It was a neck-and-neck contest with no end in sight until a California businessman offered to sponsor them both if they would make an endurance flight together with aerial refueling – a feat never before attempted by women. The rivals teamed up in November and set their sights on the formidable, 420-hour world endurance record set by two men, Dale Jackson and Forrest O’Brine, in July 1929.

At Metropolitan Airport outside Los Angeles the women practiced fueling their plane, a Sunbeam, from an ancient Curtiss Carrier Pigeon – appropriately dubbed the "wet nurse" and flown by two male pilots. On November 16 the women took off, determined to stay in the air for at least a month.

But their flight had barely begun when they were compelled to land; a heavy radio they had installed for communications with the Carrier Pigeon and the ground had badly unbalanced their plane. They took off again without the radio, but then the Sunbeam’s wire rigging started to snap, forcing another landing. On November 25 they tried again, managing a flight of 18 hours before encountering further – and potentially disastrous – trouble. A refueling mishap soaked Bobbi Trout with gasoline. She landed safely, though sputtering that she had swallowed the fuel, and spent the night recovering in a local hospital.

On November 27, 1929, the two went up once more. After some 30 hours, just as they were beginning to think their luck had improved, their aged "wet nurse" began to belch clouds of smoke. It made a forced landing in a nearby field, and when the Sunbeam ran out of fuel, the women had no choice but to land too. At last they gave up, but they had set a new women’s endurance record of 42 hours – and in the process became the first women aviators ever to refuel a plane in mid-air.

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© 2004 The Long Island Early Fliers Club, P.O. Box 221, Bethpage, NY 11714-0221 • info@longislandearlyfliers.org