Calbraith Perry Rodgers
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Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879 – April 3, 1912) was a pioneer American aviator who was the first civilian to purchase a Wright Flyer and he was the first to make a transcontinental flight.
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[edit] Family
Rodgers was related to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. A childhood bout with scarlet fever left him completely deaf in one ear and severely impaired in the other. He lived in Havre de Grace, Maryland, and had a cousin, John Rodgers (naval officer, World War I), in the Navy's Aerial Corps, who was learning to fly the Navy's newly purchased Wright airplane. In March of 1911 Cal visited the Wright factory and flying school in Dayton, Ohio, to see his brother and he became interested in aviation. Cal Rodgers became the first private citizen to buy a Wright airplane, a Wright Flyer Model B modified and called the Wright Model EX. On August 7, 1911 he took his official flying examination at Huffman Prairie and became the 49th aviator licensed to fly by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
[edit] Cross country flight
The publisher William Randolph Hearst offered a $US 50,000 prize to the first aviator to fly coast to coast, in either direction, in less than 30 days from start to finish. Rodgers persuaded J. Ogden Armour, of Armour and Company, to sponsor the flight, and in return he named the plane after Armour's grape soft drink "Vin Fiz". The previous attempt was made by Henry Atwood. Rodgers left from Sheepshead Bay, New York on September 17, 1911 at 4:30 pm. He crossed the Rocky Mountains on November 5, 1911 and landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California at 4:04, in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. He had missed the prize deadline by 19 days. On December 10, 1911 he landed at Long Beach, California and symbolically taxied his plane into the Pacific Ocean. He had carried the first transcontinental mail pouch and was accompanied on the ground by a support crew that repaired and rebuilt the plane after each crash landing. The trip required 70 stops and he paid Charlie Taylor $US 70 a week to be his mechanic. Taylor followed the flight by train, frequently arriving at the next rendezvous, to make any required repairs and prepare the aircraft for the next day's flight. The next transcontinental flight was made by Robert D. Fowler.
[edit] Death
On April 3, 1912, while making a test flight in Long Beach, California, he flew into a flock of birds, causing the plane to crash into the ocean. His neck was broken and his body badly mashed by the engine of his machine. [1] He died a few moments later.
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[edit] Periodicals
- New York Times; Wednesday, October 11, 1911; Air Record Broken By Aviator Rodgers; Exceeds Atwood's Cross-Country Flight Of 1,265 Miles By Making 1,398 To Date. Marshall, Missouri, October 10, 1911. C.P. Rodgers, the aviator who is trying to make a coast to coast flight, landed at Marshall at 4:23 o'clock this afternoon, exceeding the world's record for cross country aeroplane flight by 133 miles. The world' record of 1,265 miles was made by Henry Atwood in a recent flight from St. Louis to New York. Rodgers has flown 1,398 miles according to railroad mileage.
- Washington Post; April 4, 1912; C. P. Rodgers' Aero Plunges Into Surf at Long Beach. Hundreds See Tragedy. Hero of First Transcontinental Flight Victim of His Own Daring. When Lifted From Wrecked Machine His Neck Is Found to Be Broken -- Birdman's Home in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Cousin of Lieut. Rodgers in Navy's Aerial Corps -- Victim Author of Theory of "Etherial Asphyxia." Long Beach, California, April 3, 1912. Calbraith P. Rodgers, the first man to cross the American continent in an aeroplane, was killed here almost instantly late today, when his biplane, in which he had been soaring over the ocean, fell from a height of 200 feet and buried him in the wreck. His neck was broken and his body badly mashed by the engine of his machine.
[edit] References
- Eileen F. Lebow, Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz: the First Transcontinental Flight. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989)
- E.P. Stein Flight of the Vin Fiz (New York: Arbor House, 1985)
- Richard L Taylor, The First Flight Across the United States: the Story of Calbraith Perry Rodgers and His Airplane, the Vin Fiz (New York: F. Watts, 1993)
- Linn's Stamp News; January 14, 2002, p. 14; "New 'Vin Fiz Flyer' card found and auctioned"
