The preparations for the race were extensive. All pilots were required to have a navigator. Pilots as well as navigators were given navigation tests, and the planes had to be checked out by mechanics in order to qualify for the overwater flight. Fuel tests were run over measured distances, in an effort to accurately determine how much would be required by each plane. Then each competitor had to add additional fuel tanks to the standard ones so that each aircraft could carry 15 percent more gas than was estimated as needed for the trip.

Each plane was also required to be equipped with an air-to-ground radio. The aircraft piloted by Goebel and navigator Bill Davis, a Travel Air monoplane, carried a 50-watt radio with a wavelength of 608 meters. For each aircraft that made it into the race, an estimated $500 had to be spent on preparations. That expense was in addition to the acquisition cost for the aircraft and the cost of getting plane and crew to Oakland.

Although he had been the first pilot to sign up for the race, Goebel was the last to arrive in Oakland and the last to qualify for the race, due to difficulties in securing financial support for his attempt. He had ordered the Travel Air, which was constructed in Wichita, Kan., without knowing exactly where the money would come from to pay for it. At the last moment he located an additional sponsor who would become a lifelong friend — Frank Phillips, president of Phillips Petroleum Company — who loaned him the $4,500 needed to take delivery of the plane. Goebel agreed to name the plane Woolaroc after Phillips’ Oklahoma estate (also the name of an Osage Indian chief). In addition, Goebel agreed to use a new aviation fuel developed by Phillips.

On August 14, 1927, 11 aircraft were qualified for the race. Their fuel requirements had been tested and auxiliary tanks installed. The navigators had honed their skills for the challenge, and all seemed ready. However, the weather refused to cooperate, which resulted in the takeoff being delayed for two days. By the 16th, conditions had improved somewhat, and nine of the aircraft were lined up, ready to take off one at a time.

The weather was still pretty bad — leaden skies, a low ceiling and fog all seemed likely to make flying risky. The planes were heavily laden with extra fuel, and wet, muddy field conditions made their takeoff doubly difficult.

Two of the racers did not even attempt to take off, reducing the field further. Two other planes did not make it off the ground due to the excess weight they were carrying and the muddy conditions. One plane experienced engine trouble within a few miles of takeoff, forcing its crew to Oakland for hurried repairs before returning to the contest. Three of the aircraft disappeared over the Pacific. The radio equipment installed on the planes was primitive and unreliable, and no messages were ever heard from the lost crews. Moreover, the weather was so bad that crews of ships stationed along the route of the race never saw any of the planes. All efforts to find the lost racers would prove unsuccessful.

Only two of the planes made it to Honolulu — Goebel and Davis in Woolaroc, arriving 27 hours, 17 minutes and 33 seconds after taking off, and Martin Jensen and his navigator Paul Schluter in the Breese monoplane Aloha, who arrived two hours later.

For Woolaroc’s crew, the 2,439-mile flight had been anything but easy or comfortable. The auxiliary gas tanks had been placed inside the cabin, between the pilot and the navigator. They could neither see nor hear each other, and radio contact between them was impossible, since the radio was only supposed to be capable of contacting stations on the ships spaced along the route — but it didn’t work well at that, either. The two crewmen ended up passing each other notes back and forth along a line strung over the fuel tank. Goebel later gave me a photograph of one of the notes, the only one to survive the trip. He explained that just as he had passed a note requesting their arrival time to Davis, he caught sight of Hawaii’s mountains. Since the note needed no answer, Davis discarded it through a vent. By chance, the note caught on one of the tail struts, where it was recovered on the ground. Goebel recorded how the note was preserved on the photo itself.

Although Goebel had triumphed and won $25,000, the worldwide recognition he had expected to garner from the race never materialized. In all, 10 people died in the course of the contest, clouding the public’s perception of the event. The search for the lost planes lasted several weeks and riveted the attention of the media and the public. The race was generally regarded as a disaster. Goebel’s momentary notoriety was quickly eclipsed by the bad press the affair received, leaving the pilot bitter about its outcome for the rest of his life.

Goebel repaid his sponsors for their contributions to the effort, then gave half of the remaining money to his navigator and bought a new aircraft with the rest. He returned to flying stunts in the movies, and even achieved the rare distinction — for a stuntman — of getting a role and a screen credit in The Air Patrol and Won in the Clouds, both released in 1928.

Also during 1928, however, he embarked on what would be his most outstanding year as a record-setting flier. Not content merely to wow crowds with aerial tricks, he undertook the role of aviation advocate. ‘I am an aviation preacher,’ he declared, ‘and I am going to broadcast the possibilities of the air to everyone I meet. It is the greatest thing of the age. We can’t begin to realize how great it is going to become. The first thing you know we will be stepping into planes and flying around the world.’

In March 1928, he set out on a goodwill tour of Japan, accompanied by Ernest Robertson of the Fairchild Aviation Company. Flying a Fairchild monoplane, they began a well-publicized trek from Curtis Field on Long Island, stopping in Washington, D.C., Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Los Angeles. At each stop they demonstrated the aircraft and gave interviews. After sailing to Tokyo, they barnstormed around Japan, giving rides, performing stunts and selling the Japanese on the idea of flying. In an interview with The New York Times after their return to the United States in June 1928, Goebel noted, ‘The Japanese are somewhat skeptical about flying due to the number of crashes, yet they have developed excellent airfields.’

In August 1928, Goebel and Harry J. Tucker made the first nonstop crossing of the United States from west to east, flying a Lockheed Vega 5 monoplane dubbed Yankee Doodle. The Vega, which had not been modified for the flight, had a cruising speed of 135 mph, with a top speed of 170. Taking off from Mines Field in Los Angeles and landing at Curtis Field on Long Island, they averaged 142 mph. The extra fuel they needed to complete the long flight was carried in 5-gallon cans, then hand-pumped by Tucker into the main fuel tank as they needed it. Goebel and Tucker were met on arrival by Aero Digest publisher Frank Tichenor. After they landed, Goebel reportedly greeted Tichenor with ‘Good morning, Frank. It’s 7:04. I reckon we are 18 hours and 58 minutes from Los Angeles, and it’s about time for breakfast.’ On August 24, Tucker became the first person to fly round-trip across the continent. He returned to the West Coast in Yankee Doodle with a different pilot, Charles Collyer.

Goebel traveled widely to participate in races, hoping to garner additional prize money. Some races he flew in Yankee Doodle, while others he flew in Woolaroc, sponsored by Phillips. On September 14, 1928, Goebel and Frank Tucker of Lockheed entered a nonstop race from Long Island to Los Angeles. Due to incorrect estimates of the fuel needed, they were forced to land in Arizona. Although they were the only participants to finish the race, they were disqualified because they had not made the trip nonstop.

A few days after that disappointment, Goebel and Tucker entered Yankee Doodle in a nonstop race from Los Angeles to Cincinnati, Ohio. They won the contest in 15 hours, 17 minutes, taking $3,000 in prize money. Goebel commented, ‘We ran into severe weather over Arizona and New Mexico, but since the Dole Race, severe weather has had little terror for me.’

September 1929 saw Goebel in Mexico City, the only American entrant in a race from there to Kansas City, Mo. Most of the other participants were members of the Mexican Army Air Force. There were several control points where the racers had to land. The winner would be determined by total elapsed time in the air. Storms forced all the racers but Goebel to land short of the first control point, and the race was nearly called off. Finally the racers were reassembled at the first checkpoint and the race continued. The bad weather continued, but Goebel’s experience and skill led to another victory. He beat one of the Mexican pilots to Kansas City by only two minutes, winning $3,000.

In 1931 he flew a Lockheed design in the Bendix Trophy race from Los Angeles to Cleveland, Ohio, completing the flight in 11 hours, 55 minutes and 48 seconds, at an average speed of 171.5 mph. He placed fifth, the winner of the $7,500 first prize being James H. Doolittle in his Laird Super Solution, going the distance in 9 hours, 10 minutes and 21 seconds at an average of 233.058 mph.

During the 1930s Goebel entered the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserves and rose to the rank of colonel. He served as a pilot during World War II in the Pacific theater. In 1941 he married Ann Jergens, heir to the Jergens cosmetics empire. But their marriage lasted only six years; they were divorced in 1947, and Goebel never remarried.Arthur Goebel Jr. died in Los Angeles on December 3, 1973. By the time his life ended, he had seen his prophecies about how aviation would change the world come true. People indeed did travel round the world in airplanes.

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This article was written by Paige W. Christianse and originally published in the March 2006 issue of Aviation History magazine. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!

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