Le Marquis Bernard Henri Marie Léonard Barny de Romanet with the SPAD S.20 bis-6, 9 October 1920. (Agence Meurisse 84138, Bibliothèque nationale de France)
25 September 1920: At Villesauvage-La Marmogne, France, Le Marquis Bernard Henri Marie Léonard Barny de Romanet set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Speed Over 100 Kilometers with an average speed of 257.50 kilometers per hour (160.00 miles per hour).¹ His airplane was an Avion SPAD S.20 bis-5.
Map from FLIGHT article
The SPAD Type 20 bis (Spad-Herbemont) was a single-seat, single-engine, single-bay biplane racer based on the two-seat S.XX fighter, designed by André Herbemont. The racer was 7.50 meters (24 feet, 7.3 inches) long with a wingspan of 6.48 meters (21 feet, 3.1 inches) and height of 2.50 meters (8 feet, 2.4 inches). The wings had a surface area of 14 square meters (151 square feet). The airplane had an empty weight of 890 kilograms (1,962 pounds), and gross weight of 1,050 kilograms (2,315 pounds). The racer carried 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of fuel.
The S.20s were powered by a water-cooled, normally-aspirated La Société Hispano-Suiza single-overhead cam 90° V-8 engine rated at 300 horsepower. (Specific variant unknown.)
SPAD S.20 bis-5 (AviaFrance)
Flight commented on de Romanet’s airplane:
The Spad
As regards the French Spad flown by Bernard de Romanet, this had the standard Spad fuselage of monocoque construction, but an alteration in the wing arrangement was noticeable. Instead of carrying the top plane on centre section struts from the body, the G.B. Spad had its top plane attached direct to the fuselage. Judging by its performance, this innovation did not improve the speed, and the machine was obviously slower than Lecointe’s Nieuport. In the first place, the maximum cross section of the body is much greater than the Nieuport, and the large nose radiator probably does not make matters better, although one would imagine that the two Lamlin radiators fitted to the Nieuport offer quite a lot of resistance. However, these radiators are now very extensively fitted on French machines, so perhaps their resistance is less than one would be inclined to expect.
—FLIGHT The Aircraft Engineer & Airships, No. 615 (Vol. XII, No. 41, 7 October 1920, Page 1058, Column 1
SPAD S.20 bis-5 flown by Barny de Romanet, Etampes, 25 September 1920. (Agence Rol 14625, Bibliothèque nationale de France)
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.)
Louise Thaden with the Porterfield Model 35-W. (FAI)
12 July 1936: Louise Thaden set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Speed Over 100 Kilometers with an average speed of 176.35 kilometers per hour (109.58 miles per hour.)¹ She flew a Porterfield Model 35-W Flyabout over a course at Endless Caverns, near New Market, Virginia.
Less than two months later, 4 September 1936, Mrs. Thaden became he first woman to win the Bendix Trophy Race when she and her co-pilot, Blanche Noyes, flew a Beechcraft C17R “Staggerwing,” NR15835, from Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, to Mines Field, Los Angeles, California.
Harmon Aviatrix Trophy (NASM)
Iris Louise McPhetridge was born 12 November 1905 at Bentonville, Arkansas. She was the first of three daughters of Roy Fry McPhetridge, owner of a foundry, and Edna Hobbs McPhetridge. She was educated at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, as a member of the Class of 1927. Miss McPhetridge was president of the Delta Delta Delta (ΔΔΔ) Sorority, Delta Iota (ΔΙ) Chapter; head sports for basketball; and president of The Panhellenic.
Louise McPhetridge had been employed by Walter Beech as a sales representative at Wichita, Kansas, and he included flying lessons with her employment. She received her pilot’s license from the National Aeronautic Association, signed by Wilbur Wright, 16 May 1928. In 1929, she was issued Transport Pilot License number 1943 by the Department of Commerce. McPhetridge was the fourth woman to receive an Airline Transport Pilot rating.
Miss McPhetridge married Mr. Herbert von Thaden at San Francisco, California, 21 July 1928. Thaden was a former military pilot and an engineer. They would have two children, William and Patricia.
Louise Thaden served as secretary of the National Aeronautic Association, and was a co-founder of The Ninety-Nines. She served as that organization’s vice president and treasurer. She set several world and national records and was awarded the national Harmon Trophy as Champion Aviatrix of the United States in 1936.
Louise Thaden stopped flying in 1938. She died at High Point, North Carolina, 9 November 1979.
Louise Thaden flew this Porterfield Model 35-W to set a World Record for Speed, 12 July 1936. (FAI)
The Porterfield Model 35-W was based on the prototype Wyandotte Pup, which had been designed by Noel Ross Hockaday. The airplane was built by students of the aviation club of Wyandotte High School, Kansas City, Kansas.
Noel Hackaday’s Wyandotte Pup, NX12546, circa 1932. The children are identified as Leland and Milton House. (Guy F. House, via Keith House)
Hockaday had previously been a designer for the American Eagle Aircraft Corporation and had designed that company’s Eaglet high-wing monoplane. Edward Everette Porterfield, Jr., the founder of American Eagle, was present when the Wyandotte Pup made its first flight. He bought the airplane and its production rights. American Eagle had gone out of business during the early years of The Depression, and a new company, Porterfield Aircraft Corporation, was formed to manufacture the airplane as the Porterfield Model 35.
The Porterfield Model 35 Flyabout was produced in several variants, and was available with LeBlond, Velle, Warner or Continental engines. It was was a single-engine, high-wing monoplane, which carried a pilot and one passenger in tandem in an enclosed cabin. The airplane had fixed landing gear with a tail skid. The fuselage was a welded tube structure, while the wing was built around two spruce spars, with spruce and plywood ribs. The airplane was covered with doped fabric. A distinctive feature of the Porterfield series are the parallel wing struts. (Most similar aircraft have their struts arranged in a “V”.)
Porterfield Model 35-70 Flyabout, NC 20700, powered by a LeBlond radial engine. (San Diego Air & Space Museum)
The Porterfield Model 35-W was 22 feet, 1 inch (6.731 meters) long, with a wingspan of 32 feet, 0 inches (9.754 meters), and height of 6 feet, 7 inches (2.007 meters). The main wheel tread was 5 feet, 6 inches (1.676 meters). Maximum payload was 501 pounds (227.25 kilograms).
A 1936 Porterfield Model 35-W, NC16401, serial number 301. (San Diego Air & Space Museum)
The Model 35-W was powered by an air-cooled, normally-aspirated, 301.458-cubic-inch-displacement (4.940 liter) Warner Aircraft Corporation Scarab Junior. This was a 5-cylinder radial engine with two valves per cylinder and a compression ratio of 5.2:1. The Scarab Junior was rated at 90 horsepower at 2,050 r.p.m. at Sea Level for takeoff (five-minute limit). The engine was 1 foot, 2 inches (0.356 meters) long, 3 feet, 0.5 inches (0.927 meters) in diameter, and weighed 237 pounds (107.5 kilograms). The engine was covered by a Townend Ring.
The 35-W had a cruise speed of 110 miles per hour (177 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 120 miles per hour (193 kilometers per hour). Its range was 340 miles (547 kilometers).
Porterfield Aircraft Corporation built approximately 240 Model 35s. Twenty-five of these were the Model 35-W.
Noel Ross Hockaday was born 24 May 1905 in Kinmundy, Illinois. He was the first of two children of Jake Fred Hockaday, a farmer, and Mary Kathryn Sills Hockaday. He married to Ruby I. Kelley at Los Angeles, 31 March 1937.
In addition to the Eaglet and Pup, Hockaday designed the Rearwin Airplanes Inc., Speedster, Sportster and Cloudster. (Rearwin, like Porterfield, was based at Fairfax Airport, Kansas City, Kansas.)
In 1940, Hockaday worked for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. He later formed Hockaday Aircraft Corporation at Burbank, California, to produce the Hockaday Comet.
Noel Ross Hockaday died at Los Angeles, California, 26 May 1959, at the age of 54 years.
Edward Everett Porterfield, Jr., circa 1925. (Airplanes and Rockets)
Edward Everett Porterfield, Jr., was born at Kansas City, Missouri, 7 November 1890. He was the son of Edward Everett Porterfield, Sr.,² a state circuit court judge, and Julia L. Chick Porterfield.
E. E. Porterfield, Jr., was a manager for the New England Equitable Life Insurance Company in Kansas City. On 17 January 1911, he married Miss Margaret Hughes in Nebraska. They would have two sons, both of whom died in infancy. Mrs. Porterfield sued for divorce, charging that she had been abandoned. The divorce was granted and she was awarded $30.00 per month in financial support.
Porterfield enlisted in the United States Army, 4 March 1918, and served as a sergeant with the 314th Trench Mortar Battery, 164th Field Artillery Brigade, 89th Division, American Expeditionary Forces. The division fought at the Battle of St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The 89th was inactivated following the war. Sergeant Porterfield was honorably discharged, 20 February 1919.
Porterfield’s second wife was Margaret Jellison Porterfield. They also divorced.
In 1925, Porterfield founded the Porterfield Flying School at Richards Field, the first airport for Kansas City, Missouri. In 1928, he founded the American Eagle Aircraft Corporation at Fairfax Airport, Kansas City, Kansas.³
E. E. Porterfield married his third wife, Mildred Shiveley, at Odessa, Missouri, 25 December 1930.
Porterfield later founded the Porterfield Aircraft Corporation in 1932. During World War II, light aircraft production ceased and the company eventually went out of business.
Edward Everett Porterfield, Jr., died at Kansas City, Missouri, 29 August 1948, at the age of 58 years. He was buried at the Mount Washington Cemetery, Independence, Missouri.
Porterfield Model 35-70 Flyabout. (San Diego Air & Space Museum)
¹ FAI Record File Number 12022
² Full Disclosure: Judge Edward Everett Porterfield, Sr., a Kansas state circuit court judge, had an involvement in the infamous Dr. Hyde murders which took place at the Colonel Thomas H. Swope mansion near Independence, Missouri (State of Missouri v. Bennett Clarke Hyde, 1910). Colonel Swope was a distant relative of TDiA.
³ The Kansas City Metropolitan Area is divided by the Missouri River, which is the boundary between the State of Missouri and the State of Kansas. Therefore, there is a Kansas City, Missouri, and a Kansas City, Kansas.
Jacqueline Auriol in the cockpit of a SNCASE Mistral, a license-built version of the de Havilland DH.100 Vampire. (Flying Review)
12 May 1951: Mme Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne Douet Auriol flew a Goblin-powered de Havilland DH.100 Vampire to set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world record for speed over a given distance of 100 kilometers (62.14 statute miles), averaging 818.18 km/h (505.39 m.p.h.). ¹ Mme Auriol took off from Istres, flew to Avignon and back. She broke the existing record, 703.38 km/h (437.06 m.p.h.) set 29 December 1949 by Jacqueline Cochran of the United States with a North American Aviation P-51C Mustang. ²
The Chicago Tribune reported:
MRS. AURIOL, 33, PILOTS PLANE AT RECORD 507 MPH
Breaks Women’s Mark of Jacqueline Cochran
ISTRES AIRFIELD, Marseilles, France, May 12—[Reuters]—Mrs. Jacqueline Auriol, daughter-in-law of the French president, Vincent Auriol, today officially smashed the American held 100 kilometer [62.5 miles] air speed record for women.
Mrs. Auriol, blue eyed mother of two children, flew the Istres-Avignon return course at an official speed of 818.558 kilometers an hour [about 507 miles].
Thus she broke the three year old record of Jacqueline Cochran, who flew the distance at Coachella Valley, Cal., in a P-51 Mustang, powered by a Rolls-Royce piston engine, of 469 m.p. h.
Mrs. Auriol established the new record in a French built Vampire jet, named “Mistral” after a prevailing French wind. The ship has two British De Havilland Gobling [sic] turbo-compressors.
Trial Run Even Faster
At a trial run this morning Mrs. Auriol went even faster, covering the course at 509½ m.p.h. After the morning test run, Mrs. Auriol said she hadn’t “pushed” he aircraft at all. The French makers claim it can reach 567 m.p.h.
Mrs. Auriol, 33, is slim, boyish, has her hair cut short and usually wears slacks. She studied painting, but gave it up after her marriage in 1938 to Paul Auriol, private secretary to his father.
Her face bears the marks of a flying accident in which she nearly lost her life two years ago. She was co-piloting a seaplane which crashed into the Seine.
Holds U. S. Pilot License
She spent a year in hospital in France before going to the United States to complete her treatment, which included 22 operations. Four eight months she had to be fed artificially.
She learned to pilot a helicopter at Buffalo, N. Y., and passed her pilot test over Niagara Falls. She learned jet piloting in a Meteor with Test Pilot Raymond Guillaume, who was present today and made a test flight over the course before her record attempt.
—Chicago Sunday Tribune, Vol. CX, No. 115, 13 May 1951, Part 1, Page 29, Column 1
For her record flight, Mme Auriol was named Chevalier de la légion d’honneur. Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, presented her with the Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy.
A SNCASE-built DH.100 Vampire. (National Archives at College Park, National Archives Identifier 19982005)
The DH.100 was a single-seat, single-engine fighter powered by a turbojet engine. The twin tail boom configuration of the airplane was intended to allow a short exhaust tract for the engine, reducing power loss in the early jet engines available at the time.
Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du Sud-Est (SNCASE) assembled knocked-down kits of de Havilland DH.100 Vampires before entering into licensed manufacture of its own SE.530 Mistral.
The fighter variant, the DH.100 F1, was armed with four 20 mm guns.
Cutaway illustration of the Halford H.1B Goblin turbojet engine. (Flight)
The Goblin is a linear descendant of the early Whittle units. It comprises a single-sided centrifugal compressor delivering air to sixteen combustion chambers grouped symmetrically around the axis of the unit and leading to the nozzle of the single-stage axial turbine which drives the compressor. Compressor impeller and turbine rotor are coupled by a tubular shaft to form a single rotating assembly which is mounted on only two ball bearings. The maximum diameters of the engine, around the compressor casing, is 50in., [1.27 meters] and with a jet pipe of minimum length fitted the overall length is about 8ft. [2.438 meters] Equipped with a jet pipe and all the necessary engine auxiliaries the dry weight of the complete unit is 1,500 lb. [680 kilograms] Fuel consumption is at the rate of 1.23 lb. / hr. per lb. thrust.
—FLIGHT and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER, No. 1923. Vol. XLVIII. Thursday, 1 November 1945 at Page 472, Column 2
The Vampire entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1945 and remained a front-line fighter until 1953. 3,268 DH.100s were built. The SE.530 Mistral served with the Armée de l’air from 1952 to 1961. SNCASE had assembled 67 Vampire FB Mk 5 kits and built 120 SE.530 Mistrals.
