Article: Ruth Rowland Nichols American Aviation Pioneer

Nov 8, 2024

Ruth Rowland Nichols American Aviation Pioneer

On a cold, wintery day on February 23rd, 1901, a young girl destined for fame was born to Erickson Norman Nichols and Edith Corlis Haines.

Nichols was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and a former Rough Rider who served with Teddy Roosevelt and the 1st United States Voluntary Cavalry.

Ruth Nichols was sent to a private preparatory school for women, the Masters School, from which she graduated in 1919.

As a graduation present her father arranged for her to take an airplane ride with Eddie Stinson Jr.

Ruth Nichols always remembered the first time she flew through the clear blue sky on a summer's day, 18 years old, terrified of heights, and who suddenly felt like laughing.

She wrote about the experience in her diary:

"What had I been afraid of? This was only air. A minute ago, I had been an earthbound caterpiller. Now, I was an airborne butterfly. I was free as the air itself. I wasn't afraid of anything any more."

Like many of us, this airplane ride turned into a passion for aviation and a burning desire to become a pilot.

However, becoming a pilot just remained a dream while the lovely Ruth Nichols attended Wellesly College where she studied pre med. She graduated from Wellesly in 1924.

A Dream Fulfilled

Ruth's dreams of flying led her to secretly take flying lessons while attending Wellesly.

Shortly after she graduated from Wellesly in 1924 she earned her pilot's license and became the first woman in the world to earn a hydro-aeroplane license.

A picture of a Lockheed Model G Hydro-Aeroplane - Lockheeds first aircraft.

Her formative flight occurred in the January of 1928. She was co-pilot to Harvey Rogers, previously her flight instructor, during a journey that spanned from New York to Miami, Florida.

Together they set a new nonstop cross-country record in a Fairchild FC-2.

A photograph of a Fairchild FC-2 aircraft like the one flown by Ruth Nichols and Harvey Rogers.

Specifications:

Wingspan: 44 feet;
Length: 31 feet;
Height: 9 feet;
Crew: One pilot;
Capacity: Four passengers or 820 pounds of freight;
Empty weight: 2,160 pounds;
Gross weight: 3,600 pounds;
Powerplant: Wright J-5, 200 horsepower radial engine;
Maximum speed: 122 mph;
Cruise speed: 103 mph.

Nichols was then hired by the Fairchild Aviation Corporation as a sales manager.

She had received a lot of publicity from the pioneering flight, and brought positive attention to the Fairchild Aviation Company.

In 1929 Nichols, along with Amelia Earhart, joined forces to create the Ninety-Nines, an organization devoted to inspiring women pilots since 1929.

The Ninety-Nines

The group continues to this day to support and advance the careers of countless female aviators and astronauts.

Its conception was crucial in influencing official institutions such as National Aeronautic Association and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale; urging greater equality and acceptance within the field.

In 1929 she was among the 20 competitors of the Woman’s Air Derby.

This was the first official and exclusively female led race in the United States.

The race began in Santa Monica, California on August 18, 1929, as the female pilots set off for Cleveland, Ohio.

Unfortunately, Nichols crashed before reaching Ohio, but this in no way deterred her from jumping back into the cockpit.

Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden won the very first race, followed in third place by Amelia Earhardt.

Ruth Rowland Nichols Flys On

Nichols went on to set a number of extraordinary records while promoting various aviation companies.

She completed a record cross-country flight in just 13 hours and 21 minutes in 1930, beating the famed Charles Lindbergh’s previous time.

In the spring of 1931 Ruth Nichols set both the women's world altitude record of 28,743 feet, and the woman's world speed record at 210.7 miles per hour.

Unfortunately, Nichols was involved in a nasty aircraft accident in June of 1931 when attempting a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Unable to fly for some time, Nichols finally recovered and in October of 1931 set the woman's distance record of 1,977 miles.

At 5:17:30 p.m., PST, Saturday afternoon of October 25, 1931, Ruth Rowland Nichols took off from Oakland Municipal Airport, in California, and headed east.

Her destination was New York City, New York, and her goal was to make the flight non-stop.

Miss Nichols was flying a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr.

Ruth Rowland Nichols’ Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, NR496M.

The airplane had just been repaired following a landing accident three months earlier, in which she had suffered five fractured vertabrae.

The Vega was white with gold wings. A list of records which had been previously set by Miss Nichols was lettered in gold on the forward fuselage.

Specifications:

Length: 27 feet 6 inches;
Wingspan: 41 feet;
Height: 8 feet 2 inches;
Empty weight: 2,595 pounds;
Groww weight: 4,500 pounds;
Powerplant: 420 hp Pratt & Whitnet Wasp C supercharged 9 cylinder radial engine;
Cruise speed: 165 mph;
Maximum speed: 185 mph;
Service ceiling: 15,000 feet;
Range: 725 miles.

At 7:35 p.m., MST the Vega was sighted over Reno, Nevada. It passed over Salt Lake City, Utah, at 11:00, local time, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, at 1:07 a.m., Sunday, CST.

Ruth Nichols and her Lockheed landed at Bowling Field, Louisville, Kentucky, at 9:40 a.m., Sunday, local time.

Even though she landed well short of her intended destination, she had set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Distance in a Straight Line Without Landing of 1,977.607 statute miles.

This broke the record set June 29, 1931 by Mlle Maryse Bastie during a flight from Paris, France, to Udino, Russia.²

Ruth Nichols described her flight for a newspaper syndicate:

The following account of her non-stop flight from Oakland, Calif., to Louisville was written by Miss Ruth Nichols for the Courier-Journal and the North American Newspaper Alliance.

By RUTH NICHOLS.

(Copyright, 1931, By North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.)

Twelve hours of darkness is a long time, particularly when the sky is overcast. Although the moon was out, the horizon line was hazy, and over the Western plains, where there are only a few towns, the only contact with civilization that a flier has is a twinkling beacon that is often lost behind a gigantic mountain peak.

Because of the difficulty in seeing the mountain passes easily, an average high altitude is wise, but I found that after eight hours of flying around 15,000 feet made me dizzy.

Used Oxygen Supply.

I had an oxygen tank with me, and I have spent a considerable amount of times at high altitudes, but the indistinctness of the night has a tendency to diffuse one’s senses, and the oxygen resulted in too much of a boost.

At times I felt myself soaring out of the ship, and, twice while the sky was overcast and the ship still heavily loaded, I had a nightmare of a time to keep from slipping off into a power spin.

At times like that, it is necessary to keep busy doing something. It keeps the circulation going.

The cube-like boundary lights of emergency fields are a welcome sight in those barren places. Many of the mountains are now snow-capped, and the lakes and rivers glisten white when the moon is out, making navigation simple.

About every hour I saw a cobweb of lights, which meant a large town, and marked off a milestone in the long night. There was a strong drift at times, but I always had a favorable wind.

The hour before dawn is certainly the darkest. Then the horizon seems often to disappear entirely. My, how welcome that streak of red dawn is!

To avoid low ceilings over the Alleghanies, I headed south, and thus ran low in gas, and landed here.

People often ask me what a flier thinks about. Much and many things! I wondered what the fields are like if a forced landing is necessary, how long will the batteries last, my goodness! There I dropped the coffee thermos.

Every time I took my foot off the rudder to pick it up by means of my toe and hand, teh ship slid off into a near spin.

I wondered how much gas that good old motor was using. I thought: Why, there is Orion!—and then wondered where the Little Bear constellation was hiding. And finally, I observed: That looks like nice country for a horseback trip!

Then there is the question: “What is the value of establishing all these records?”

The answer is that for a girl to fly long distances shows the facility and safety of handling a present-day airplane.

That ride over our country at night is really a most inspiring event. I advise everyone to try it!"

—The Courier-Journal, Vol. CLIV. New Series—No, 22,944, Monday 26 October 1931, Page 1, Column 6, and Page 2, Column 7

Nichols had planned to resume her flight to New York at 9:00 a.m., Monday morning, 27 October. That was not to be, however:

The Vega Catches Fire

Ruth Nichols Jumps From Blazing Plane:

Ruth Nichols incredibly survives this 1935 apocalyptic crash.

Ruth Nichols’s monoplane caught fire today as she was warming up to take off for New York. She leaped from a window of the cockpit barely in time to escape the flames.

The young aviatrix stumbled as she reached the ground, but mechanics grabbed her and hustled her away from the fiery plane. The plane was reported almost a total loss.

The was caused by a stream of gasoline that suddenly burst from beneath the plane. Attendants at Bowman Field said they believed a dump valve had been released by the vibration of the engine.

The dump valve, Miss Nichols said, gave her some trouble in California, but she had a new one installed there. She talked while city firemen arrived and after a half hour’s work extinguished the flames.

The Rye (N.Y.) aviatrix, who landed here yesterday from Oakland, Cal., after getting lost in the early morning, but still making what is believed to be a new distance record for women, first noticed something wrong from the frantic signals of mechanics. It was doubtful if she heard their cries above the roar of the motor.

Miss Nichols throttled down her engine before getting out, but had only a moment in which to escape. The accident occurred just as she gave the motor “the gun” for warming up after she had inspected the refueling and checked up on the monoplane and had studied weather reports for the New York flight.

AVIATRIX SUFFERING FROM LAST CRASH

"NEW YORK, Oct 26. (AP)—Friends of Ruth Nichols, pleased that she was unhurt when she leaped from the high cockpit of her burning plane at Louisville, recalled today she is still wearing a steel corset to protect the vertebra she smashed in the first stage of a proposed Atlantic flight last summer.

Miss Nichols crashed in landing at St. John, N.B., on the first leg of her projected ocean flight, which was abandoned. Her plane was demolished and she was injured seriously. For a long time she wore a plaster cast to protect her spine and this was recently replaced by the steel corset.

Nichols’ airplane was a 1928 Lockheed Model 5 Vega Special, serial number 619, registered NR496M, and owned by Powell Crosley, Jr., founder of the Crosley Radio Corporation, a manufacturer of radio equipment and owner of a broadcast network based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had named the airplane The New Cincinnati. Miss Nichols called it Akita.

Built by the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, the Vega was a single-engine high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear. It was flown by a single pilot in an open cockpit and could be configured to carry four to six passengers.

The Lockheed Vega was a very state-of-the-art aircraft for its time. The prototype flew for the first time 4 July 1927 at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California. It used a streamlined monocoque fuselage made of molded plywood. The wing and tail surfaces were fully cantilevered, requiring no bracing wires or struts to support them."

FAI Record File Number 12340

FAI Record File Numbers 12345, 12346 and 14886: 2 976,31 kilometers (1,849.39 statute miles)

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