Cal Rodgers, the Vin Fiz Grape Drink Biplane, and the Eighty-Four Days It Took to Cross a Continent

Calbraith Perry Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight in American aviation history on December 10, 1911, touching down at Long Beach, California after 84 days, 16 crashes, and roughly 4,000 miles flown by following railroad tracks. He had earned his wings six weeks before takeoff.

Who Was Cal Rodgers?

Rodgers was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1879 into a military family. His great-great-uncle was Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, the naval officer who opened Japan to American trade. As a child, a bout of scarlet fever left Rodgers partially deaf in both ears - a condition he managed with hearing aids for the rest of his life.

By his early thirties he had channeled a taste for speed into motorcycle racing. Aviation caught him the way it catches everyone built for it: completely and permanently. He was 32 years old and had logged 60 hours of total flight time when he committed to crossing the continent. He had learned to fly from Orville Wright himself, six weeks before the attempt began.

The Aircraft: A Wright EX Called Vin Fiz

The aircraft Rodgers flew was the Wright EX, a modified Wright Flyer design - an open biplane with a pusher propeller, no enclosure, and a 35-horsepower engine with a top speed of roughly 55 miles per hour. The pilot sat exposed on the lower wing with the engine buzzing behind his head, wire bracing holding the whole structure together.

To fund the flight, Rodgers approached the Armour Meat Company, which was promoting a new grape soda called Vin Fiz. The deal: $4 per mile flown in exchange for the Vin Fiz name painted on the wings and fuselage. The flying grape soda entered American aviation history.

The Prize That Started the Attempt

William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper publisher, had offered $50,000 to the first pilot to fly coast to coast within 30 days. The deadline was October 10, 1911. That prize was the financial motivation that launched the attempt.

Rodgers knew he couldn’t fly that distance without a ground support operation. He arranged for a dedicated train - the Vin Fiz Flyer - to shadow him west. The cars carried spare parts, tools, a portable workshop, and motor oil. His wife Mabel was on board. His mother too. And Charlie Taylor, the Wright brothers’ own mechanic - the same man who built the original Wright Flyer engine - came along to keep the aircraft running.

They brought five complete sets of wings.

What Flying Across America Looked Like in 1911

There were no airways, no radio, no weather service, and no navigation aids of any kind. Rodgers navigated by following railroad tracks westward - what pilots of the era called “the iron compass.” If weather turned, he landed in a pasture and waited. If the engine quit, he hoped the nearest field was long enough.

Rodgers took off from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911. Within 45 minutes, a cracked fuel line forced him down. The continent stretched more than 3,000 miles ahead and the Hearst clock was already running.

Crashes, Burns, and a Decision to Keep Going

What followed reads less like an aviation record attempt than a test of what one person could absorb without stopping.

Rodgers crashed in Ohio hard enough to flip the aircraft and walked away. He hit a plum tree in Texas and sheered off a wing. An engine explosion burned his arms and face badly enough that any reasonable man would have accepted the doctor’s advice and stopped - he accepted the bandages and kept flying. He landed in a chicken coop in Pasadena, Texas, destroying another wing entirely.

The Rockies presented a different problem. The 35-horsepower engine could barely sustain altitude through the mountain passes. Rodgers picked his way through canyon after canyon, holding his breath when the peaks closed in on either side.

October 10, 1911 - the Hearst prize deadline - came and went while Rodgers was still somewhere over the American interior. The $50,000 was gone.

He kept flying.

That decision is what separates Rodgers from a footnote. He was no longer flying for the money. He had said he would fly to the Pacific Ocean, and he was going to fly to the Pacific Ocean.

The Finish: Long Beach, December 10, 1911

Rodgers reached Pasadena, California, on November 5, 1911 - 49 days after leaving New York. Technically he had crossed the continent. Pasadena is inland. He was not interested in technicalities.

After weeks of recovery from injuries including a broken ankle, he climbed back into the Vin Fiz on December 10, 1911, flew west to Long Beach, and taxied the aircraft into the Pacific surf until the wheels were wet with salt water.

By the end of the journey, Rodgers had logged 82 hours and 4 minutes of actual flight time across roughly 4,000 miles, making 69 stops and surviving 16 crashes. Almost nothing of the original aircraft remained - wings, engine, and airframe had all been replaced at various points - but it was still the Vin Fiz. Still the same pilot.

Four Months Later

On April 3, 1912, Rodgers took the Vin Fiz up from Long Beach on a pleasure flight. A flock of seagulls struck the propeller and control surfaces. The aircraft dove into the shallow surf at the edge of the beach. Calbraith Perry Rodgers, age 33, was killed instantly.

The man who had survived 16 crashes and crossed a continent was killed on a short flight on a clear day.

Where the Vin Fiz Is Today

The Vin Fiz - or rather, the collection of replacement parts that had become the Vin Fiz - was eventually restored and is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Vin Fiz name is still visible on the wings. The museum holds documentation on the aircraft’s restoration and Rodgers’ flight records.

Why This Story Still Matters to Pilots

Aviation training spends considerable effort on aeronautical decision-making: go/no-go calls, risk assessment, knowing when to turn back. That framework is right and it saves lives.

But the history of aviation was not built by people who were good at quitting. Rodgers had no weather radar, no alternator, no instrument rating, no radio, and compromised hearing. He had a railroad track, a cigar clamped in his teeth, and a broken airplane that kept getting fixed. When the Hearst deadline passed him somewhere over the interior of the country, he had every rational justification to land, pack the train, and go home.

He pointed the nose west instead.

That posture - not recklessness, but an unwillingness to let the mission die - is part of what aviation culture is built on. The Vin Fiz hanging in the Smithsonian is worth stopping for. That aircraft crossed mountains and deserts and plains and storms and chicken coops. It is worth knowing where that stubbornness came from, and what it eventually cost.

Key Takeaways

• Calbraith Perry Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight on December 10, 1911, arriving at Long Beach, California 84 days after departing Sheepshead Bay, New York.
• He flew a Wright EX biplane with a 35-horsepower engine and navigated entirely by following railroad tracks - no radio, no weather service, no navigation aids.
• Despite missing the $50,000 Hearst prize deadline by weeks, Rodgers continued the flight on his own and saw it through to the Pacific.
• The support train - the Vin Fiz Flyer - carried his wife, his mother, Charlie Taylor (the Wright brothers’ mechanic), and five complete sets of replacement wings.
• Rodgers survived 16 crashes across 69 stops before dying in a separate accident four months after completing the transcontinental crossing.