The Longest Flight

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Chapter One The Roots of Aviation in Yuma, Including Endurance Flights.....................1Chapter Two Two Men Enduring Forty-Seven Days in the Air...................................11Chapter Three The City of Yuma Rises from the Ashes........................................41Chapter Four Publicity in an Effort to Pay the Bills.......................................65Chapter Five Old-Timers Remember Those Forty-Seven Days....................................97Chapter Six Future Home of the City of Yuma Airplane.......................................121Chapter Seven Yuma Sixty Years Later.......................................................127

Chapter One

Robert G. Fowler, First Man to Fly an Airplane into the State of Arizona

Although not widely known, Yuma has a history of endurance flights dating back to 1911. Yuma was the take-off point for a flight by Robert G. "Bob" Fowler that set the world's record for duration and distance covered in 1911. Bob Fowler had entered the first Transcontinental Air Race, in which William Randolph Hearst's American offered fifty thousand dollars to "the first man who could fly across the American continent within thirty consecutive days and complete the journey by October 10, 1911." Fowler's airplane was a Cole Flyer, a Model B pusher-type biplane built at the Wright Brothers plant in Dayton, Ohio, where he went and had some three hours of instruction and ordered the airplane shipped to San Francisco. He had many troubles along the way, including a crash in Colfax, California, and one in the snow at Donner Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From there, the Flyer was shipped to Los Angeles by freight train. It was repaired, and he started all over again. On that second attempt, he took off from Ascot Park in Los Angeles on October 10, exactly thirty-eight years before the City of Yuma landed after its long flight and the very day that he had hoped to reach the east coast. More delays occurred, one caused by Los Angeles fog, which forced him to land at night at Tournament Park in Pasadena. He then had a "blown-up engine" at Banning, California.

Finally, on October 24, he took off from Mecca, near the Salton Sea, and arrived in Yuma on October 25. His arrival was expected. Two thousand breathless spectators had assembled in the Yuma ballpark. They first saw a small speck over Pilot Knob. It grew to the size of a bird and then a full-sized airplane. The crowd watched the wonderful object circle the enclosure and make a graceful landing almost on home plate. Bob was the first birdman to visit Yuma; the Cole Flyer was the first flying machine in the city and the first airplane to enter Arizona under its own power and not riding in a boxcar. "Everyone from all over the valley was there," wrote Madeline Spain, who witnessed the great event. "We had been waiting for days, and the birdman's arrival was real exciting." Fowler then clattered into Maricopa on October 29 and landed alongside the railroad tracks across the street from the main post office. It had been a nonstop flight from Yuma (four hours and twenty-six minutes) and the 165-mile trip won him a world's record for duration and distance covered. Ruth M. Reinhold related this in her book Sky Pioneering.

In June of 1929, former residents of Yuma, Martin and Margaret (Peg) Jensen, along with William Ulbrich, attempted to break the world's refueling record of 172 hours, 32 minutes, and 6 seconds. This record attempt, made in a Bellanca aircraft flying over Roosevelt Field, New York, ended after only seventy hours due to a fuel problem. The existing record at that time, established at Ft. Worth, Texas, was held by Reg Robbins and James Kelly.

Leo, the MGM Lion

Martin Jensen and his wife were quite well known in Yuma, having been the subject of various headlines in the local newspaper. They were married in a Jenny while flying above Yuma in 1925. Martin was an aviation barnstormer, having come in second in a race to be the first to fly to Hawaii. In 1927 he was involved in an accident, described by Ruth M. Reinhold in her book Sky Pioneering as being the most bizarre incident in Arizona's aeronautical history: a plane crash with Leo, MGM Pictures' African lion mascot. Martin, flying a specially modified Ryan B-1 Brougham with Leo aboard, crashed in Arizona's Mazatzal Mountains, but both survived. The lion was being flown across the country with planned stops along the way as a publicity stunt for MGM.

Father of the late Jackie Griffen of Yuma, Ham Eubank, and another cowboy, Lewis Bowman, were working cattle in a rough canyon in the area when Ham's horse shied and started bucking. Ham got off and looked around to determine what had frightened his horse. He discovered the wrecked airplane with Leo in it. The pilot had walked away, hiking for two and one-half days in the rough country before reaching a ranch. The area in which the crash occurred is known as Hell's Gate, and is some of the most remote and isolated terrain in Arizona. A group of intrepid cowboys improvised a sled from a forked oak and, using frightened mules, eventually rescued Leo from the area. He was transported to Phoenix by truck and to Los Angeles by train. The story is detailed in Frank V. Gillette's book, Pleasant Valley.

In 1949 the Yuma Jaycee-sponsored world-record endurance flight touched the lives of most, if not all, of the nine thousand people in Yuma. For those directly involved, it was the adventure of a lifetime, something to be proud of and not to be forgotten. As the years rolled by, memories faded and the stories took on new meaning. Among the old-timers, Bob Hodge loved to tell amusing stories about the flight to anyone who would take the time to listen. Horace Griffen's main topic of conversation concerns the flight. He has made numerous public appearances in which he describes details of the flight. He has also kept in contact with most of the principal players and was instrumental in putting on a fortieth anniversary celebration of the landing in 1989. He didn't know it, but he was destined to play an important part in the continuing story of Yuma's endurance flight.

Fly Field

Yuma International Airport, as we now know it, can trace its roots to 1925. This was the year that key individuals with a keen vision for future air transportation were appointed to the Yuma Chamber of Commerce aviation committee. This committee, which was chaired by Judge Peter T. Robertson and included Everett Johnson and E. C. Briegger, went to work to secure an airport or landing field for Yuma. In approximately two years, these men were able to secure certain appropriated land (forty acres) from the government and have it cleared and leveled. They also gained the aid and influence of the Yuma Valley Country Club; secured the offer of a thirty-two thousand dollar hangar delivered FOB, Yuma; and obtained legislation authorizing the board of supervisors to make expenditures in the establishment and maintenance of public aviation fields. Through their efforts, the forty-acre plot of sand was officially designated as an active airport. This designation was made possible through the efforts of the committee assisted by Col. Ben Franklin Fly. The...