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The flight of the recreated "Miss Veedol" took place at Pangborn Memorial Field. At the controls were the "Spirit of Wenatchee" project's chief pilot Arnie Clarke and construction boss David Stadler.

They flew the chubby, high-wing monoplane for about an hour. After landing and exiting through one of the windows (the plane has no doors), Clarke declared, "She flew just like she was supposed to."

According to Jake Lodato, the project's communications director and third pilot, some 300 onlookers showed up to watch the first flight. Among them was Herndon's daughter Heather Bates from Mesa, Ariz.

She brought her dad's flight jacket for Clarke to wear. Herndon's grandson Hugh Herndon IV and three of Pangborn's cousins also attended.

Birth Of An Idea

The project was hatched by EAA Chapter 424 members Brian Odell, Len Pugsley and Rick Ruffle in 1997. They thought a static replica of "Miss Veedol" would be a fitting tribute to the namesake of their home field.

In less than a year, the Spirit of Wenatchee committee had upgraded its plan. The new plan: build a flying replica and use it to reenact the Pangborn-Herndon round-the-world flight in 2003, the 100th anniversary of powered flight.

Just as the need for outside funding became obvious, Tokyo investment company owner Kaz Ogura offered to back the project as a promotion. His Pangborn World Flight Co. has long promoted the project in Japan.

The citizens of Misawa, Japan, East Wenatchee's sister city and the starting point of the 1931 trans-Pacific flight, donated more than $40,000. East Wenatchee residents matched their contributions, helping fund the $450,000 cost of the plane.

The plan to reenact the Pangborn-Herndon flight this year was put on hold by the volatile situation in Iraq. The group has decided to try next year instead.

Incredibly, they plan to drop the landing gear after taking off from Japan to reduce drag, just as Pangborn did 72 years ago. The replica "Miss Veedol" (the name of an oil company sponsor) will land on its reinforced belly at the end of the flight.

The gear will be retrieved and reinstalled so the plane can be flown normally to complete the round-the-world flight, just as the original did in 1931.

72 Years Ago …

After a stint as a barnstormer, Pangborn set his sights on the 20-day round-the-world record set by the airship "Graf Zeppelin" in 1929. Preparation for the flight began in early 1931, with Pangborn providing the flying skill, Herndon the money.

(Incidentally, Pangborn was instrumental in giving another soon-to-be famous pilot his first airplane ride -- a young Washington lad named Greg Boyington, future leader of the VMF-214 "Black Sheep Squadron.)

In June '31, just as work on their Bellanca Skyrocket was nearing completion, Wiley Post and Harold Gatty stole the record out from under them. They circled the globe in eight days, 15 hours, 15 minutes.

The record they had to beat had been cut in half. While the Bellanca was slower than Post's Lockheed Vega "Winnie Mae," Pangborn figured its greater range and resulting fewer stops would give them an edge.

On July 28th, Pangborn muscled the overloaded Bellanca off New York's Roosevelt Field No. 2 and headed out across the Atlantic. After stops in London, Berlin and Moscow, they were still 10 hours behind Post and Gatty's pace; crossing Siberia, they fell 27 hours behind.

Knowing they couldn't make up the time in the slower Bellanca, they gave up their round-the-world speed attempt. Instead, they opted to try for the $25,000 prize offered by a Japanese newspaper for the first nonstop flight from Japan to the U.S.

But plan B got off to a rocky start when they landed in Tokyo without approval. Though they were arrested, diplomats interceded and got the two released after paying a hefty fine.

While they approved the record attempt, Japanese authorities granted permission for only one takeoff attempt. If the first try failed or if they were forced to return for any reason, their plane would be impounded.

Since he knew "Miss Veedol" would be carrying 930 gallons of fuel, Pangborn finagled permission to depart from an 8,000-foot runway at Sabishiro Beach in Misawa. He never mentioned that he'd rigged the landing gear to be dropped after takeoff, giving the plane an extra 15 mph of airspeed and 600 miles of range.

Planning on a 40-hour flight, Pangborn and Herndon left Japan early on Oct. 4th. Three hours out, they tried to drop the landing gear but only the wheels released; the gear legs remained firmly in place.

Pangborn later used his experience as a wingwalker to rectify the situation. At 14,000 feet above the cold North Pacific, he crawled out onto the wing struts and freed the gear legs, paving the way for a successful belly landing at the end of the flight.

Just after 7 a.m. on Oct. 5th, Pangborn set the plane down in a near-perfect belly-landing. He and Herndon had flown 5,500 miles across the Pacific nonstop in 41 hours and 15 minutes.

Postscript

After landing in Wenatchee, the plane was trucked to Seattle and new landing gear installed. Pangborn and Herndon then flew on to New York to complete their world flight.

While their feat was as significant as Lindbergh's 1927 Atlantic crossing, Pangborn and Herndon received little public acclaim. But Pangborn did win the Aviation League's Harmon Trophy for the greatest achievement in flight for 1931.

"Miss Veedol was disassembled, shipped to Seattle, elevated to the upper floors of the Bon Marche department store, reassembled and exhibited for two weeks for Seattle's tony shoppers!" Lodato said. "It was then shipped to Boeing Field, repaired and put back on wheels for the last leg of the circumnavigation to New York." Pangborn and Herndon sold the "Miss Veedol" to New York doctor Leon Pisciuli. Planning to use the plane in a study of the effects of extended flight on humans, Pisciuli had the all-red Bellanca repainted silver and named it "American Nurse."

He recruited a young nurse named Edna Newcomer and a pilot by the name of William Ulrich to assist him on the trans-Atlantic flight. They took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York the morning of Sept. 13, 1932 and headed out to sea.

"The American Nurse disappeared over the Atlantic (estimated to be south of Spain) shortly thereafter and no trace was ever found," Lodato said. "The three souls lost are part of the legacy of pushing the aviation envelope that so fascinated the world in those early, exploratory years."

For more details on the plane and Pangborn, see their website: www.spiritofwenatchee.org/flight.html