Midweek Matinee: Dole Air Race, 1927

All photos are frame grabs from video below.

Slightly off-topic, but hey, it’s a Kinograms silent newsreel that leads with a three-engine Ford, so we think it qualifies.

Here’s a scenario we can all relate to: You’re James Dole, of pineapple fame and fortune, and you’d like to spread the word of the Territory of Hawaii – oh, and eating more tropical fruit in general. The Charles Lindbergh trans-Atlantic flight had certainly gotten everyone’s attention, and trans-Pacific crossings had been successfully accomplished. But in the summer of 1927, James proposed the Dole Air Race, a.k.a. the Dole Derby — an Oakland, California-to-Honolulu, Hawaii race for fixed-wing aircraft, and backed up his challenge with a $25,000 cash prize for first place and $10,000 for second. That’s 2,400 miles, give or take, non-stop. Game on!

This was back when a pilot really looked the part — sporting a leather helmet, goggles and a scarf around one’s neck — all the better to filter out some of the airborne dirt, fuel and grit while looking rather dashing in the process.

We’d love to put a light-hearted spin on this, but viewing the takeoffs — with aircraft struggling mightily to lift their massive loads of fuel — is a scary proposition. Given its California roots, Red Crown gasoline was a logical choice, though hand-cranking a thousand gallons of flammable liquid would have been no picnic, either.

It gets worse: according to Wikipedia, “Of the 15-18 airplanes entered, 11 were certified to compete but three crashed before the race, resulting in three deaths. Eight eventually participated in the race, with two crashing on takeoff and two going missing during the race. A third, forced to return for repairs, took off again to search for the missing and was itself never seen again. In all, before, during, and after the race, ten lives were lost and six airplanes were total losses. Two of the eight planes successfully landed in Hawaii.”

Public domain archival footage courtesy of the Internet Moving Images Archive, in association with Prelinger Archives.