Ebook483 pages9 hours
Race to Hawaii: The 1927 Dole Air Derby and the Thrilling First Flights That Opened the Pacific
By Jason Ryan
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this ebook
A thrilling account, Race to Hawaii chronicles the first flights to Hawaii in the 1920s, during the Golden Age of Aviation. These journeys were fraught with danger. To reach the tiny islands, fearless pilots flew unreliable and fragile aircraft outfitted with primitive air navigation equipment. The Dole Derby was an unprecedented 1927 air race in which eight planes set off at once across the Pacific, all eager to reach the islands first and claim a cash prize offered by "Pineapple King" James Dole. Military men, barnstormers, a schoolteacher, a Wall Street bond salesman, a Hollywood stunt flyer and veteran World War aces all encountered every type of hazard during their perilous flights. With so many pilots taking aim at the far-flung islands in so many different types of planes, everyone wondered who would reach Hawaii first, or at all.
Author
Jason Ryan
Jason Ryan lives in Charleston, South Carolina. His previous nonfiction books are Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting that Launched the War on Drugs; Hell-Bent: One Man's Crusade to Crush the Hawaiian Mob; and Race to Hawaii: The 1927 Dole Air Derby and the Thrilling First Flights that Opened the Pacific.
Related to Race to Hawaii
Related ebooks
The Great Lakes Car Ferries Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Picture History of American Passenger Ships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Dream: A History of the St. Lawrence Seaway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmazing Diving Stories: Incredible Tales from Deep Beneath the Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe California Run Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under Full Sail Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Real Enigma Heroes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lightships and Lighthouses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCuyahoga County:: The First 200 Years Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDana Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ten Toe Express: A Daily Journal of a 5,000 Mile Hike Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsItalians of the Monterey Peninsula Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Frozen Water Trade (Text Only) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quick Guide: The Beach Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGenesee County: 1900-1960 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouthern California's Santa Barbara, Channel Islands, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, San Simeon & Beyond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBar Harbor in the Roaring Twenties: From Village Life to the High Life on Mount Desert Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrica Memoir: 50 Years, 54 Countries, One American Life (Seychelles - Zimbabwe) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSan Diego's North Island: 1911-1941 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5By Pike and Dyke - a Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5William John Wills: Pioneer of the Australian Outback Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winter in Fireland: A Patagonian Sailing Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArt of the Gold Rush: (Published in association with the Oakland Museum of California and the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, & the Birth of the Modern World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Lakes Naval Training Station Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverest 1922: The Epic Story of the First Attempt on the World's Highest Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
History For You
Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Joy of Gay Sex: Fully revised and expanded third edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wise as Fu*k: Simple Truths to Guide You Through the Sh*tstorms of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Race to Hawaii
Rating: 3.874999975 out of 5 stars
4/5
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dole Air derby of 1927 is an event that I've been aware of forever but it's also the case that it's been literally decades since I've really thought about it, so my interest perked up immediately when I saw that there was a new book on the topic. This account is rather different in that the author is coming at the topic not as an aviation enthusiast (which he was not at the start) but as a journalist, so he's more concerned with context and how the events were covered in real time. Be that as it may what I knew of the story was that the actual race was regarded as a bloody fiasco, and it was, but not necessarily for the reasons that concerned period commentators. They tended to be fixated on the demise of Mildred Doran, the flying mascot of the plane "Miss Doran," a young woman who wound up being the Christa McAuliffe of her time and how this enterprise seemed to represent the barnstorming phenomena taken to its logically stupid conclusion.While this is true to a degree the basic point is that while the best practice of aeronautical engineering had produced aircraft that were viable enough to make the flight from the United States to Hawaii (this is all taking place in the excitement of Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic) the hard part was that navigation techniques had a long way to go before they were truly reliable. The aircraft on the cover was not one of the Dole Derby competitors, but the Army Air Service machine "Bird of Paradise" that was purposely sent out as an "x-plane" to test long-range navigation methods and technology. The cream of the Dole competitors did their best to learn from the previous Hawaii flights (which included a USN flight of flying boats and the first civilian crossing made by the "City of Oakland") but the margins were very narrow between success and failure. Much of the rationale for the the Dole Derby was to entice Lindbergh into making another record flight, but he wanted nothing to do with the whole enterprise!
Book preview
Race to Hawaii - Jason Ryan
42^ book_preview_excerpt.html }َG8a"S$PRRID5EL`<-"\Kȗ0/ )%sι3SՍYʈp7vsWuw<0ffϞ<*۞k;ݷ:׆CB?z7mj8*}wU8e!{]|ϳ7]?6&{Uî/|IouϞ?~ŗowmeo:Wj/"+l>7yoD擟osz&˧~^lS^U7xӯ=^tuȮ>{zP,oK}6;glW!`_ծ*O"E_o>M?+߉mQOemu>?!`}h0*C;by^__!g=/)n<%fQ۹v8Q#X׳'`d%^N]^ق˸
`Jn,>⳧#vLUGu|ؗϾ|H~7ųD`pYwyU[|8o>.}wkt%47>k[?5As<߃_UqBRl
b"U<~Ϟ&M>WP,YSfcߕSaїk5_]Z^w&k);[U_Gi;|7^paښ^؇%lE(v|+?qi\wy?f 3{s5~t)JWkߓW8x$Xܶݩ垧:ܣ }o
|Wm>\Ƿﱥ/xb>@+eo l:jjYQ}Am60}7bp`
¦Si O5Um]pdz
YW7W`ˆ&ՇdD\Q58|PG/.uZm VΞ>&; Xԩ1JMV^{~Rw}a#M2$`w\ |ʫz<;}k;[
{|fENm~F> &-V