An unexpected connection back to Dr. Henning’s days at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

This past summer, I was on the hunt for bargains at garage sales on a Saturday morning in Olean, New York.  As my companions and I drove down a road just off the main thoroughfare a crooked historical marker caught my eye that said “Vin Fiz” and I shocked the other occupants of the car by loudly blurting out something to the effect of “Vin Fiz!  No way, I know what that is! What are the odds that it landed here, we need to turn around and investigate!” 

Back in 2010-2011, when I was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, I frequently attended the “Ask the Expert” presentations on Wednesdays at noon.  I remember being particularly interested in the talk given by Peter Jakab of the Aeronautics Division on Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz.  Jakab discussed Rodgers and his experimental Wright biplane that made the first transcontinental flight in 1911.  There are several things that made this brief presentation in the Pioneers of Flight gallery so memorable.  First, the unique name of the plane has stuck with me, the Vin Fiz, which was named after the flight’s sponsor’s grape soda.  More seriously, Jakab posed questions that day that have stayed with me.  While describing this first successful transcontinental flight across the United States, Jakab noted that Rodgers’s trip involved a lot of accidents that required extensive repairs and a lot of spare parts.   Jakab asked those in attendance if the Vin Fiz really made that first crossing of the United States or was it several planes with the same name and some parts in common?  Can a single airplane get credit for this flight when many pieces of the plane that took off from Sheepshead Bay New York on September 17, 1911 did not land 49 days later in Long Beach California?  What percentage of the original plane actually made it the whole way there?  If only 49% of the aircraft made it from coast to coast, should a Vin Fiz get the credit for completing this flight?

While I still do not have definitive answers to Jakab’s questions, I am excited to share my discovery of the Vin Fiz’s stop in Olean with my students at St. Bonaventure this Fall.  Although I didn’t find the types of treasure I thought I would when I left the house to go to garage sales, I was awarded with the knowledge that the Vin Fiz Flyer did land in Olean on September 24, 1911 when it ended leg four of the trip and began leg five of the 40 leg trip to California. 

 

Note: The historical marker states that Rodgers began his flight on September 11, but the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and other sources have the date as September 17, 1911.