Thursday, December 28, 2023

Not looking good with only 4 days to the end of the 2023 Go Fund Me Drive to keep Amsterdam and Mohawk Valley History on The Internet and Public Radio. $1695.00 is needed.

https://gofund.me/777777e9

U.S. Mail

A check made out to Bob Cudmore, 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Chris Carola and Bob Cudmore talk WW2 History

Episode 348-Chris Carola, a veteran Associated Press reporter, is writing a book about Jack Wilpers, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, and the key role Wilpers played in the capture of former Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo in 1945.

Advertising Beech Nut chewing gum with an aviation pioneer
By Bob Cudmore

Famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart once went on a national tour piloting an unusual aircraft to help Beech Nut sell chewing gum.

Beech Nut was then in Canajoharie. In 2010 the company, best known today for baby food, left Canajoharie and moved to the Town of Florida near Thruway Exit 27.

Earhart had visited the region in 1929 to read letters to Admiral Richard Byrd's Antarctic expedition on WGY shortwave station W2XAF,

Beech Nut sponsored Earhart's 1931 cross-country flights in the Pitcairn Auto Gyro. The craft combined features of an airplane and a helicopter.

Historian Carl Johnson's Website Hoxie reported the autogiro is "an odd hybrid craft that uses an unpowered rotor to develop lift, and an engine-powered propeller to develop thrust."

In the 1930s some thought the autogiro, with its ability to fly slowly and land in small places, would be the future of personal aviation. Others feared the autogiro was dangerous.

Bruce H. Charnov of Hofstra University wrote. "The autogiro was invented by Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva in an attempt to create an aircraft that could fly safely at low speeds." He flew the first one in 1923 in Madrid.

Earhart was born in 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. In 1931 she had established one record for the autogiro, piloting it to an altitude of 18,500 feet.

Charnov wrote Earhart had ordered her own autogiro when Beech Nut made an offer, "Seeing a publicity bonanza, the Beech Nut Packing Company, offered Earhart the use of its previously ordered (autogiro) if she would fly it coast-to-coast with the company logo painted on its side and accompanying promotion efforts related to its chewing gum. Brokered by her husband (George Palmer Putnam), who was known for his acumen at garnering publicity, she promptly canceled her order in favor of the Beech Nut Autogiro."

"I'm delighted to have the opportunity of making extensive tests with this plane through the helpfulness of Bartlett Arkell, president of Beech Nut," Earhart commented to the Canajoharie Courier. Earhart is pictured in the cockpit of the autogiro which had Beech Nut logos in several places.

There was one mishap which damaged an autogiro during a landing on a field n Canajoharie. Earhart was not the pilot in that incident.

After much preparation and orchestrated publicity, Earhart took off from Newark, New Jersey in May 1931 on her first transcontinental autogiro tour.

The editor of the Fort Plain Standard newspaper, Mohawk Valley historian Nelson Greene, longtime friend of Bartlett Arkell, did advance publicity for Earhart's autogiro tour through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.

Charnov wrote, "At each stop (Earhart) lifted children to see the cockpit, shook hands with spectators, gave interviews, and often gave out samples of the Beech Nut chewing gum."

However another aviator, John Miller, was also trying to set the autogiro record for the first transcontinental trip. Charnov wrote, "Arriving on June 6, 1931, in Oakland, California, (Earhart) discovered much to her amazement and her husband's mercurial anger that John M. Miller had arrived in San Diego on May 28th."

Deprived of the westbound transcontinental record, Earhart tried to claim a record flying the autogiro back to the East Coast. This didn't happen as she had the first of three autogiro crashes in Abilene, Kansas. She ended up returning by train.

Some police agencies today use autogiros as they are less expensive to buy and maintain than helicopters.

Amelia Earhart was to come to a sudden, mysterious and tragic end in 1937. While on a round-the-world flight she and navigator Fred Noonan vanished over the Pacific Ocean enroute from New Guinea to tiny Howland Island.

Tomorrow

Chris Carola, a former Albany based Associated Press reporter who lives in Saratoga Springs, will discuss the Civil War’s 77th New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Coming in January 2024: Gary Hoyle discusses his search for the identity of a tusk found in the collection of an old, dismantled museum in Maine.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, December 28, 2023

46 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:02AM