Calbraith Perry Rodgers
Rodgers in 1911
Born	January 12, 1879 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	April 3, 1912(1912-04-03) (aged 33) Long Beach, California
Cause of death	Aircrash
Spouse(s)	Mabel Rodgers
Relatives	Oliver Hazard Perry Matthew Calbraith Perry

Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879–1912) in 1912 fatal crash

Calbraith Perry Rodgers (January 12, 1879 – April 3, 1912) was an American aviation pioneer. He made the first transcontinental airplane flight across the U.S. from September 17, 1911, to November 5, 1911, with dozens of stops, both intentional and accidental. The feat made him a national celebrity, but he was killed in a crash a few months later at an exhibition in California.

Biography [edit]

Rodgers was born on January 12, 1879, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later lived in Havre de Grace, Maryland. He contracted scarlet fever which left him deaf in one ear and hearing impaired in the other ear.^[1]

He was related to Commodores Oliver Hazard Perry and Matthew Calbraith Perry and had a cousin, John Rodgers, in the Navy's Aerial Corps, learning to fly the Navy's newly purchased Wright airplane.

In March 1911, he visited John at the Wright Company factory and flying school in Dayton, Ohio and became interested in aviation. He received 90 minutes of flying lessons from Orville Wright, and on August 7, 1911, he took his official flying examination at Huffman Prairie and became the 49th aviator licensed to fly by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.^[2] He was one of the first civilians to purchase a Wright Flyer.

Cross country flight [edit]

Publisher William Randolph Hearst offered the Hearst prize, US$50,000 to the first aviator to fly coast to coast, in either direction, in less than 30 days from start to finish. Rodgers had J. Ogden Armour, of Armour and Company, sponsor the flight, and in return he named the plane, a Wright Model EX designed for exhibition flights, after Armour's grape soft drink Vin Fiz.^[2]

Rodgers left from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911, at 4:30 pm. He reached Chicago on October 9, 1911. It was decided to avoid the Rocky Mountains, he would take a southerly route, flying south through the midwest until reaching Texas. He turned west after reaching San Antonio. On November 5, 1911, he landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California, at 4:04 pm in front of 20,000 people. He had missed the prize deadline by 19 days. On December 10, 1911, he landed in Long Beach, California, and taxied his plane into the Pacific Ocean. He had carried the first transcontinental U.S. Mail pouch. The trip required 70 stops, and he paid the Wright brothers' technician, Charlie Taylor, $70 a week to be his mechanic. Taylor followed the flight by train and performed maintenance for the next day's flight.^[3][4] The next transcontinental flight was made by Robert G. Fowler.

Death [edit]

On April 3, 1912, while making an exhibition flight over Long Beach, California, he flew into a flock of birds, causing the plane to crash into the ocean. His neck was broken and his thorax damaged by the engine of the airplane. He died a few moments later, a few hundred feet from where the Vin Fiz ended its transcontinental flight.^[5] The aircraft in this last flight was the spare Model B he had carried in the special train during the transcontinental flight, rather than the "Vin Fiz". The "Vin Fiz" itself was later given to the Smithsonian Institution by Calbraith's widow, Mabel Rodgers. According to contemporary records, his was the 127th airplane fatality since aviation began and the 22nd American aviator to die in an accident.^[6] He was also the first pilot who fatally crashed as a result of a bird strike.^{[citation needed]}

Rodgers was interred in Allegheny Cemetery.

See also [edit]

Biography portal

• Harry Nelson Atwood, who previously attempted a transcontinental flight
• List of fatalities from aviation accidents

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Aviator C.P. Rodgers Almost Instantly Killed. His Biplane Falls Distance of 200 Feet

• Eileen F. Lebow, Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz: the First Transcontinental Flight (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989)
• E. P. Stein, Flight of the Vin Fiz (New York: Arbor House, 1985) ISBN 0-87795-672-3.
• Richard L. Taylor, The First Flight Across the United States: the Story of Calbraith Perry Rodgers and His Airplane, the Vin Fiz, (New York: F. Watts, 1993)
• Linn's Stamp News; January 14, 2002, p. 14; "New 'Vin Fiz Flyer' card found and auctioned"
• The New York Times; Wednesday, October 11, 1911; Air Record Broken By Aviator Rodgers; Exceeds Atwood's Cross-Country Flight Of 1,265 Miles By Making 1,398 To Date. Marshall, Missouri, October 10, 1911. C.P. Rodgers, the aviator who is trying to make a coast to coast flight, landed at Marshall at 4:23 o'clock this afternoon, exceeding the world's record for cross country aeroplane flight by 133 miles. The world' record of 1,265 miles was made by Henry Atwood in a recent flight from St. Louis to New York. Rodgers has flown 1,398 miles according to railroad mileage.

External links [edit]

• Calbraith Rodgers bibliography
• Early Aviators: Calbraith Rodgers
• Smithsonian: Vin Fiz
• The Epic Flight of the Vin Fiz Flyer
• "Calbraith Perry Rodgers". Find a Grave. Retrieved August 10, 2010.