The young couple’s perseverance and practice paid off eventually, and they hit the ‘big time.’ According to Charles Planck, they sometimes received as much as $2,000 for an appearance, never less than $500. Yet for the daring performers, the barnstorming mystique was beginning to pale by the end of 1923. What had started out as glamorous fun began to look and feel very much like work.

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Vernon was convinced that aviation could and would become an integral part of everyday 20th-century life. Phoebe, who had become a skillful pilot in her own right by that time, agreed completely. Yet it was still a time when most rural residents were advising stranded motorists to ‘get a horse.’ Many Americans could hardly bring themselves to take aviation very seriously.

As they tried to figure out how to turn their act into a serious vocation, Vernon and Phoebe focused more and more on Memphis, which they believed might make a good base of operations. In 1925 the flying circus finally arrived for a brief stay in that city. Then it moved along to the next location — without the Omlies.

Overcoming resistance to change in Memphis proved to be no easy task, however. In the first place, the airshow had been conducted at the fairgrounds horse track, and the Omlies hoped to keep it as their base. But an equestrian group that trained valuable racers at the track demanded that they get their airplane contraptions out of there. So Phoebe and Vernon were forced to find another field in the area to set up shop. They offered Memphis’ citizens flying lessons, along with mechanical services, but they also continued to barnstorm the hinterlands, saving such attractions as car-airplane races for the folks who came to Memphis Driving Park to see their aerial shows.

Vernon and Phoebe quickly became paragons of aviation in the mid-South, of which Memphis was the unofficial capital. They were attractive, energetic, intelligent and convivial — and both were excellent pilots. Moreover, Phoebe’s skills in dealing with journalists continued to generate publicity. When they organized the Memphis Aero Club, scions of locally prominent families joined in droves. They were the talk of the town and the area.

The flood of 1927 offered the Omlies their first real opportunity to render service to the local citizens. During the crisis they flew from sunup to sundown for eight days straight, working on their planes at night and snatching a few hours of sleep before rising the next dawn. They delivered mail and medicine all over the mid-South, landing on any available strip of ground. Their work was warmly praised by city, state and federal officials. More important, it demonstrated the value of aviation so graphically that the city began work on a metropolitan airport.

The aero service and flying school prospered, too, as a result of their high-profile service. Vernon stayed busy teaching and operating the business, while Phoebe continued flying and making public appearances throughout the area. In 1927 she became the first woman to earn a transport pilot’s license. By that time, her fame as an aerial acrobat and movie stunt flier had been eclipsed by her business reputation. She was also the first woman to cross the Rocky Mountains in a lightplane, a feat she accomplished during the Edsel Ford Air Tour.

In 1930 Phoebe was the winner of a race for women in cabin planes in Chicago, piloting an airplane she called City of Memphis. She also became the editor of Aero Digest.

The stock market crash and ensuing Depression brought the Omlies the same problems everyone else in the world faced, but they managed to cope. Phoebe had evolved from a devil-may-care young nymph who defied death while cavorting on the wing of an airplane to a responsible pilot, flying her plane around the country on behalf of Monocoupe, a company that specialized in small planes with medium-power motors. She also participated in races and competitions such as the annual National Women’s Derby, which ran from Santa Monica, Calif., to a city in the Midwest, usually Cleveland. She won the first such race in 1929, and in 1931 she took the National Closed Course Sweepstakes prize, $12,000 and a new Cord automobile.

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