{"id":31630338,"date":"2026-11-07T13:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/louise-thaden-first-woman-bendix-trophy-1936-staggerwing\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T13:28:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:28:43","slug":"louise-thaden-first-woman-bendix-trophy-1936-staggerwing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/louise-thaden-first-woman-bendix-trophy-1936-staggerwing\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Thaden: First Woman to Win the Bendix Trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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After nearly 15 hours in the air from New York, Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes were sure they had broken a rule and were about to be told off.<\/p><p>They had not broken anything. They had won the 1936 Bendix Trophy, the most famous long-distance air race in America, beating built-for-speed racers flown by the best men in the country. They did it in a stock Beechcraft Staggerwing, with the engine throttled back to 65 per cent the whole way.<\/p><p>It was the high point of a career that began with a coal company sales job in Arkansas and ran through the first Women's Air Derby, a fistful of records and the founding of the Ninety-Nines.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:8px 0 28px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px;line-height:1.7\"><li><strong>Pilot:<\/strong> Louise Thaden (1905-1979), born Bentonville, Arkansas<\/li><li><strong>Co-pilot:<\/strong> Blanche Noyes<\/li><li><strong>Race:<\/strong> 1936 Bendix Trophy, New York to Los Angeles<\/li><li><strong>Date:<\/strong> 4 September 1936<\/li><li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Beechcraft C17R Staggerwing, NC15835<\/li><li><strong>Time:<\/strong> 14 hours, 55 minutes, 1 second<\/li><li><strong>Runner-up:<\/strong> Laura Ingalls, Lockheed Orion, 45 minutes behind<\/li><li><strong>Earlier win:<\/strong> 1929 Women's Air Derby, Santa Monica to Cleveland<\/li><li><strong>Honours:<\/strong> Harmon Trophy; National Aviation Hall of Fame (1999)<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Coal Saleswoman From Arkansas<\/h2><p>Iris Louise McPhetridge was born on 12 November 1905 in Bentonville, Arkansas, and studied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, trying journalism, physical education and pre-medicine along the way. None of it stuck. What stuck was a customer she met while working for the J.H.J. Turner Coal Company: the Travel Air Corporation of Wichita, Kansas, run by a man named Walter Beech.<\/p><p>Beech liked her, and he offered her a job selling Travel Air aeroplanes on the West Coast. The pay came with flying lessons. Her pilot's licence, issued by the National Aeronautic Association on 16 May 1928, carried the signature of Orville Wright, according to This Day in Aviation. That same year she married Herbert von Thaden, a former Army pilot and engineer who was building all-metal aircraft of his own.<\/p><p>She did not ease into the sport. In December 1928 she climbed a Travel Air to more than 20,000 feet over Oakland, California, a women's altitude record. In March 1929 she stayed aloft for 22 hours and 3 minutes, a women's endurance record. Before 1929 was out she held the women's altitude, endurance and speed records for light planes at the same time, the first pilot to do so, and she had become only the fourth woman to hold a transport pilot rating.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/louise-thaden-first-woman-bendix-trophy-1936-staggerwing-1.jpg\" alt=\"Louise Thaden in heavy flying suit beside a Travel Air biplane while a man holds a barograph instrument\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Bundled in flying gear, Thaden stands beside her Travel Air as a sealed barograph is checked for an altitude flight, one of the records that made her name in 1928 and 1929. Photo: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Derby Everyone Called Powder Puff<\/h2><p>In August 1929, twenty women lined up at Santa Monica for the first Women's Air Derby, a cross-country race to Cleveland, Ohio, where the National Air Races were being held. The newspapers called it the Powder Puff Derby. The field was a who's who of the era: Amelia Earhart, Pancho Barnes, Blanche Noyes, Opal Kunz and Louise Thaden among them.<\/p><p>It was a brutal week. Marvel Crosson was killed. Earhart damaged her aircraft at Yuma. Barnes got lost, strayed into Mexico and wrecked her machine trying to get back on course, and Noyes fought an in-flight fire over Texas. Thaden, flying a Travel Air, came through all of it and won.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/louise-thaden-first-woman-bendix-trophy-1936-staggerwing-2.jpg\" alt=\"Ten women pilots standing in a row with trophies in front of a biplane in 1929\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Pilots of the 1929 Women's Air Derby line up with their trophies in front of a biplane, the race Thaden won seven years before her Bendix victory. Photo: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Winning brought fame, but not acceptance. Thaden worked in public relations for Pittsburgh Aviation Industries, ran the women's division of the Penn School of Aeronautics and, with Earhart and others, helped found the Ninety-Nines, the international organisation of women pilots that still exists today. She turned down its presidency and served as treasurer and vice-president instead.<\/p><p>In 1932 she and Frances Marsalis kept a Curtiss Thrush circling over Long Island for 196 hours, refuelling from another aircraft 78 times and taking food and water down a rope. Then, after Florence Klingensmith was killed at the 1933 International Air Races, women were shut out of the national air racing competition altogether in 1934.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 6px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uJ-mabb6H9w\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">Archive newsreel of the finish of the 1929 Women's Air Derby at the National Air Races in Cleveland.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Stock Beechcraft Against Built Racers<\/h2><p>The Bendix Trophy was the great coast-to-coast speed dash of American aviation, first flown in 1931 and won that year by Jimmy Doolittle. Women had entered before: Earhart and Ruth Nichols finished fifth and sixth in 1933. But none had won, and for 1936 Vincent Bendix added a $2,500 prize for the fastest woman to reach Los Angeles.<\/p><p>By then Walter Beech was building his own aeroplanes, and he wanted that money. According to King Air magazine's history of the race, it was his wife and business partner, Olive Ann Beech, who argued that the company's entry should be flown by a woman, and she pushed for Thaden. With only two weeks to go, Thaden and her friend Blanche Noyes, both then working as air-marking pilots for the Bureau of Air Commerce, agreed to fly a Beechcraft C17R Staggerwing, registered NC15835, from New York to California.<\/p><p>It was a stock cabin biplane. The only real changes were a 56-gallon auxiliary fuel tank where the rear seat had been and an extra oil tank in the baggage bay. The aircraft had already been sold to the government of Honduras; Beech let the two women race it before it was delivered. When Wichita reporters asked about the women's prize, Thaden would not have it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Don't say that we are entered in the women's division of the Bendix. We are in the Bendix and out to win first prize.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Louise Thaden<\/strong> &mdash; Speaking to Wichita reporters before the 1936 Bendix, as quoted in King Air magazine, 'We are out to win!', 2015<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Fourteen Hours, Fifty-Five Minutes<\/h2><p>They took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn in the dark early hours of 4 September 1936. Fog hid the ground and static drowned out the radio, so Noyes worked out their position by estimate until an air marker over Ohio, exactly the kind of navigation sign the two women were promoting for the government, told them they were only about 10 miles off course.<\/p><p>Despite the bold talk, Thaden had set the Wright Whirlwind radial at 65 per cent power. At the single fuel stop in Wichita, Beech asked her what setting she was using, and in King Air magazine's account he exploded: \"What the hell do you think you're in, a potato race?\" Thaden said \"Yes, sir!\" and, by that account, kept flying at 65 per cent anyway.<\/p><p>Out west, headwinds of around 60 mph cut their groundspeed to about 150 mph, and the two women resigned themselves to finishing far down the field. What they could not see was the race falling apart behind them. Benny Howard's purpose-built racer Mister Mulligan shed a propeller blade over New Mexico and crashed, badly injuring Howard and his wife. Joe Jacobson bailed out of his Northrop Gamma over Kansas. Earhart and Helen Richey lost time in their twin-engined Lockheed Electra when a hatch would not stay shut.<\/p><p>Thaden and Noyes landed at Mines Field, Los Angeles, after 14 hours, 55 minutes and 1 second, an average of about 165 mph. Men ran alongside the taxiing biplane shouting that they had won. The two pilots, exhausted, assumed they had broken a rule. Laura Ingalls arrived in her Lockheed Orion 45 minutes later to take second place. Earhart and Richey came fifth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Well, that's a surprise! We expected to be the cow's tail.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes<\/strong> &mdash; On learning they had won, as reported by Time magazine, 14 September 1936, quoted on Wikipedia<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Beating the Men, Then Walking Away<\/h2><p>Thaden collected $4,500 for first place and the $2,500 women's prize, according to This Day in Aviation, and she was awarded the Harmon Trophy as America's outstanding woman pilot. Time magazine noted that the money mattered far less to the two pilots than the pleasure of beating the men. Olive Ann Beech met them with tears in her eyes and, in King Air magazine's account, one line that summed up the decade: \"So a woman could not win, eh?\"<\/p><p>Thaden became national secretary of the National Aeronautic Association in 1937 and went back to Beech as a factory representative and demonstration pilot. She retired from competition in 1938, the year Jacqueline Cochran won the Bendix, and wrote her memoir, High, Wide and Frightened. She argued, without apology, that women were innately better pilots than men.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 6px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_TQ59Ib-sNo\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">Film of the 1937 Harmon Trophy ceremony honouring Louise Thaden, shared by the Bentonville school named after her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>She died of a heart attack in High Point, North Carolina, on 9 November 1979. Bentonville had already renamed its airport Louise Thaden Field in 1951, and in 1999 she entered the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1991, astronaut Linda Godwin carried her flying helmet into space aboard the Space Shuttle.<\/p><p>The Bendix had been built for monoplanes with huge engines and pilots willing to wring every last horsepower out of them. It was won by two women in a cabin biplane, flying at 65 per cent power, who thought they had come last.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Sources: Wikipedia (Louise Thaden, Bendix Trophy, Blanche Noyes), This Day in Aviation, King Air magazine (Edward H. Phillips), Time magazine (1936, via Wikipedia), San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives, PeriscopeFilm, Thaden School<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\r\n\r\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Who was Louise Thaden?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Louise Thaden (1905-1979) was an American aviation pioneer from Bentonville, Arkansas. She set women's altitude, endurance and speed records in the late 1920s, won the first Women's Air Derby in 1929, helped found the Ninety-Nines and in 1936 became the first woman to win the Bendix Trophy, with Blanche Noyes as her co-pilot.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What aircraft did Louise Thaden fly to win the 1936 Bendix Trophy?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Louise Thaden won the 1936 Bendix Trophy in a Beechcraft C17R Staggerwing, registered NC15835, a stock cabin biplane powered by a Wright Whirlwind radial engine. Its only significant changes were an auxiliary fuel tank in place of the rear seat and an extra oil tank. The aircraft had already been sold to Honduras.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How long did the 1936 Bendix Trophy race take Louise Thaden?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes flew from Floyd Bennett Field in New York to Mines Field in Los Angeles in 14 hours, 55 minutes and 1 second on 4 September 1936, averaging about 165 mph. They made one fuel stop at Wichita, Kansas, and finished 45 minutes ahead of Laura Ingalls in second place.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did the Beechcraft Staggerwing beat faster racers in the 1936 Bendix?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Beechcraft Staggerwing won the 1936 Bendix largely because faster rivals dropped out or lost time. Benny Howard's racer shed a propeller blade and crashed, Joe Jacobson bailed out of his Northrop Gamma, and Amelia Earhart's Electra was slowed by a hatch problem. Louise Thaden flew steadily at 65 per cent power and kept going.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What was the 1929 Women's Air Derby?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The 1929 Women's Air Derby, nicknamed the Powder Puff Derby, was a cross-country race for twenty women pilots from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, where the National Air Races were held. Louise Thaden won in a Travel Air. Amelia Earhart, Pancho Barnes and Blanche Noyes also flew, and Marvel Crosson was killed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How is Louise Thaden remembered today?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Louise Thaden is remembered through Louise Thaden Field, the Bentonville, Arkansas, airport renamed for her in 1951, and her 1999 induction into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Her memoir, High, Wide and Frightened, was republished in 2004, and astronaut Linda Godwin carried her flying helmet into space in 1991.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Louise Thaden?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Louise Thaden (1905-1979) was an American aviation pioneer from Bentonville, Arkansas. 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Her memoir, High, Wide and Frightened, was republished in 2004, and astronaut Linda Godwin carried her flying helmet into space in 1991.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/jacqueline-cochran-the-orphan-who-outflew-every-man-alive\/\">Jacqueline Cochran: The Orphan Who Outflew Every Man Alive<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/pancho-barnes-happy-bottom-riding-club-speed-record\/\">Pancho Barnes: The Aviator Who Ran the Test Pilots' Saloon<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/elinor-smith-flying-flapper-east-river-bridges-1928-records\/\">Elinor Smith: The Flying Flapper Who Flew Under Four Bridges<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/roscoe-turner-air-racer-gilmore-lion\/\">The Air Racer Who Flew With a Pet Lion<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1936 Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes won the Bendix Trophy coast-to-coast race in a stock Beechcraft Staggerwing, beating purpose-built racers flown by men.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31630274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31630338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Louise Thaden: First Woman to Win the Bendix | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Louise Thaden won the 1936 Bendix Trophy in a stock Beechcraft Staggerwing at 65% power, beating the men&#039;s racers. 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