California Historic Route 66 Association

Keepsake vol Two

AIRPLANES

AIRPLANES THAT SAILED OVER THE
VICTOR VALLEY SKIES IN THE PAST
by John Swisher

Hesperia's Miller's Corner Airfield, near today's Mojave
Freeway's Main Street Bridge, was a major part of America's
1930's Transcontinental  Air  Program. Airliners departing the
Los Angeles area used Glendale's Grand Central Air Terminal for a
home field. Before takeoff, eastern bound flight crews struggled
to fill their plane's ten wicker passenger seats on an aisle
which, when airborne, proved awkward to use. Noise and vibration
added to everyone's discomfort, and toilet facilities were
available only at airports, never aloft. Flying low over
Pasadena, Azusa, Upland, and Cucamonga,   these   lumbering
"gigantics" (as they were called then) airships flew another 30
miles over Cajon Pass, and with speeds between 50 and 60 miles
per hour, sat down at Hesperia. Point-to-point air speed in 1932
averaged 90 miles per hour. Miller's Corner, a major garage and
service station along "Route 66" was four miles west of where
dusty Main Street crossed the Santa Fe rail tracks. Here another
dirt landing strip stood by for flight emergencies. Today's
Hesperia Airport is several miles south of this long gone narrow
field.

Pilots without navigational equipment would follow main line
railroads known to them as "iron beams." "Steel rails" was a 1933
name for 98 electric beacons sending continuous light flashes
along U.S. airways. Two signals were used; one visible, and the
other heard over earphones in dot and dashes. Famed western
artist Bill Bender, who's long years of desert life show clearly
in his outstanding cowboy and Mojave scenes, tells of the
Helendale Hill having a "steel rail" (beacon) atop it during the
1925-35 era. Passing aircraft would be guided by and "home" in on
these combined, route directing signals.

Barstow historian Fred Gibson's family homesteaded near Hodge,
north of Helendale. He recalls Ford Tri Motor aircraft at
Miller's Corner between 1926 and 1930. Although these planes
continued in local use for decades, the last "Ford" was assembled
in 1931.

Air crews made frequent mail and passenger "necessity" stops.
Another scheduled desert landing was at Lenwood, where a
weathered, once airport building remains with evidence meals and
refreshments had been available there. Gibson remembers being in
his father's Dodge sedan and seeing an approaching Ford transport
preparing to touch down at Lenwood. He had seen these ships
flying low near his home, but hadn't witnessed a landing. Urging
his father on faster, 13 year old Fred failed in his quest, as
the plane, traveling nearly the same speed as the 1921 auto, beat
the motorists in.

Larry Alf, lifetime resident of Daggett, is aware of an early
time dirt airport four miles east of Daggett. This field
paralleled the Santa Fe railroad tracks between Daggett and
Needles, and in 1929 received a low frequency radio system from
the Department of Commerce. Prior to air-radios, nighttime
emergency landings relied, hopefully, on someone outlining a
runway with lit flares.

In 1924, government agencies were lauding the pre-Route "66,"
transcontinental National Old Trails Road. Running coast to
coast, this cross country expressway was touted as being
constructed and forever to be maintained by the U.S. Highway
airports were said by officials to be of national and
international importance, and had to be established or the U.S.
couldn't have aerial navigation. Fields were to be located along
this National Old Trails Road solving most problems of commercial
aviation.

In 1933, nearly a half million people traveled by air in the
United States. Flight transportation revenues from mail, freight
and passengers was less than 30 million dollars yearly, while
American railroad companies made that sum in three and a half
days. And incredibly as it seems, more money was spent on nickel
candy bar sales in 1930 than on all aviation including military.
Fees for traveling by air in the 1930's were about the same as
train fares, including Pullman accommodations. Some airlines
charged less. According to the Actuarial Society of America,
automobile death rates in 1932 were four times that of traveling
by established air carriers. Twenty-five regularly operated
airline passenger's lives were lost that year out of 474,000
persons flying commercially. Twenty-four hour, $5,000 flight
insurance cost $2, while the same coverage by rail ran twenty-
five cents. It was considered impossible for untrained patrons to
safely evacuate in-flight transports and continuing today,
parachutes aren't part of the masses' flying program.

This writer recalls 1932 "T.A.T."  (Transcontinental  Air
Transport, Inc.) "Fords" moving slowly over his childhood home.
T.A.T. employed both air and rail means to move passengers
through Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City,
Wichita, Waynoka, Oklahoma; Clovis, Albuquerque, Winslow,
Kingman, Lenwood, Hesperia, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The
combination train and fly plan allowed faster air use by day and
comfortable Pullman sleepers at night. Leaving Columbus aboard a
Ford Tri Motor, T.A.T.'s route west was over Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. At Waynoka, northwest of
Oklahoma City, the flight changed at sundown to a speeding Santa
Fe train having sleeping berths and a dining car. Reaching Clovis
in the morning, the rested and well fed travelers boarded another
airplane to cross New Mexico, Arizona and California, with time
out landings for nature calls. By the second evening, passengers
arrived in Los Angeles or San Francisco. Despite three hours time
difference, California to Ohio trips averaged the same flying
time. During the early thirties, T.A.T. had no ground to air
radios. Work had begun, however, on 128 feet tall radio towers,
and radio sets were being purchased.

Victorville's only airport was near Lorene and Rodeo drives. This
field was still in use after World War II. Fred F. Berger, Jr., a
founding member of Victor Valley College and in 1946 an army air
corps pilot, recalls as a youth seeing Ford Tri Motor airliners
at Miller's Corner as well as the emergency air mail strip
further east. Renting a prewar Piper (Taylor) Cub in Victorville,
he took friend Tommy Knight's aged mother up for her first ride.
This lady had wanted to get airborne, but only if Berger was at
the controls.

Clarence Godshall, aviation enthusiast and part-time rancher, had
a private airport on his father-in-law's ranch in south Apple
Valley. The Max F. Ihmsen fruit and turkey operation was written
about in a 1929 issue of The Farm and Orchard magazine. Pictures
then showed the landing field was well used and maintained. As
late as 1938, formations of early fighter planes, led by World
War I combat pilot Captain William Blaufuss, stationed at March
Field, flew over Victor Valley doing circles, outside loops and
other aerobatics. After these impromptu air shows, the pilots
would land at Ihmsen's ranch for further hi-jinks. This writer's
efforts have failed to locate additional informational data or
photos about Blaufuss; his trail dims in Encino, California.

Besides Apple Valley's "now" airport, Newton Bass and partner B.
J. K. Westland Constructed a post war field along Highway 18
across from the Apple Valley Inn. Prospective real estate buyers
were flown in here for ranch style dinner dates and sales
programs. Stores and a supermarket sit currently where private
airplanes not so long ago side skipped in and roared awav.

Lastly, El Mirage Dry Lake is also rich in historical aviation
happenings. Here pioneering pilots experiment daily with
inventions likely someday to change aviation forever.

John Swisher, as a youth began flying at Grand Central Air
Terminal, and once ran errands for Howard Hughes as he was
preparing his ship for it's record-breaking 1938 around the world
flight.

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