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Gladys O'Donnell
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Gladys O'Donnell, accomplished Golden
Age air racer, appears in the Davis-Monthan Register on May
24, 1931. Based at Long
Beach, CA she was southbound from Phoenix to Douglas,
AZ. She flew to Tucson solo in Waco CTO NC21M.
O'Donnell was a Charter member of the 99's (link
has a bio) and she was a participant in the August, 1929
Powder Puff Derby. She won second place in the Santa Monica,
CA to Cleveland, OH cross-country race with a time of 21:21:43.
She won $1,950 for her effort. This was a remarkable feat,
in that, depending on the source you read, she had accumulated
only 40-90 flight hours before the race.
Although she flew a Waco in the 1929 race, it
was not NC21M. Rather it was a borrowed airplane, NC9558,
which appears twice in the Register during February and July
1929 piloted by Walter R. Peck..
In the 1930 National Air Races, she entered the Women's
Class A Pacific Derby that flew from Long Beach, CA to Chicago,
IL. She had accumulated about 250 flight hours since her
1929 showing. She placed first in the 1930 race with a time
of 15:13:16 and won $3,500. NC21M was her mount during the
1930 race.
Gladys O'Donnell has a good web presence. A Google search
on her name yields 1,300 hits as of the date of upload of
this page. Exploring these will find for you assorted biographies
and accounts of her other race successes.
Below, an image of Gladys and husband Lloyd, with their
Ever-Readys ever ready, from 1927.
Gladys & Lloyd O'Donnell, 1927
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Below, identifying data on the back of the image above.
Gladys & Lloyd O'Donnell, 1927
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Fresno Bee, August 29, 1929
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At right, from the Fresno Bee of August 29, 1929 (cited, left sidebar). describes her win in Event No. 28, the Women's Race for 510-800 cu. in. engines. She won $625 for her effort. She flew a Waco Taper Wing, probably NC21M.
Ironically, this column of victories mentions Register pilot Jack Reid, who sought an aerial refueling record. The airplane he was flying Emsco NX832H (not a Register airplane), is pictured at the bottom of this page. He was killed in a crash of that airplane shortly after this article appeared.
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UPLOADED: 10/07/07 REVISED: 04/14/08, 12/15/08
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