speed.
She set the transcontinental mark in a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Dec. 10, 1930, with a stop at Wichita, Kans. Her time for the 2,300 miles coast-to-coast flight was 13 hours, 21 minutes and 43 seconds.
Holds Altitude Mark
Her plane is credited with flying to a height of 28,743 feet last March 6, at Jersey City to create a women’s altitude record. He altimeter showed a height of 30,064 feet, but the national aeronautic association, in approving the new mark, fixed the height at the lower figure.
The following month—April 13—Miss Nichols flew more than 210 miles an hour at Detroit for a new women’s speed record.
Miss Nichols was severely injured June 22, when she damaged her plane in landed at St. John, N. B.,preliminary to a transatlantic flight. She had flown from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn and while trying to land in the face of the sun misjudged her distance.
She was taken home a week later by airplane, the pilot being Clarence Chamberlin, transatlantic flier who had been Miss Nichols’ adviser in her aviation activities.
Her managers announced last month that she had definitely postponed another attempt at spanning the ocean because of unfavorable weather conditions.
—The Scranton Republican, Vol. 157, No. 22, 26 October 1931, Page 1, Column 6 and Page 2, Column 6
The following day, 26 October, Nichols was preparing to depart Louisville enroute to Floyd Bennett Field, New York. Leaking fuel caught fire while she was warming up the Vega’s engine. The Oakland Tribune reported:
RUTH NICHOLS ESCAPES AS PLANE BURNS
Society Girl on Flight From Oakland Leaps Out of Flaming Ship in Kentucky
Gasoline Catches Fire After ‘Record’ Hop; Plans for Atlantic Trip Revealed
Ruth Nichols’ monoplane, in which the aviatrix had just set an unofficial non-stop distance record for women in a flight from Oakland, was virtually destroyed by fire today at Louisville, Ky., according to dispatches received here.
The Aviatrix escaped by leaping from the cockpit and was pulled away from the blazing plane by mechanics. She was not injured.
The plane burst into flames as the society girl aviatrix was warming up the motor by taxiing the ship over the turf preparatory to taking off for New York.
Spectators saw a burst of flame from gasoline pouring out of a valve and mechanics shouted to Miss Nichols to cut off the motor. She said she was unable to hear their voices but knew from their gestures that something was wrong and closed the throttle before leaping from the ship.
Field attendants armed with extinguishers succeeded in putting out the fire.
VALVE RELEASED AND LETS OUT GASOLINE.
Attendants at the field said they believed a dump valve had been released by the vibration of the motor as Miss Nichols was warming up the ship and that in some manner not determined the fuel flowing from the valve had been ignited.
Miss Nichols was bespattered with liquid from the fire extinguishers. She said she was not frightened and would be in the air again as soon as she could get another plane. She estimated the loss at $10,000, explaining that the plane cost $25,000 but the motor and other parts could be salvaged.She said she would remain to supervise dismantling the ship for reconstruction if the factory so desired.
The dump valve, she said, had given her some trouble in California but she had had a new one installed before starting.
Miss Nichols landed at Bowman field, Louisville, at 7:40 a. m. yesterday, approximately 14 hours after leaving the Oakland airport in an attempt to set a new woman’s non-stop distance record.
She and airport attendants were confident that she had achieved her goal, estimating the distance from Louisville to Oakland at 2000 miles and pointing out that the course flown by Miss Nichols was even longer. The official women’s distance record is 1810 miles held by Maryse Bastie, of France.
The barograph from Miss Nichols’ ship, sealed here before she took off, was removed at Louisville for shipment to the bureau of aeronautics at Washington for computation.
LOW CEILING, WINDS BLEW HER OFF COURSE.
The aviatrix said she had a “fine trip” from Oakland to Chicago but then encountered a low ceiling and winds which blew her from her course.
“Wandering around used up lots of gasoline and I decided to land and refuel,” Miss Nichols said. “I flew around about an hour trying to get my bearings.”
Miss Nichols spent the night at the home of Lieutenant Albert M. Moody and this morning telephoned to Clarence Chamberlain to meet her at Floyd Bennett airport in New York “to have a sundae.”
The mishap today was the second the aviatrix has experienced in recent months. Last summer she wrecked her ship at St. John, N. B., on the first leg of projected Atlantic flight and suffered several broken vertebrae. For a long time she wore a plaster cast and now wears a steel corset to protect her injured spine.
PLANS STILL CONSIDERED FOR ATLANTIC FLIGHT.
Dispatches from Louisville said Miss Nichols apparently had not given up her plans for an Atlantic flight although she said she did not care to “talk about plans I might not be able to carry out.”
“Possibly I will attempt the flight next summer,” she said. “I feel sure that I can make it and have absolutely no fear. The main obstacle to success is the wear and tear on nerves and body. While considerable skill is required, endurance is the more important qualification.”
Ruth Nichols’ Lockheed Vega. (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale 12340–2)
Nichols’ airplane was a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr.
Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, the Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear. It was flown by a single pilot in an open cockpit and could be configured to carry four to six passengers.
The Lockheed Vega was a very state-of-the-art aircraft for its time. The prototype flew for the first time 4 July 1927 at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of molded plywood. The wing and tail surfaces were fully cantilevered, requiring no bracing wires or struts to support them.
The Model 5 Vega is 27 feet, 6 inches (8.382 meters) long with a wingspan of 41 feet (12.497 meters) and overall height of 8 feet, 2 inches (2.489 meters). Its empty weight is 2,595 pounds (1,177 kilograms) and gross weight is 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).
Nichols’ airplane was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp C nine-cylinder radial engine with a compression ratio of 5.25:1. It was rated at 420 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. at Sea Level, burning 58-octane gasoline. The engine drove a two-bladed controllable-pitch Hamilton Standard propeller through direct drive. The Wasp C was 3 feet, 6.63 inches (1.083 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.44 inches (1.3-7 meters) in diameter and weighed 745 pounds (338 kilograms).
The standard Vega 5 had a cruising speed of 165 miles per hour (266 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 185 miles per hour (298 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling was 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Range with standard fuel tanks was 725 miles (1,167 kilometers).
NR496M was destroyed by fire at Louisville, Kentucky 26 October 1931. The registration was cancelled in 1933.
Ruth Rowland Nichols with “Akita,” the Crosley Radio Corporation’s Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, NR496M. Note the Detroit Aircraft Corporation/Lockheed Aircraft Company logo on the tail fin. Thanks to Tim Bradley Imaging (https://timbradleyimaging.com) for the digital restoration of this photograph. (NASM-NAM-A-45905-A)
22 June 1931: In the late 1920s through mid-1930s, Miss Ruth Rowland Nichols was one of the best-known American women in aviation. She was the only person to have simultaneously held world records for speed, distance and altitude.
Miss Nichols planned to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On the afternoon of 22 June 1931, she took off from Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, to stage for the transatlantic flight at Harbor Grace, Dominion of Newfoundland, making an intermediate stop at Saint John, New Brunswick, Dominion of Canada.
Nichols was flying a Lockheed Model 5 Vega, owned by Powell Crosley, Jr., founder of the Crosley Radio Corporation, a manufacturer of radio equipment and owner of a broadcast network based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had named the airplane The New Cincinnati. Miss Nichols called it Akita.
While landing at the Saint John airport in Millidgeville, her plans went awry. . .
Nichols’ crash near St. John, New Brunswick, 22 June 1931. Everyone in the photo is looking at the camera. 🙂
Miss Nichols wrote about it in Wings For Life:
As I peered down at a tiny airport set like a bowl in the midst of surrounding wooded hills and cliffs, I thought at first I must be off course—this couldn’t be the St. Johns field. . .
Twice I circled, studying the small, rock-enclosed field from every angle. How on earth could the heavy, fast Lockheed land there? Those crossed runways would be safe only for small or lightly-loaded planes. . .
Because of the wind direction, I would have to use the shorter of the two runways—and even the longer one was inadequate. I flew back over the town, then headed back toward the airport while cutting the throttle to minimum flying speed.
I slid in over the trees and edged through a narrow ravine. So far, so good. Maybe my luck was holding. Dead ahead was the runway. I made an S turn for the proper approach and headed straight into the blinding rays of the sun. I couldn’t look ahead to gauge the length of the runway, because ahead was a fiery glare. Only by staring down through the cockpit window could I see even the edge of the runway. . .
Suddenly the dazzling blaze of the sun was doused by the shadow of a cliff and I saw to my horror that I had passed the intersection and still had flying speed. . .
. . . then came a splintering crack as the tail broke through the treetops. More rocks ahead—a deafening shuddering C-R-A-S-H—then paralyzing silence. From seventy miles an hour minimum climbing speed with a load the motor impacted to a dead stop. The whole back end of the ship must be coming over on top of me, relentlessly bearing down, pushing my head and shoulders down between my knees.
Splintering pain, and the silence of catastrophe.
—Wings for Life, by Ruth Nichols, J.B. Lippincott, Philadephia, 1957
Nichols’ Lockheed Vega crashed at St. John, New Brunswick, 22 June 1931.
Ruth Nichols suffered five fractured vertebrae and would spend months recovering. The airplane would be repaired. This was not the first time the Vega had been damaged, nor would it be the last.
A contemporary newspaper reported the accident:
. . . She had left New York at 3:22 P.M. and it was just 3 hours and 48 minutes later that she cracked up, at 7:10 P.M., New York time.
A great crowd had gathered at the St. John airport to see her land. She had announced her intention of spending the night there and proceeding to Harbor Grace, N. F., tomorrow.
Blinded by Sun.
Her plane hove into sight and took a long graceful slant downward to alight. Then, as she straightened out to land, the sun shone full into her eyes. For just one second she was blinded and in that second overshot the runway and nosed over.
Mechanics at the field awaited the arrival of Col. Clarence Chamberlin, Miss Nichols’ technical adviser, to decide what could be done for the plane.
—Daily News, Vol. 12, No. 310, Tuesday, 23 June 1931, at Page 13, Column 1
Miss Nichols did not make the solo transatlantic flight. That would take place the following Spring. The pilot would be Miss Amelia Mary Earhart.
Ruth Rowland Nichols
Nichols’ airplane was a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr.
Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, the Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear. It was flown by a single pilot in an open cockpit and could be configured to carry four to six passengers.
The Lockheed Vega was a very state-of-the-art aircraft for its time. The prototype flew for the first time 4 July 1927 at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of molded plywood. The wing and tail surfaces were fully cantilevered, requiring no bracing wires or struts to support them.
The Model 5 Vega is 27 feet, 6 inches (8.382 meters) long with a wingspan of 41 feet (12.497 meters) and overall height of 8 feet, 2 inches (2.489 meters). Its empty weight is 2,595 pounds (1,177 kilograms) and gross weight is 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).
Nichols’ airplane was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp C nine-cylinder radial engine with a compression ratio of 5.25:1. It was rated at 420 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. at Sea Level, burning 58-octane gasoline. The engine drove a two-bladed controllable-pitch Hamilton Standard propeller through direct drive. The Wasp C was 3 feet, 6.63 inches (1.083 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.44 inches (1.3-7 meters) in diameter and weighed 745 pounds (338 kilograms).
The standard Vega 5 had a cruising speed of 165 miles per hour (266 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 185 miles per hour (298 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling was 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Range with standard fuel tanks was 725 miles (1,167 kilometers).
Ruth Nichols’ pilot license, signed by Orville Wright.
12 June 1930: Ruth Rowland Nichols is issued a pilot’s license by the National Aeronautic Association. Ms. Nichols, a contemporary of Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, and Jackie Cochran, would set several world aviation records.
