Eight planes race for Honolulu; the fog barely lifts in time
A crowd of up to 100,000 packed Oakland Municipal Airport on August 16, 1927, to watch eight planes chase pineapple magnate James Dole's $25,000 prize for the first nonstop flight to Honolulu. Fog had only lifted at 10:40 that morning. Oklahoma took off first just after noon, followed within thirty-six minutes by El Encanto, Pabco Flyer, Golden Eagle, Miss Doran, Aloha, Woolaroc, and Dallas Spirit. Two crashed roughly a mile or less from the start, two more (Oklahoma and Dallas Spirit) turned back with mechanical trouble, and only Woolaroc and Aloha reached Hawaii.
Inspired directly by Lindbergh's Atlantic crossing three months earlier, the Dole race tested whether American aviators beyond Lindbergh could master transoceanic distance. The losses hardened public and federal resolve toward stricter licensing and navigation standards, a regulatory push born from a private pineapple executive's cash prize rather than government initiative.
QWhat did Mildred Doran's crew throw overboard before the race even started?
Somewhere over Long Beach, the crew of Miss Doran tossed their tool kit out of the cockpit. Mildred Doran, the young Michigan schoolteacher riding along as passenger, explained afterward that the tools were "in the way and cluttering things up." Miss Doran later disappeared over the Pacific without a trace, and no wreckage was ever recovered.
QHow much of his own prize money did Aloha's winning pilot give his navigator?
Martin Jensen brought Aloha into Honolulu for second place and a share of Dole's prize purse, worth $10,000. He handed his navigator, Paul Schluter, just $25 of it. Schluter had spent 28 hours and 16 minutes in the air plotting a course across open ocean with dead reckoning, since flying so low made it impossible to sight the stars for celestial navigation, landing with the plane running on fumes.
QWhy did officials delay the race from its original date of August 12?
Dole's derby was originally scheduled for August 12, but mechanical failures, botched qualification tests, and bad weather forced a postponement. Nine of the contestants met on the night of August 11 and agreed to try again five days later. That delay didn't fix the underlying problems: three planes had already crashed in the days leading up to the race, killing three people, before a single competitor cleared Oakland's runway on August 16.
