Amelia Earhart with her Lockheed Vega after her record-setting solo nonstop flight across North America, 25 August 1932. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
24–25 August 1932: Amelia Earhart flew her Lockheed Model 5B Vega, NR7952, from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey, a distance of 3,939.25 kilometers (2,447.74 miles), in 19 hours, 5 minutes. She had departed Los Angeles Municipal Airport (now known as LAX) at 7:26:54 p.m. Pacific Time, 24 August, and landed at Newark Municipal Airport at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time the following day. This set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) women’s World Record for Distance in a Straight Line Without Landing.¹ Her average speed for the flight was 206.42 kilometers per hour (128.27 miles per hour).
National Aeronautics Association Certificate of Record, issued on behalf of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo coast-to-coast. Less than a year later, she would break her own record by almost two hours.
A small crowd gathers around Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed Model 5B Vega at Newark Municipal Airport, 25 August 1932. (AP)
Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, the Model 5 Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane. The fuselage was molded wood monocoque construction and the wing was cantilevered wood. The Vega 5B 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 1,650 pounds (748.4 kilograms) and gross weight is 4,375 pounds (1,985 kilograms).
Aircraft Registration Certificate, Lockheed Vega 5B, serial number 22, NC7952.
Earhart’s modified Vega 5B is powered by an air-cooled, supercharged 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp C nine cylinder radial engine. The Wasp C was rated at 420 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. at Sea Level.² It was 3 feet, 6.63 inches (1.083 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.44 inches (1.307 meters) in diameter, and weighed 745 pounds (338 kilograms). It drove a two-bladed Hamilton Standard controllable-pitch propeller through direct drive.
Just three months earlier, Earhart had flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean in this same airplane, which she called her “Little Red Bus.” Today, Lockheed Vega NR7952 is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Model 5B Vega, NR7952, at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. (NASM)
¹ FAI Record File Number 12342
² The Pratt & Whitney Wasp C was also used by the U.S. Army and Navy, designated R-1340-7. In military service, it was rated at 450 horsepower at 2,100 r.p.m. at Sea Level.
13 August 1930: Frank Monroe Hawks flew from Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California, to Curtiss Airport, Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, in a record-breaking elapsed time of 12 hours, 25 minutes, 3 seconds. His airplane was a Travel Air Type R “Mystery Ship” named Texaco No. 13. It carried civil registration NR1313.
Hawks departed Glendale (a suburb adjacent to the City of Los Angeles) at 2:16:27 a.m., Pacific Standard Time (09:16 G.M.T.). The takeoff was timed by J.A. Nikrent of the American Aeronautical Association. He flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico, a distance of 665 miles (1,070 kilometers), where he stopped to refuel at 6:43 a.m., Mountain Standard Time (12 :43 G.M.T.) 17 minutes later, at 9:00 a.m., (13:00 G.M.T.), he was airborne. The next stop for the “Mystery Ship” was Wichita, Kansas, 540 miles (869 kilometers). He landed at 10:28 a.m., Central Standard Time (15:28 G.M.T.) and took off again at 10:35 a.m., after just 7 minutes on the ground. The next fuel stop was Mars Hill Airport at Indianapolis, Indiana. After a flight of 600 miles (966 kilometers), he arrived there at 1:23 p.m., C.S.T. (18:23 G.M.T.) At 1:36 p.m., Hawks took off on the final leg, a distance of 705 miles (1,135 kilometers).
Hawks landed at Curtiss Field at 5:41:30 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (21:41 G.M.T.) The total flight time was 11 hours, 48 minutes, 3 seconds. He broke the previous record, set by Charles Lindbergh, by 2 hours, 20 minutes, 29 seconds.
One week earlier, 6 August 1930, Hawks had flown across the continent from east to west, in 14 hours, 50 minutes 3 seconds. More favorable winds allowed the Type R to make a faster west-to-east flight.
Hawks’ Texaco No. 13 was the fourth of five specially designed and constructed racing aircraft produced by Travel Air Manufacturing Company of Wichita, Kansas. The company was founded by Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Lloyd Stearman. The “Type R” refers to one of its designers, Herb Rawdon.
The Type R was a low-wing monoplane with a fuselage constructed of welded tubular steel covered with plywood. The very thin wing was braced by wires. It used spruce spars and ribs. Both fuselage and wings were covered with 1/16-inch mahogany plywood. Attempts to streamline the airplane included a raised profile behind the pilot’s head, “wheel pants,” as well as a NACA-designed engine cowling that provided better engine cooling and caused less aerodynamic drag.
Three-view drawing of Travel Air Type R “Mystery Ship” with dimensions. (From The Scientific American Magazine, republished in Flight, No. 1165, Vol. XXIII. No. 17, 24 April 1931, at Page 360)
The Travel Air Type R was 20 feet, 2 inches (6.147 meters) long, with a wingspan of 30 feet, 0 inches (9.144 meters) and overall height of 7 feet, 9 inches (2.362 meters). The wing had a chord of 5 feet, 0 inches (1.524 meters), and total area of 125 square feet (11.6 square meters). It had an empty weight of 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) and gross weight of 3,300 pounds (1,497 kilograms).
The Mystery Ship was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged, 971.930-cubic-inch-displacement (15.927 liter) Wright Aeronautical Division Whirlwind Nine (also known as the J-6-9 or R-975) nine-cylinder radial engine, normally rated at 300 horsepower at 2,000 r.p.m. Various sources state that Hawks’ R-975 had been modified by increasing its compression ratio and supercharger speed, and that it produced 450 horsepower at 2,400 r.p.m. The R-975 was built in both direct drive and geared versions. The two-bladed Standard Steel propeller had a diameter of 8 feet, 0 inches (2.438 meters).
The Mystery Ship’s cruising speed was 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) at 1,950 r.p.m., and it had a maximum speed of 250 miles per hour (402 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level. It had an initial rate of climb of 3,200 feet per minute (16.26 meters per second). The service ceiling was 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) and the absolute ceiling was 31,000 feet (9,449 meters). The range at cruise speed was 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers).
One of the fastest airplanes of its time, the Type R set over 200 speed records.
Frank Monroe Hawks with the Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship, Texaco No. 13, NR1313, at East Boston Airport, 1930. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection)Frank Hawks, 1930 (SDA&SM)
Newspapers called the Type R airplanes “mystery ships” because Beech was very secretive about them. When two of them were flown to the 1929 National Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio, they taxied directly to a hangar and shut off their engines. They were immediately pushed inside. The hangar was kept locked and under guard.
Frank Hawks was an Air Service, United States Army, pilot who served during World War I. He rose to the rank of Captain, and at the time of his record-breaking transcontinental flight, he held a commission as a reserve officer in the Army Air Corps. His flying had made him a popular public figure and he starred in a series of Hollywood movies as “The Mystery Pilot.”
Frank Hawks’ Type R is in the collection of the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois.
Travel Air Type R, NR1313, Mystery Ship, Texaco No. 13, at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois. (MSI)
24 July 1897: Amelia Mary Earhart was born at Atchison, Kansas. She was the older of two daughters of Edwin Stanton Earhart, an attorney, and Amelia Otis Earhart.
Amelia attended Hyde Park School in Chicago, Illinois, graduating in 1916. In 1917, she trained as a nurse’s aide with the Red Cross. While helping victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic, she herself contracted the disease and was hospitalized for approximately two months. In 1919 Earhart entered Columbia University studying medicine, but left after about one year.
Red Cross Nurse’s Aide Amelia Mary Earhart, circa 1917–1918. (Amelia Earhart Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)
Amelia first rode in an airplane at Long Beach, California with pilot Frank Monroe Hawks, 28 December 1920. The ten-minute flight began her life long pursuit of aviation. She trained under Mary Anita Snook at Kinner Field near Long Beach, California.
Earhart was the sixteenth woman to become a licensed pilot when she received her certificate from the National Aeronautic Association on behalf of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) on 16 May 1923.
Amelia Earhart’s first pilot’s license. (National Portrait Gallery)
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air when she accompanied pilot Wilmer Lower Stultz and mechanic Louis Edward Gordon as a passenger aboard the Fokker F.VIIb/3m, NX4204, Friendship, 17–18 June 1928. The orange and gold, float-equipped, three-engine monoplane had departed from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and arrived at Burry Port on the southwest coast of Wales, 20 hours, 40 minutes later. (Although Earhart was a pilot with approximately 500 hours of flight experience at this time, she did not serve as one of the pilots on this flight.)
Fokker F.VIIb/3m Friendship at Southampton. (Historic Wings)
On 1 May 1930, the Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce, issued Transport Pilot’s License No. 5716 to Amelia Mary Earhart. On 25 June 1930, the newly-licensed commercial pilot set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale World Record for Speed Over a a Closed Circuit of 100 Kilometers With a 500 Kilogram Payload, averaging 275.90 kilometers per hour (171.44 miles per hour) with her Lockheed Vega.¹ That same day, she set another World Record for Speed Over 100 Kilometers of 281.47 kilometers per hour (174.90 miles per hour).² About two weeks later, Earhart increased her Vega’s speed across a shorter, 3 kilometer course, with an average 291.55 kilometers per hour (181.16 miles per hour).³
Amelia Earhart was a charter member of The Ninety-Nines, Inc., an international organization of licensed women pilots. She served as their first president, 1931–1933.
On 7 February 1931, Miss Earhart married George Palmer Putnam in a civil ceremony at Noank, Connecticut. Judge Arthur P. Anderson presided. In a written prenuptial agreement, Miss Earhart expressed serious misgivings about marrying Mr. Putnam, and wrote, “. . . I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.”
Amelia Earhart models a women’s flying suit of her own design. (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Earhart had her own line of women’s fashions, made from wrinkle-free fabrics. She modeled for her own advertisements. In November 1931, Earhart was the subject of a series of photographs by Edward Steichen for Vogue, an American fashion magazine.
Amelia Earhart photographed for Vogue Magazine by Edward Steichen, November 1931.
At Warrington, Pennsylvania, 8 April 1931, Amelia Earhart (now, Mrs. George P. Putnam) flew a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro to an altitude of 5,613 meters (18,415 feet). Although a sealed barograph was sent to the National Aeronautic Association for certification of a record, NAA does not presently have any documentation that the record was actually homologated.
On the night of 20–21 May 1932, Amelia Earhart flew her Vega 5B from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, solo and non-stop, across the Atlantic Ocean to Culmore, Northern Ireland. The distance flown was 2,026 miles (3,260.5 kilometers). Her elapsed time was 14 hours, 56 minutes. On 18 July 1932, Earhart was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by President Herbert Hoover, for “extraordinary achievement in aviation.”
Amelia Earhart with her red and gold Lockheed Vega 5B, NR7952, at Culmore, North Ireland, after her solo transatlantic flight, 21 May 1932. (National Library of Ireland)
Earhart next flew her Vega non-stop from Los Angeles, California, to New York City, New York, 24–25 August 1932, setting an FAI record for distance without landing of 3,939.25 kilometers (2,447.74 miles).⁴ Her Lockheed Vega 5B, which she called her “little red bus,” is displayed in the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
At 4:40 p.m., local time, 11 January 1935, Amelia Earhart departed Wheeler Field on the island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, for Oakland Municipal Airport at Oakland, California, in her Lockheed Vega 5C Special, NR965Y. She arrived 18 hours, 15 minutes later. Earhart was the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the Mainland.
Amelia Earhart with her Lockheed Vega 5C, NR965Y, at Wheeler Field, 11 January 1935.(Getty Images/Underwood Archives)
Amelia Earhart is best known for her attempt to fly around the world with navigator Frederick J. Noonan in her Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, in 1937. She disappeared while enroute from Lae, Territory of New Guinea, to Howland Island in the Central Pacific, 2 July 1937. The massive search effort for her and her navigator failed, and what happened to her and Noonan remains a mystery.
Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed Electra Model 10E Special, NR16020.
Although the exact date of her death is not known, Amelia Mary Earhart (Mrs. George Palmer Putnam) was declared dead in absentia by the Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, 5 January 1939. (Probate file 181709)
George Palmer Putnam leaves the Los Angeles Superior Court after missing aviatrix Amelia Earhart was declared dead in absentia, 5 January 1939. (Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive , UCLA Library.)
Major John H. Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps, with his Chance Vought F8U-1P Crusader, Bu. No. 144608, after his record-setting flight, 16 July 1957. (U. S. Navy)
16 July 1957: At 6:04 a.m., Major John Herschel Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps, took off from NAS Los Alamitos, on the coast of southern California, in a single-engine Vought F8U-1P Crusader, Bureau Number 144608. 3 hours, 23 minutes, 8.4 seconds later, he landed at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York. Over the 2,360 mile (3,798 kilometer) route, he averaged 725.25 miles per hour (1,167.18 kilometers per hour). This was the first supersonic transcontinental flight.
The purpose of “Project Bullet” was “. . . to test the sustained capability of the F8U at near maximum power over a long distance.” The Crusader’s average speed was faster than the muzzle velocity of a .45-caliber bullet, hence the project name.
Secretary of the Navy Thomas S. Gates, Jr., presents the Distinguished Flying Cross to Major John H. Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps. (Times Recorder)
Glenn’s aircraft was a photo-reconnaissance variant of the Navy’s F8U-1E carrier-based supersonic fighter. Rather than guns and missiles, it was equipped with six cameras that took panoramic images over the entire route. Though it carried more fuel than the fighter version, the Crusader still required three aerial refuelings to cover the distance. To rendezvous with the North American AJ-1 Savage air tankers, he had to slow and descend by deploying an air brake. After tanking, Glenn accelerated with afterburner and climbed back to 30,000 feet (9,144 meters). As fuel burned off, he gradually rose to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters).
Major John H. Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps, flying the Project Bullet Chance Vought F8U-1P Crusader, Bu. No. 144608, 16 July 1957. (U.S. Navy)
After the completion of the flight, Pratt & Whitney, the engine manufacturer, tore down the J57-P-4A turbojet for an engineering inspection. As a result, all previous power limitations were lifted.
Bu. No. 144608 continued in active service with the Navy and was flown in combat with VFP-63 during the Vietnam War. On 13 December 1972, while landing aboard USS Oriskany (CVA-34), the Crusader struck the ramp of the flight deck and damaged its landing gear. It slid across the deck, severed the arresting cables and went over the side. The pilot, Lieutenant T. B. Scott, ejected safely but the record-setting fighter was lost in the South China Sea.
John Glenn was the Navy/Marine Corps project officer for the Crusader. According to information recently discovered by The Museum of Flight, Glenn made his first flight in a Crusader when he flew the prototype XF8U-1, Bu. No. 138899, on 4 May 1956. According to Glenn’s logbook, he made two flights in the prototype on that date, totaling 2 hours of flight time. (Many thanks to Mike Martinez, a docent for the Museum, for providing this information.)
The first of two prototypes, Chance Vought XF8U-1 Crusader, Bu. No. 138899, has been restored by The Museum of Flight at Paine Field, Seattle, Washington. The Crusader’s variable incidence wing is in the raised take-off/landing position. (The Museum of Flight)
Soon after Project Bullet, John H. Glenn was selected for Project Mercury. On the third manned flight of the program, he became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. He was later elected a United States Senator from his home state of Ohio. At the age of 77, John Glenn flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-95, 29 October–7 November 1998, becoming the oldest person to fly in space.
Project Bullet Chance Vought F8U-1P Crusader, Bu. No. 144608. A north American Avition AJ-1 or AJ-2 Savage tanker is in the background with a hose and drogue deployed for in-flight refueling. The camera ports and revised belly of the unarmed photo-recon fighter are visible in this photograph. (U.S. Navy)
The Chance Vought F8U-1P Crusader is a photographic reconnaissance variant of the F8U-1 air-superiority fighter. It is a single-place, single-engine turbojet-powered airplane designed to operate from the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers. The recon variant is 54 feet, 6.10 inches (16.614 meters) long with a wingspan of 35 feet, 8 inches (10.871 meters) and overall height (three-point position) of 15 feet, 9.1 inches (4.803 meters). With the wings folded for storage, the span is 22 feet, 6 inches (6.858 meters).
The swept wing is placed high on the fuselage and its angle of incidence is adjustable in flight. The wing has a total area of 375 square feet (34.84 square meters) and has a “dog tooth” leading edge, extending 1 foot, 0.7 inches (0.323 meters). The leading edges are swept aft to 47° (42° at ¼-chord), and there is 5° anhedral. The horizontal stabilator is placed lower than the wings. Its leading edge is swept aft to 50° and it has 3° 25′ dihedral.
The F8U-1P has an empty weight of 16,796 pounds (7,618.5 kilograms), and maximum takeoff weight of 27,822 pounds (12,620 kilograms).
The F8U-1P is powered by a single Pratt & Whitney J57-P-4 engine. The J57 was a two-spool, axial-flow turbojet engine with a 16-stage compressor section (9 low- and 7-high-pressure stages) and a 3-stage turbine section (1 high- and 2 low-pressure stages). Its Normal (continuous) rating is 8,700 pounds of thrust (38.70 kilonewtons) at 5,780 r.p.m. The Military Power rating is 10,200 pounds (45.37 kilonewtons) at 6,100 r.p.m., and it can produce 16,000 pounds (71.17 kilonewtons) at 6,100 r.p.m. with afterburner. The J57-P-4 is 20 feet, 10 inches (6.35 meters) long, 3 feet, 5 inches (1.041 meters) in diameter, and weighs 4,860 pounds (2,205 kilograms).
The F8U-1P has a maximum speed of 635 knots (741 miles per hour/1,176 kilometers/hour) at Sea Level, and 855 knots (984 miles per hour/1,583 kilometers per hour) at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters). Its service ceiling is 41,600 feet (12,680 meters), and it has a combat ceiling of 51,800 feet (15,789 meters) with afterburner. The airplane’s combat range is 1,740 nautical miles (2,002 statute miles/3,222 kilometers) at 495 knots (570 miles per hour/917 kilometers per hour)and 42,350 feet (12,908 meters).
The F8U-1P carried no armament.
Chance Vought built 1,213 F8U Crusaders. 144 were the F8U-1P photo reconnaissance variant. They were retired from U.S. Navy service in 1982.
Laura Ingalls in the cockpit of her Lockheed Orion 9D Special, NR14222, warming up its engine at Floyd Bennett Field, 10 July 1935. (Rudy Arnold Collection, NASM)
11 July 1935: At 4:31 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, (08:31 UTC) Laura Houghtaling Ingalls took off from Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, and flew non-stop across the North American continent to the Union Air Terminal at Burbank, California. She landed there at 7:51 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time (02:51 UTC, 12 July). The elapsed time of her non-stop transcontinental flight was 18 hours, 19 minutes, 30 seconds.
After departing Floyd Bennett Field, Ingalls flew along a commercial airway defined by radio beacons. Her route of flight was from Brooklyn, New York, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—Columbus, Ohio—Indianapolis, Indiana—Kansas City, Missouri—Albuquerque, New Mexico—Burbank, California. This was only the third time that a non-stop transcontinental flight had been accomplished.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
MISS INGALLS SETS RECORD IN AIR DASH
Nation Spanned Nonstop
First Woman Ever to Cross from East Without Halt Also Slashes Time.
Hatless and with her brown curls flying, diminutive Laura Ingalls, 30-year-old aviatrix, set her black-cowled monoplane down at Union Air Terminal, Burbank, at 7:51 o’clock last night and became the first woman pilot ever to span the American continent in an East-to-West nonstop flight.
Taking off from Floyd Bennett Airport, New York, at 4:31:30 a.m., she completed the Atlantic-to-Pacific hop in eighteen hours nineteen minutes and thirty seconds, establishing a women’s East-to-West record. She was timed in by Ted Raycraft, National Aeronautic Association representative.
Miss Ingalls failed, however, to break Amelia Earhart’s transcontinental mark of seventeen hours seven minutes and thirty seconds, set in 1933 in a Pacific-to-Atlantic hop. Winds are more favorable for flights starting from the West.
TELLS OF ORDEAL
With powerful floodlights playing on he low-winged Lockheed plane, Miss Ingalls circled the field once before landing.
“Boy, what a long ride!” she exclaimed as she climbed from the cockpit. “It was an ordeal and I’m glad I’m here.”
She immediately began plans, however, for an onslaught on Miss Earhart’s West-to-East record and said she contemplated a return nonstop flight as quickly as her ship can be overhauled and placed in order.
DISAPPOINTED AT TIME
The aviatrix said she had hoped to make the flight in fifteen hours and expressed disappointment that she was unable to do so.
The East-to-West nonstop record for men was established by Jimmie Doolittle in slightly more than thirteen hours.
Miss Ingalls said she encountered strong head winds most of the way and ran into an electrical storm over Winslow, Ariz., shortly after 5 p.m., which slowed her down.
She followed a TWA transport route most of the way and depended on the TWA radio beam for her directions. Her ship is equipped with a radio receiving set, radio compass, Sperry automatic pilot, retractable landing gear and landing wing flaps.
Miss Ingalls said she took off from the New York airport with a capacity load of 600 gallons of gasoline, enough to have carried her 3,000 miles.
She experienced some difficulty in gaining altitude with the heavy load and was forced to slow down at the start when she was unable to raise the retractable landing gear.
Her speed at times, however, exceeded 200 miles an hour, she said. The ship has a top speed of about 240 miles an hour.
After leaving New York, her ship was unsighted until she passed over the TWA airport at Winslow about 5:15 p.m.
TAXIES PLANE TO HANGAR
After landing at Burbank and removing her heavy shoes and flying togs, she taxied the plane to the Western Air Express hangar and gave orders for its care. She then went to the California Hotel in Burbank, where she will reside while here.
The flyer took up airplanes at Roosevelt Field in New York six years ago because she was “tired of vaudeville and wanted some excitement.”
SIX-YEAR RECORD
In six years she set the first women’s east-west transcontinental record. She has looped 980 times for a women’s record. She has barrel-rolled 714 times for a world’s record. She has captured third place in the Chicago-Dixie air derby. She has solo hopped 17,000 miles around South America with no accidents.She has been chosen outstanding woman flyer for 1934 by International League of Aviators.
—Los Angeles Times, Vol. LIV, Friday Morning, July 12, 1935, at Page 1, Column 5 and Page 3, Column 5
Laura Houghtaling Ingalls’ Lockheed Orion 9D Special, NR14222. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
Ingall’s airplane was a single-engine Lockheed Model 9D Orion Special, registration NR14222, which she had named Auto da Fé. ¹ Ingalls had taken delivery of the Orion at the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, 1 February 1935. Contemporary newspaper reports said that the “Black Mystery Ship” cost $45,000.
The Lockheed Model 9 Orion was a single-engine, low-wing monoplane, designed in 1931 by Gerard Freebairn Vultee for airline use. It was capable of carrying six passengers in an enclosed cabin. The Orion was the first commercial airliner with retractable landing gear. It was faster than any military airplane in service at the beginning of the decade. Like other Lockheed aircraft of the time, it was constructed of strong, light-weight, molded wood, but the Orion would be Lockheed’s last wooden airplane.
Billy Parker, Laura Ingalls and Wiley Post at the 1935 National Air Races. Ingall’s Lockheed Orion, NR14222, Auto da Fé, has its engine cowling removed for maintenance. (Monash University)
The Lockheed Orion 9D was 28 feet, 4 inches (8.64 meters) long with a wingspan of 42 feet, 9¼ inches (13.04 meters) and height of 9 feet, 8 inches (2.95 meters). It had an empty weight of 3,640 pounds (1,651 kilograms) and maximum takeoff weight of 5,200 pounds (2,359 kilograms).
Lockheed Model 9D Special NR14222. (SDASM)
Auto da Fé was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged, 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney Wasp S1D1 nine-cylinder radial engine. The engine had a compression ratio of 6:1 and was rated 525 horsepower at 2,200 r.p.m. The S1D1 was a direct-drive engine, which turned a two-bladed Hamilton Standard variable-pitch, constant-speed propeller. The Wasp S1D1 was 4 feet, 3.438 inches (1.307 meters) in diameter, 3 feet, 6.625 inches (1.083 meters) long and weighed 763 pounds (346 kilograms). The engine was enclosed by a N.A.C.A. cowling.
The cruise speed of the Orion was 205 miles per hour (330 kilometers per hour) and the maximum speed was 220 miles per hour (354 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level. It had a range of 750 miles (1,159 kilometers) in standard configuration. The service ceiling was 22,000 feet (6,705 meters).
Laura Ingalls shows the Sperry Gyro Pilot equipment to be installed aboard her Lockheed Orion. (Corbis)
Ingall’s airplane had a fuel capacity of 630 gallons (2,385 liters) of gasoline and 40 gallons (151 liters) of engine oil. NR14222 was equipped with a Sperry Gyro Pilot and a Westport radio compass and receiver for navigation.
The Greek lower-case letter zeta (the astronomical symbol for the planet Jupiter) was painted on each side of the airplane under the cockpit rails. Ingalls had the same symbol on several of her airplanes. A source suggests that it was used as a stylized representation of her initials, “L.I.” (Her Lockheed Air Express carried the astronomical symbol for the constellation Sagittarius, which was Ingalls’ astrological sign.)
In 1937, NR14222 was sold to Rudolf Wolf, Inc., a burlap company in New York. It was then transferred to Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española (FARE), the air arm of the Spanish Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. What happened to the Lockheed Orion after that is not known.
Laura Ingalls stands on the wing of her Lockheed Orion at Alamosa, Colorado, 16 April 1935. Photo by Glen Gants. (SDASM Archives)
The San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives have a large set of photographs of the Model 9 construction process. See:
“Cutaway” illustration of the Lockheed Model 9D Orion. (SDASM)
Laura Houghtaling Ingalls was born at Brooklyn, New York, 14 December 1893. She was the first of two children of Francis Abbott Ingalls, a cotton goods merchant, and Laura McAlister Houghtaling Ingalls.
Laura Ingalls, 1920
Miss Ingalls lived in France prior to World War I, and returned there as a relief worker following the War. In 1920, she lived with her family in Tuxedo Park, New York, and was employed as a stenographer.
Laura Ingalls began flight training at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, and completed her first solo flight on 23 December 1928. In June 1929, she began training for a commercial pilot certificate at the Universal Flying School, Lambert Field, St. Louis Missouri.
Woman Pilot Finishes Studies
Miss Laura Ingalls, who recently received a limited commercial license, has completed her studies at the Universal Flying School and is taking the examination for a transport license under Inspector Fox. Miss Ingalls’ home is in New York, where she is said to have received several offers of work as a pilot.
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Vol. 82, No. 212, Sunday, 6 April 1930, Page 6-I, Column 1
Ingalls qualified for her limited transport license, 12 April 1930. (After qualifying for an F.C.C. radio-telephone operator license in 1934, her restricted transport license was upgraded to Scheduled Airline Transport Pilot, 26 January 1935.) Her pilot certificate number was 9330.
Laura Ingalls with her de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth, circa 1930. The emblem is the logo of the Moth Aircraft Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts, the owner of Miss Ingall’s airplane.(Parks Airport)
Laura Ingalls first gained public attention when she performed 344 consecutive loops with a de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth NR9720 (c/n 885), at St. Louis, 4 May 1930. Three weeks later, she increased the number of loops to 980. On August 13, she completed 714 consecutive barrel rolls in the same airplane. (At the time, the airplane was a demonstrator for the Moth Aircraft Corporation, Lowell, Massachusetts, which was licensed by de Havilland to produce the DH.60 in the United States. Kits were built in England, then assembled in Massachusetts. Miss Ingalls later purchased the airplane, 23 June 1930.)
Laura Houghtaling Ingalls rests against the lower wing of her de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth while its engine idles, October 1930. The forward cockpit is covered.
Miss Ingalls was the first woman to fly across the United States from East to West. In 5 October 1930, she flew NR9720 from Roosevelt Field, Westbury, Long Island, new York, to the Grand Central Air Terminal at Glendale, California, arriving 9 October. The flight required nine fuel stops, and took 30 hours and 27 minutes over four days.
Between 28 February and 25 April 1934, Laura Ingalls flew a Lockheed Model 3 Air Express, NR974Y, on a 17,000-mile (27,400 kilometers) solo flight around South America and over the Andes mountain range.
Laura Ingalls with her Lockheed Model 3 Air Express, NR974Y. (CTIE/Monash University)
Laura Ingalls was awarded the Harmon Aviatrix Trophy for 1934.
Ingalls flew her Orion in the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race, finishing in second place behind Louise Thaden, with an elapsed time of 15 hours, 39 minutes.
Miss Ingalls bought a Ryan ST-A low-wing monoplane, NC18901 (c/n 179), which was powered by a 125 horsepower Menasco C4 Pirate inverted 4-cylinder engine. The Ryan ST was developed into the Ryan PT-16–22 military trainers of World War II.
In 1939, Laura Ingalls dropped political leaflets during a 2-hour flight over Washington, D.C. On landing, she was met by representatives of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Her pilot’s license was suspended by the C.A.A. for violating the airspace surrounding The White House. Some sources indicate that the license was later revoked.
After the United States entered World War II, Miss Ingalls was arrested for acting as an unregistered paid agent of Nazi Germany. At trial, she was convicted. She served 1 year, 7 months, 15 days in prison. (Ingalls was initially incarcerated at the federal prison in Washington, D.C., but after having been severely beaten by other prisoners, she was transferred to the womens’ prison in Alderson, West Virginia.)
Laura Houghtaining Ingalls died at her home in Burbank, California, 10 January 1967, at the age of 73 years. Her ashes were interred at Wiltwyck Cemetery, Kingston, New York.
Laura Ingalls with her Ryan ST-A, NC18901, circa 1937. (SDASM)
¹ An auto-da-fé was a public act of penance required of condemned heretics prior to their execution during the Spanish Inquisition. The meaning of the reference on Ingall’s Orion is unknown.
