Thursday, October 17, 2019

October 17, 1919 Airborne visitors to Casper and more crashes.


Mishaps continued to take a toll on aviators and their planes participating in the 1919 Air Derby.  Included in the mishaps were a directional one, that took an airplane all the way to Casper.


At the time, Casper's air strip was near Evansville.  Portions of it can still be seen there, but you have to know what you are looking at in order to appreciate what it was.


With the ongoing toll on American military aircraft its quite frankly surprising that the race continued, but perhaps at this point it would have been embarrassing to stop it.  Even with that, however, the airplane mania continued, as the flying school mom item gives evidence of.


One of the features of the aircraft in question is their short engine life.  No doubt more than one engine was replaced on more than one craft during the race.

In other news, it looked at the time as if the Reds were about to fall in Russia.

In the U.S., some worried about homegrown Reds.
New York Herald Cartoon, "To Make America Safe For Democracy", October 17, 1919

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