The “This Week in Texas History” column for Wednesday, May 14 through Tuesday, May 20 starts with: “Hundreds of Cow Towners skipped church on Sunday, May 19, 1929 and slipped out to the municipal airport to give the “Fort Worth” a rousing send-off.”
A mechanic and a West Texas cowboy took off in an overloaded second-hand airplane in pursuit of the world record for continuous flight. Would they succeed or die trying?
“Slim” Lindbergh reported for pilot training at Brooks Field in San Antonio on March 18, 1924 just three years before the skinny college dropout and son of a Minnesota congressman became the famous man in the world.
Lucky Lindy’s misadventures in Texas make for mighty good reading in the Wednesday, March 12 through Tuesday, March 18 installment of “This Week in Texas History.” And remember — you can read the longest running newspaper feature of kind with your own private email subscription available in the “General Store” on this web site.
Wiley Post, son of an East Texas cotton farmer, and his Australian navigator took off from a New York airfield on June 23, 1931 on the first attempt by a fixed-wing aircraft to circle the globe. Eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes later they were right back they started and heroes second only to “Lucky Lindy.”
The next year, the one-eyed aviator made the same flight solo shaving 21 hours off his record. But in August 1935 Post and his even more famous passenger, humorist Will Rogers, perished in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.