Oberg Pass.

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Which occurred as part of the 1919 Air Derby.

This crash, discussed elsewhere, is usually referenced as occurring "west of Cheyenne".  It is west of Cheyenne, but the pilot was following the Union Pacific Railroad and a much better description would have been north west of Laramie, or even south of Medicine Bow.

Blog Mirror: Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

Lex Anteinternet: October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Take Off. And Wool.

Lex Anteinternet: October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Tak...:

October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Take Off. And Wool.

On this day, the Sox won again, and with Cicotte pitching.

This caused real concern among the gamblers.  Prior to the series commencing the common thought that the Sox could win two Series games back to back simply by willing to do so, and now it appeared that was true. The Sox were back in the game and it looked like they might take the series.



As a result, Lefty Williams was visited by an enforcer of the gambler's that night and his family was threatened.  The order was that the Sox were to lose the next game.

While the Sox appeared to be rallying, news of the giant air race, with varied accounts as to the number of aircraft in it, started taking pride of place in the headlines.  The race had already been marred, however, by early loss of life.

Cities on the Lincoln Highway that had only recently hosted the Army Transcontinental Convoy now were getting set to look up and watch the air race.

And there was news of a woolen mill coming to the state, something that would well suit a state that, at that time, had millions of sheep.



The Gasoline Alley gang went golfing.

Lex Anteinternet: October 7, 1919. The White Sox Rally? (Posted due to the 1919 Air Derby)

Lex Anteinternet: October 7, 1919. The White Sox Rally?:

October 7, 1919. The White Sox Rally?

The Sox suddenly were back in the game on this October 7, 1919 game of the World Series.

Dicky Kerr was pitching again, the Sox's did well in a ten inning game.

On this same day, news hit the state of the impending start of a bit air race scheduled for this very week.  The race was sponsored by the Army Air Corps and was scheduled to commence on October 8.



In other news, the Germans, whom had been kept at first in the Baltic states by the Allies, but who had become very involved in the conflicts there, were being invited to leave.  And a terrible flood hit a small town in Colorado.



Cardinal Mercier continued his tour of Belgium, raising funds for the restoration of the Library at Leuven.  On this day, he spoke at Columbia.

In Czechoslovakia, the parliament was in session.

Lt. Austin's attempted flight from the Canal Zone to Washington D. C., October 6, 1919.

Is it time to stop flying the old ones? The B-17 Nine-0-Nine Crashes

I've been in quite a few B-17s and ridden on one.  If you go back and look through the posts here you'll find photographs of them.

Two of those B-17s were the Nine 0 Nine and the Liberty Belle.

The Nine 0 Nine.

Both are now gone.*  The Nine O Nine crashed this week at a demonstration, killing ten people including some who had paid to ride in the old classic bomber.

I'm generally not inclined to tell people what to do with their own property. That's not something that squares with my own world view,  nor with what we might generally call "American Values", although increasingly there are plenty of Americans who are ready to tell other Americans exactly what they can and cannot do with all sorts of things.  And I'm not of the view that merely because something is old, it shouldn't be used.  I use plenty of old things myself, including driving on occasion an old truck that probably some feel shouldn't be driven due to its age.

Nine O Nine.

But few of us have something that's an historical treasure.  Once all of the flyable models of any one aircraft are done for, and the law of averages alone will bring that day upon us, more likely than not, there are none left and the history associated with them is gone as well.

B-17s weren't made to fly for 70 years.

Indeed, nothing made in the 30s or 40s that flew or rolled was.  Simply nothing was expected to last that long.

While most B-17s were made in the 1940s, during World War Two, the plane's first flight was in 1935.  In 1935 when the plane first flew flight itself was only 32 years in existence.  That's over 80 years ago now, and if we look back the other way, eighty years prior, people were not only not flying, they weren't driving either.

Trains didn't last for eighty years.  Wagons certainly didn't.  Automobiles, when they first came out, tended to be used up very quickly, in spite of their vast expense.  And airplanes cycled through generations incredibly quickly.

View from the now gone Liberty Belle.

The first "heavy" bombers came into existence during World War One, but just as with fighter aircraft, the bombers of mid war were already obsolete by the end of the war.  The first U.S. bombers to have the "B" designation (fighters had a "P" designation, for "pursuit") came into service in the 1920s and exited service nearly as quickly as they entered.  The fact that the U.S. Army Air Corps was up to the number "17" with the B-17 shows us how very quickly they cycled through the service.

The heavy aircraft that came into military service with the US largely made it through World War Two.  None the less, there's no doubt that aircraft like the B-17 and the B-18 were obsolescent by the time World War Two started, already primitive in comparison to aircraft like the B-24. They were kept in production not because they were first rate modern aircraft at that time, but because it was necessary.  Save for odd uses, as soon as the war was over, they were phased out of service. For that matter, the aircraft that made them obsolescent were already obsolescent themselves. In terms of heavy bombers, which were really something that only the United States and the United Kingdom fielded, the world had gone from the aircraft of the mid 1930s, to the those of the late 30s and early 40s, to the B-29, which made them all obsolete.  And the B-29 would only remain a first rate bomber until the late 1940s when jet powered bombers made their appearance. The B-36 had its first flight in 1946. The B-47 in 1947.  The B-52 in 1952.

The B-52 is still in Air Force use, and will be for the foreseeable future.  It will be, most likely, the first military aircraft to see 100 years of continual use.  But it was built in a completely different era.  Vastly more expensive than the B-17, which entered service less than 20 years prior to the B-52, it was designed to be flown by men who would have college educations and who were already use to a technical world. The B-17 was designed to be flown by farm boys who were used to tractors and made the Model A.

There's no earthly way that the designers and builders of the B-17 imagined them flying for 70 to 80 years.  Chances are, they didn't see them flying for more than ten.  During World War Two, those savvy to aircraft development didn't see a future for aircraft like the B-17 beyond the end of the war and, had they been quietly asked, would have already regarded it as obsolete.  It only had to offer its crew a chance of living through their tour.

And the fact that it did offer such a chance is why there remain any around today. They were rugged.

But they weren't built to fly forever.  And the flying ones will not.  The time has come to let them rest, while there are still any left that are capable of flight.

That is sad.  The fact that they still fly from town to town allows people to see them who would otherwise never get the chance.  But the end conclusion to continuing to allow them to fly seems evident.

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To add to this sad tale, I've also been in an HE-111 that crashed later.  And I've viewed a P-51 which did.

Canadair CL-415 Superscoopers at Pathfinder Reservoir.

CL-415 Superscoopers at Pathfinder Reservoir.

They're fighting a nearby fire.

Lex Anteinternet: August 25, 1919. Ely to Pinto House, Nevada with ...

Lex Anteinternet: August 25, 1919. Ely to Pinto House, Nevada with ...: Other soldiers, much further south, had come back across the border.  The most significant US incursion into Mexico since the Punitive Expedition had come to an end.

As with the last, this incursion had featured the use of aircraft fairly extensively.  In this case, the press was reporting that aircraft had proven decisive by resulting in the deaths from a strafing run by U.S. planes.  The expedition had also started, of course, due to aircraft when U.S. airmen had been held hostage by Mexican bandits.



Also occurring on this day was another significant aircraft related event.  The predecessor to British Airways, Aircraft Transport & Travel Ltd., commenced the first regularly scheduled commercial channel hopping flight.  That early ride between London and Paris must have been a bit frightening to the passengers, but clearly pointed the direction of the future.

The flight was made in an Airco DH16, an plane that was converted from the wartime DH9.  It could hold four passengers.

Lex Anteinternet: August 19, 1919. Trouble on the road and a big we...

Lex Anteinternet: August 19, 1919. Trouble on the road and a big we...:

August 19, 1919. Trouble on the road and a big welcome in Salt Lake City, Trouble on the Border.

Salt Lake City in 1908.

While plagued with mechanical troubles, the Motor Transport Convoy made good time, doing 73 miles from Ogden to Salt Lake City in 8.25 hours.  Upon arrival, the command was treated to a parade attended by dignitaries.

The large celebratory nature of the arrival reflects the fact that upon arriving in Salt Lake the command had arrived at the first substantial city since leaving Cheyenne in eastern Wyoming, or perhaps even since leaving Omaha in eastern Nebraska.  They were arriving toward the end of their trek and while perhaps the worst was yet to come, getting to Salt Lake was a major accomplishment.

While the arrival of the Motor Transport Convoy was obviously a big even in Salt Lake and elsewhere, the big news on that day is that American troops were back in Mexico.

The occasion had been the holding for ransom of two American military aviators. A portion of the ransom had been paid and then the 8th Cavalry crossed the border at Marfa in pursuit of the Mexican bandits.

Perhaps somewhat ironically, on the same day the U.S. re-adopted the briefly adopted star roundel for its aircraft.  It had done this early in World War One but abandoned it in favor of one more closely resembling the device used by the British and the French, which made sense at the time.  Now it re-adopted its earlier insignia, just in time for the aviators to join the pursuit of their own captors in support of the 8th Cavalry, although the insignia used by those aircraft is unknown to us.

Nowood "International Airport", Washakie County, Wyoming.

Or at least it bills itself as such.  I have my doubts.