☞Look, Up In The Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s…

October 17, 2022

☞Today in History -- On today’s date 111 years ago, Tuesday, October 17, 1911, the famous Vin Fiz Flyer, the first powered æroplane to fly coast-to-coast across the United States, landed in Fort Worth, Texas. Pilot Calbraith Perry “Daredevil Cal” Rodgers (1879-1912) was attempting to win the $50,000 prize offered by publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) for the first transcontinental flight.

☞The Vin Fiz Flyer, a Wright Brothers Model B flying machine, was sponsored by J. Ogden Armour (1863-1927), the famous meat packer. The Vin Fiz was named after Armour’s new grape-flavored soft drink.

☞Ten thousand people came out to watch Daredevil Cal Rogers land in John C. Ryan’s cow pasture at the site of the present-day Ryan Place addition in Fort Worth.

☞Rodgers had left from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911. On November 5, he landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California -- missing the prize deadline by 19 days. On December 10, 1911, he completed his coast-to-coast trip by landing at Long Beach, California, where he taxied the Vin Viz Flyer into the Pacific Ocean.

☞Although his plan called for a large number of stops along the way, Rogers ended up stopping 75 times -- including 16 crashes, & Rodgers’ team of mechanics had to repair & replace so many of the parts of the Vin Fiz Flyer so often that only very few pieces of the original æroplane actually made the entire trip -- a case that is curiously reminiscent of “Theseus’s Paradox,” which is a philosophical argument based upon the Ancient Greek legend of the Ship of Theseus that was so often discussed by the likes of Heraclitus, Socrates, & Plato -- although in modern times the same basic argument is often put forth as “The Parable of George Washington’s Hatchet.” It is not our intention to expound on the Theseus’ Paradox here, so if you are not aware of the definition, we suggest that you look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls!

☞Three months & 24 days after his transcontinental flight, Daredevil Cal met his earthly demise at the age of 33 after his æroplane collided with a flock of seagulls whilst he was engaged in the performance of an exhibition flight at Long Beach, California. His damaged flying machine crashed into the Pacific Ocean & he expired there a few moments later from the effects of a broken neck & a damaged thorax -- only a few hundred feet from where he had landed the Vin Fiz Flyer after the first coast-to-coast flight.

☞The Vin Fiz Flyer is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

☞The photograph depicts a circa-1911 souvenir postcard displaying a photograph of the visage of Daredevil Cal Thomas along with a photograph of his “Vin Fiz Flyer” in flight.