On September 11, 1911, Calbraith Perry "Cal" Rodgers, 32, left Sheepshead Bay in New York in a small plane to try and win a $50,000 prize for being the first person to complete a transcontinental US flight.
His story is a fascinating one. He completed the journey in a month but was past the deadline for the prize that William Randolph Hearst put up. What makes this story crazy is that the pilot had only 90 minutes of flight instruction (from Orville Wright) before he made his first solo flight. Since there were no airports, navigation maps, control towers or beacons, the flight across the country was certainly a risky move.
You can read more about this on Centennial of Flight and on This Day in Tech.
Leave a comment