The attempt to set an aviation endurance world record (see Part 1) flying from Fort Worth in 1928 had been made by two Oklahoma boys. The next attempt from Fort Worth would be made by two hometown boys.
Fast-forward to May 1929. The field of aviation was progressing rapidly. The endurance record had tripled from when Al Henley and Joe Hart had set out to break it in 1928. Now the record was 151 hours.
Still, Fort Worth pilots Reg Robbins and Jim Kelly thought they could break that record.
Robbins and Kelly, like Henley and Hart, would make the attempt in a plane named the “Fort Worth.”
Robbins would be the pilot. Kelly would be the co-pilot and mechanic.
And for Jim Kelly the job of mechanic would take on an added dimension on this flight.
Robbins and Kelly, again like Henley and Hart, would fly a modified Ryan airplane. But whereas Fort Worth I had been modified to carry more fuel, Fort Worth II had been modified to refuel in the air, thus avoiding the weight problem that had plagued Fort Worth I.
Fort Worth II would carry only 250 gallons of fuel.
When Fort Worth II needed to refuel, a support plane—a flying service station—would take off and rendezvous with Fort Worth II. The “fill ’er up” would be achieved as the support plane flew over Fort Worth II in sync and transferred fuel via a seventy-five-foot hose.
Robbins would stay at the stick while Kelly handled the refueling.
Likewise, two men would fly in the support plane: one to pilot the airplane and one to handle the refueling.
Of course, midair refueling presented a challenge of its own: The two pilots had to execute a delicate pas de deux a half-mile in the sky.
Robbins et al. didn’t invent air-to-air refueling. The first such refueling had taken place between two U.S. military planes in 1923.
And Robbins et al. weren’t trying to pull a fast one by using air-to-air refueling to set an endurance record. Such attempts to break records were flown according to rules of the National Aeronautical Association.
And as with Fort Worth I, the National Aeronautical Association installed in Fort Worth II a sealed barograph that would “snitch” on the pilots if they landed the plane before their flight ended. An NAA observer also timed the flight.
Fort Worth II was christened on May 19 at Municipal Airport (Meacham Airport) by “Miss Johnny Day, local debutante,” who smashed a bottle of water from Lake Worth over its “prow.”
As an indication of how newsworthy aviation had become, on May 19 the Fort Worth story shared the front page with three other aviation stories. (It seems that even at rest, Lucky Lindy made the front page.)
At 11:33 a.m. May 19 Fort Worth II took off from Municipal Airport as thousands cheered and newsreel cameras cranked.
The goal of an endurance flight is time, not distance. Thus, Fort Worth II was a show for the hometown crowd. The plane stayed close to home. It was seen over Lake Worth, Handley, Watauga, Everman.
And it flew over the airport several times a day. On one pass over the airport, Kelly was seen outside the cabin on the plane’s catwalk—an eight-inch-wide scaffold suspended under the engine—oiling the engine’s rocker arms. He wore a safety belt that tethered him to the airplane.
At night flood lights lined the airport runway in case the aviators needed to make an emergency landing.
As the plane flew at night its light could be seen and its engine heard.
Communication with Fort Worth II was very basic. As the plane flew over the airport Robbins and Kelly dropped notes.
In one note Robbins asked airport manager William G. Fuller to have some medicine lowered to him by a rope from the support plane at the next refueling because Robbins said he always became nauseous when flying unless he was piloting!
Robbins also dropped a note requesting that parachutes be lowered to them.
Cans of oil also were lowered from the refueling plane.
Robbins and Kelly also had room service! The Hotel Texas provided hot meals that were lowered from the refueling plane.
Robbins and Kelly even were in the air long enough to receive fan mail delivered by the refueling plane.
The refueling plane went up at intervals. Written on its side was a message telling Robbins and Kelly when the next refueling would take place—usually at twelve-hour intervals.
The first refueling transferred 110 gallons in four minutes and required only twenty feet of the seventy-five-foot hose.
Unlike Henley and Hart, after Robbins and Kelly got into the air, they stayed there.
And the Star-Telegram stayed with them, keeping the story on the front page:
May 21 When the plane’s tachometer shaft broke, the aviators dropped a note over the airport, and a new shaft was lowered from the refueling plane.
The two men slept shifts of four to six hours in a hammock strung in the cabin.
May 22 Airport manager Fuller took Mrs. Robbins up in a plane to fly alongside her husband. Husband and wife waved and smiled at each other at six thousand feet.
Each day Robbins flew over the home of his grandfather in Everman and each night over his own home on Modlin Avenue on the West Side.
May 23 Robbins dropped a note that teased his co-pilot, a bridegroom of just six weeks: “I am afraid the end [of the flight] is near. Kelly has a ’chute and is thinking of his wife. I can’t refuel alone.”
During one refueling the Fort Worth and its refueling plane, flying at four thousand feet, lost two thousand feet of altitude.
May 24 The Fort Worth had broken the endurance records of the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin (112 hours) and the French dirigible Dixmude (118 hours).
May 25 At 7:13 that night locomotives and factories in Fort Worth would blow their whistles to announce that Robbins and Kelley had broken the world endurance record.
Indeed Robbins and Kelly broke the record at 7:13 p.m. on May 25.
And kept right on flying.
WBAP radio broadcast bulletins every thirty minutes.
On the night Robbins and Kelly broke the record they dodged an electrical storm by flying afield to Dallas.
The Star-Telegram announced that in addition to the $15,000 prize offered by the Chamber of Commerce, a group of airline executives promised Robbins and Kelly $100 per hour flown beyond the record.
How the world had changed. Fifty years earlier B. B. Paddock had wanted Fort Worth to be a railroad center. Now Amon Carter wanted Fort Worth to be an aviation center. The Star-Telegram in a front-page editorial said the accomplishment of Robbins and Kelly had done much to “advertise” Fort Worth “as an air center.” The newspaper urged readers to contribute to a fund to reward the two aviators. “The fliers have earned it; the city has received the benefit. It should show its appreciation.”
The photo shows the catwalk under the engine where Kelly stood to oil the rocker arms. During one servicing of the rocker arms, Kelly got a mite too close to the propeller. The metal buckle of his safety belt nicked the wooden propeller.
Yikes!
Unbeknownst to Robbins and Kelly the nick in the propeller, exposed to rain, would grow.
In a full-page ad Texas Pacific Coal & Oil Company crowed that the Fort Worth used TP fuel and lubricants “exclusively.” The ad also shows the crew of the refueling plane.
Robbins had thought the engine of the Fort Worth was good for two hundred hours straight, but on May 26 the nicked propeller cracked, and at 4:05 p.m. Robbins was forced to land at Municipal Airport after 172:32 hours—more than a week—in the air.
The plane had refueled seventeen times and had consumed 1,510 gallons of fuel.
Back on the ground, the hometown boys got the Lindbergh treatment.
Robbins and Kelly received congratulatory telegrams and offers of product endorsements, aviation jobs, media interviews, even vaudeville engagements.
The Ryan aircraft company gave them a new airplane. The Marmon Motor Company gave each man a new automobile.
When Robbins and Kelly landed at the airport, twenty to thirty thousand people broke through the police cordon and ropes lining the runway and surged toward the taxiing airplane. Robbins and Kelly were bestrewn with flowers.
People who had witnessed the crowds that had gathered for the dirigible Shenandoah in 1924 and the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927 said the Fort Worth crowd was the largest, most enthusiastic.
Paramount silent newsreel footage shows refueling, landing, reception:
Fort Worth II had achieved—with flying colors—what Fort Worth I had not.
Let’s give syndicated humorist Will Rogers the last word on this epic flight (as he gets in a dig at his friend Amon Carter):
The rest of the story: The Fort Worth record stood only forty-two days. It was broken on July 6 by the City of Cleveland. Among those sending congratulatory telegrams to the new record holders were Reg Robbins and Jim Kelly. In fact, Robbins said he planned to congratulate Mitchell and Newcomb in person: He would fly up in his new Ryan airplane.
