The Great Pineapple Race

In May of 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first non-stop airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean, netting himself a prize of $25,000 (around $370,000 in today’s money) and catapulting him from some guy flying a mail plane to the most famous man in the world.  The feat got aerial enthusiasts around the world all hot and bothered, probably none more so than James Dole, the half crazed pineapple king of the world.  Born into a well off WASP family in Massachusetts, Dole had purchased the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, turning it into a giant pineapple plantation which utilized immigrant labor and shitty working conditions to produce 70 percent of the pineapples in the world.  Wanting to have his own air thing, Dole declared he was hosting an air race between California and Hawaii in August of that year, promising a cash prize of $25,000 to the winner.  Dole had all sorts of visions of establishing air travel for tourism and shipping pineapple back to the mainland.  However, pretty much every aviation expert told him that the trip would be super dangerous, given the navigation technology of the time, and that doing it as a race was likely to get a shit ton of people killed.  However, Dole had a full on idea boner, so he of course ignored them.

Unsurprisingly, most serious aviators decided that the prize money wasn’t enough to most likely drown in the Pacific.  However, the thirst for fame and fortune drew fifteen daredevil teams into the fray.  Unfortunately, the glory of the attempt was quickly dissipated when the Army Air Corps flew a plane from Oakland to Oahu in June, a feat repeated by a civilian plane in July.  Undaunted, Dole simply pretended that the flights didn’t happen and continued making preparations.  In August, the teams began to arrive in Oakland, minus one who had been unable to acquire a plane, which is kind of important.  Of the remaining fourteen teams, three crashed on their way to the event, two were disqualified for not having big enough fuel tanks, and one took all of this as a bad omen and withdrew.  The remaining eight teams, pretty much all of whom suffered some kind of mechanical issue getting to Oakland, soaked up the adoration of the public and media and prepared for the start of the race.

On August 16, watched by a crowd of some 100,000 people, the eight planes took off from Oakland, destined for Honolulu.  The pilots included Norman Goddard, a Navy pilot in a custom built monoplane; Livingston Irving, the son of the mayor of Berkeley; Jack Frost, who was sponsored by the newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst; William Erwin, a World War I flying ace; Auggy Pedlar, who flew with a middle school teacher and aerial enthusiast named Mildred Doran; Martin Jensen, whose wife had raised money for him to buy a plane; Arthur Goebel, a movie stunt pilot whose specialty was parachuting and crashing; and Bennett Griffin, who was not interesting in any way whatsoever.

Things went to shit pretty much immediately.  Both Goddard and Irving crashed on takeoff and Griffin, Erwin, and Pedlar all returned within half an hour with engine trouble.  Of the three, only Pedlar got back into the air, though Irving tried but instead just crashed his plane for a second time.  Of the four planes that managed to make it into the air, Goebel was most competent; flying at 4,000 feet to aid in stellar navigation and utilizing radio communications with ships strung across the route.  He landed in Honolulu after 26 hours with only a pint of fuel remaining in his tank.  In comparison, Jensen flew at an altitude of 50 feet, navigating by pure dead reckoning, miraculously arriving in Honolulu second with only five gallons of fuel remaining.  The planes piloted by Pedlar and Frost were never seen again.  Their loss sparked a massive search over an area of 350,000 square miles, which included 42 Navy ships and 12 civilian vessels.  Erwin, having gotten his plane fixed, joined the search, but soon after disappeared as well.  No sign of the three planes was ever discovered, though rumors and hoaxes continued for years afterwards.

In total, ten people died due to the race.  However, it did prove Dole’s concept correct, though it would be nearly a decade before planes regularly began carrying fresh pineapple to the mainland.  The first regular commercial airline flight between Los Angeles and Honolulu was established in 1935.  It took sixteen hours.  Today the same trip takes five hours.  Goebel continued his flying career, becoming the first pilot to fly non-stop across the U.S. west to east in 1929.  He competed in many other races, served as a pilot during World War II, and died in 1973.  Jensen also continued flying, but not with as much luck.  A month after the Dole race he attempted a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to New York, for some reason bringing along a lion owned by MGM Studios.  He and the lion died when his plane crashed in Arizona.  As for crazy old James Dole, the race was considered a media fiasco due to the high cost of life.  He was later removed from managing his own company in 1932.  He died of a heart attack in 1958.

Image: https://picryl.com/media/hess-bluebird-special-for-dole-air-race-lair-december-151927-9e477b