Show Notes
Hawaii became the most recent state to join the union in 1959 and is now the third wealthiest. Following it’s annexation, Hawaii became an important naval base for the US Navy so it is hardly surprising that they should be the first to attempt a flight from the US mainland to the island. Aviation had already arrived at the islands in 1910 courtesy of Bud Mars, the Curtiss Daredevil.
The Hawaiian Archipelago
The annexation of Hawaii
J C Mars
Commander John Rodgers
Rodgers in the Wright Flyer
The PN9 flying boat
Rodgers and his crew survive to be welcomed into Hawaii
The Atlantic-Fokker C-2 Tri-motor
Atlantic-Fokker C-2 “Bird of Paradise” arrival in Hawaii
The start of the Dole Air Race
In all, six aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair and ten lives lost.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Google Map Images, Bain News Service, Harris and Ewing, the Library of Congress, Hawaii Aviation, the USAF and the SDASM.
Images under Creatiove Commons licence with thanks to
More from Plane Tales
With the influx of new Airbus airframes, Virgin needed more pilots and not just to occupy the right hand seat… there were opportunities for promotion to Captain much earlier than had been the norm. When I joined the time to command was about 8 years. Looking back I did my first sector with Virgin in July 1994 and it was now November 96, 2 years 4 months later and I was already starting my pre-command training.
We last spoke to Basam when he was doing his Jet Upset Training but now that he has his dream job it was appropriate that we should chat again on one of his London layovers. In particular, he is flying around a war zone which presents additional challenges to a civil airline pilot.
A flock of seagulls had chosen that moment to break ground from the grass beside the runway and fly across our path. They disappeared under the nose as we climbed away and cleaned the aircraft up… no noise of an impact but then we noticed the No 2 engine’s N1 vibration number was pulsing and reading a bit high. So starts another Tale from my flying logbook.
The next tale from my RAF Logbook, albeit now being filled with civilian flights for Virgin Atlantic Airways…