Page 8 - Flying Physician Magazine Issue 1-2018

HISTORY’S FIRST FLYING BILLBOARD

By Mike Lentes

The year is 1911, and most Americans are concerned until now doesn’t matter.” He immediately bought a “Model
about the high cost of living. The price of bread has risen to 5 B” from the Wright brothers and spent that summer barn-
cents a loaf – a quart of milk is now 8 cents – and if you have storming. At a flying contest in Chicago that August, Rodgers
to grab lunch away from home, a hot beef sandwich costs 10 was awarded $11,000 for most-time-aloft and attracted the at-
cents. The average annual income stands at $983 and the aver- tention of J. Ogden Armour, owner of the Vin Fiz Company.
age work week is six 12-hour days! If you can afford one, a new Armour wanted to introduce his new Vin Fiz grape soda to
Ford Model T sets you back $650 – but you can say “fill ‘er up” the country and after a 20 minute conversation with Rodgers,
with gas at 5 cents a gallon. And there is a flurry of new inven- he agreed to sponsor the flight. Armour would pay him $5
tions like air conditioning and the electric potato peeler. And for each mile flown east of the Mississippi and $4 west of the
then there’s that “newfangled” flying machine built by those river in return for advertising the grape drink. Painted on the
Wright brothers in Dayton, Ohio. underwing was: “VIN FIZ – THE IDEAL GRAPE DRINK.” It
Only 2% of Americans had even seen an “aeroplane” in was the first-ever flying billboard.
1911. So, when a Wright biplane was scheduled to take off The Vin Fiz Company also provided a train with a private
from the Sheepshead Bay racetrack on Long Island, it was a Pullman car for Rodgers and his wife to stay in each night. A
must-see spectacle for the 2,000 New Yorkers waiting there. second “hangar car” carried several “mechanicians” and was
However, it wasn’t meant to be just “a short flight around the loaded with various spare parts purchased from the Wright
pea patch.” The pilot, Cal Rodgers, was bold enough to think brothers to repair the Vin Fiz while en route. In addition, the
he could fly coast-to-coast – and win the $50,000 prize offered second car contained a Palmer-Singer automobile that would
by Randolph Hearst to anyone who would make the flight in be used to locate and retrieve the pilot at the end of each day’s
30 days or less. It was considered to be a publicity stunt by flight.
Hearst, a flamboyant newspaper magnate, since few thought it The third rail car was a day coach for photographers and
even possible. As Orville Wright told Rodgers: “I’ll sell you one newspaper reporters who filed daily reports on the flight’s
of our ‘aeroplanes’ but they’re not meant for that kind of punish- progress. Local reporters would climb aboard and travel with
ment – you won’t make it as far as Chicago.” While others said the train long enough to get the latest news, then return to
“Not possible” – Cal Rodgers said “Why not?” their hometown and write stories on the flight that everyone
was talking about. Since there were no aerial charts or nav-
igation aids in 1911, Rodgers used the railroad tracks as his
“iron compass” and, at the same time, keeping him close to his
support train – The Vin Fiz Special.

CROWD CHEERS WRIGHT VIN FIZ INITIAL TAKEOFF AT NEW YORK

Just 3 months earli- “VIN FIZ SPECIAL” HANGAR CAR
er, after only 90 minutes
of instruction at the There were no airports in 1911, so the racetrack at Sheeps-
Wright Flying School head Bay was chosen as the starting point. The straightaway
in Dayton, Rodgers so- provided a smooth “runway” required by the flying machine,
loed and proclaimed: and the fence kept out gate-crashers not willing to pay $1.50
“A man could become to see the Wright “aeroplane” up close. Rodgers caught a few
drunk with flying. Ev- hours of restless sleep at the Montague Hotel – known for its
erything I’ve done up “modern porcelain washing and bathroom facilities” – before

8 The Flying Physician vol. 61 - Issue 1 2018