Clyde Pangborn, Miss Veedol, and the Night Two Broke Men Threw Their Landing Gear Into the Pacific to Fly Nonstop From Japan to Wenatchee

In October 1931, pilots Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon made the first-ever nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean, covering roughly 4,500 miles from Japan to Wenatchee, Washington in about 41 hours. To carry enough fuel for the crossing, they jettisoned their airplane’s landing gear in flight and committed to landing the aircraft on its belly. It remains one of the most daring and least-celebrated achievements of aviation’s golden age.

Who Were Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon?

Clyde Pangborn was the pilot and the driving force behind the flight. A veteran of the barnstorming era, he had flown with the Gates Flying Circus, where he earned the nickname “Upside-Down Pangborn” for climbing out of the cockpit in flight and hanging from the wing while crowds watched below. He was one of the most skilled stick-and-rudder pilots of his generation.

Hugh Herndon was his partner and financial backer. Herndon came from money - his mother helped fund the venture - a common arrangement in the golden age, where one flyer supplied the skill and another supplied the checkbook.

Their aircraft was a single-engine Bellanca long-range monoplane named Miss Veedol, after the Veedol motor oil brand that sponsored them. Painted red and black, she carried a Wright Whirlwind engine - the same engine family that had powered Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic four years earlier.

Why Did They Attempt the Pacific Crossing?

The Pacific was never the original plan. Pangborn and Herndon had set out to fly around the world and beat the record set by Wiley Post. That attempt collapsed under bad weather, mud, and a forced landing in Siberia that damaged the airplane. By the time they reached Japan, the round-the-world dream was over and their money was nearly gone.

Japan in 1931 was tense and unwelcoming to two Americans arriving unannounced by air. Authorities arrested them, accused them of photographing military installations, and fined them before releasing them.

Stranded and broke, Pangborn looked at the map and realized no one had ever flown the Pacific nonstop in either direction. A Japanese newspaper had offered a $5,000 prize - significant money in 1931 - for the first nonstop flight across the ocean to North America. That prize could pull them out of trouble.

The Problem: The Fuel Math Didn’t Work

The distance from Japan to the American mainland was right at the outer limit of what Miss Veedol could do - roughly 4,500 miles of open water with no islands, no place to land, and no useful radio.

When they ran the fuel numbers, the math didn’t close. The airplane needed to carry more gasoline than it could lift and still climb, and the drag from that load would eat their range and drop them into the sea short of the coast.

How Jettisoning the Landing Gear Solved the Problem

Pangborn’s solution came from his wing-walking instincts about drag. The fixed landing gear - wheels, struts, and the whole assembly - hung in the slipstream for the entire flight, producing pure drag hour after hour. Yet the gear is only truly needed twice: at takeoff and at landing.

So Pangborn had the gear rigged to be jettisoned in flight. The plan was to get the overloaded airplane airborne, climb out over the water, then release the wheels into the Pacific to clean up the airplane’s belly and buy back the miles they needed.

The trade-off was absolute: once the gear was gone, there could be no normal landing. They were committing, over open ocean, to bringing the airplane home on its belly - in a country they hadn’t reached, on a field they hadn’t chosen.

The Takeoff From Sabishiro Beach

They chose a long, hard stretch of sand at Sabishiro, in northern Japan, and built a wooden ramp to help the overloaded airplane get rolling. On the morning of October 4, 1931, they loaded Miss Veedol with more than 900 gallons of gasoline - bringing the aircraft to nearly double its empty weight.

Pangborn ran her down the beach. Heavy and mushing, with the sand grabbing at the wheels, the airplane barely lifted off at the last possible moment and staggered out over the water.

Pangborn’s Wing-Walk Over the Ocean

Then came the first crisis. Pangborn worked the release and most of the gear fell away - but several bracing struts hung up and stayed attached. Left in place, they would tear into the belly during the eventual landing and could flip or destroy the airplane. A clean belly was the whole point of the gamble.

So Pangborn did what he knew how to do. Over the Pacific, in a heavily loaded airplane at low altitude, the veteran barnstormer climbed out of the cockpit and onto the wing strut. Battered by the slipstream and the cold coming off the gray water, he worked his way down to the hung-up braces and freed them with his bare hands until they fell into the sea. Then he climbed back in for the crossing.

What the 40-Hour Crossing Was Actually Like

The crossing lasted more than 40 hours - two full days and nights in a cramped, freezing, deafening cockpit. There was nowhere to stand and nowhere to lie down.

They flew into icing conditions. The airplane picked up ice in the clouds, grew heavy, and the controls stiffened. Pangborn repeatedly had to dive into warmer air to shed the ice, then climb back up - all in darkness over the sea, with no gear to save them if the engine failed.

At one point in the worst of it, an exhausted Herndon dozed off when they needed to be managing fuel between tanks. Pangborn caught the error. He nursed the engine and leaned the mixture carefully to squeeze out every extra mile, because the fuel math had never fully closed - every gallon saved was more coastline he might reach.

The Belly Landing at Wenatchee

On the morning of October 5, 1931, after more than 40 hours over open water, they sighted the coast of Washington State. They had become the first people to fly the Pacific nonstop - but with no landing gear, the hardest part remained.

Pangborn flew inland over the Cascades toward Wenatchee, Washington, where Herndon had a contact who could help. He circled to wait for good light, since a belly landing allows only one attempt, and burned off the last of the fuel to reduce fire risk.

Then he brought her down to a field at the edge of town. He held the airplane off in a full stall, the way a pilot greases a taildragger onto turf, and set the bare belly onto the ground as gently as possible. She slid, kicked up dirt, and dragged to a stop - a wingtip dipped and a propeller blade curled back, but both men climbed out alive.

The final numbers: about 41 hours in the air, roughly 4,500 miles, no landing gear, and no place to land the entire way.

Why the Flight Was Nearly Forgotten

Unlike Lindbergh, Pangborn and Herndon received no ticker-tape parade. The round-the-world record they’d chased was gone, Herndon faded from the story, and Pangborn returned to the life of a working pilot - eventually ferrying bombers across the Atlantic during World War II when he was old enough to be most crews’ father.

He later received the Harmon Trophy, aviation’s honor for the year’s outstanding flight, but never the lasting fame the achievement deserved. Ask most pilots today who first flew the Pacific nonstop, and few will know the name.

Miss Veedol herself did not survive. She was sold, renamed, and lost on a later flight. Today a full-size flying reproduction is maintained by enthusiasts in Wenatchee, keeping the story alive.

Why This Flight Still Matters

The crossing is a pure distillation of what golden-age aviation actually was: ordinary, broke people making an extraordinary bet against fuel math that didn’t quite close, then out-flying the gap with skill. Pangborn didn’t have better technology than the expeditions that failed before him - he had a clearer understanding of drag, the nerve to throw away his own landing gear, and the hands to land a wheel-less airplane like a feather.

Every pilot who has sweated a short-field takeoff, leaned the mixture on a long leg, or held an airplane off in the flare is doing a small version of what Pangborn did over the Pacific - with the same air and the same arithmetic, just without the whole ocean underneath.

Key Takeaways

• Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon made the first nonstop transpacific flight in the Bellanca monoplane Miss Veedol, departing Sabishiro Beach, Japan on October 4, 1931 and landing in Wenatchee, Washington on October 5, 1931.
• The flight covered roughly 4,500 miles in about 41 hours, powered by a Wright Whirlwind engine.
• To carry enough fuel, they jettisoned the landing gear in flight and landed on the airplane’s belly; Pangborn climbed out onto the wing over the ocean to free struts that hung up.
• They were motivated by a $5,000 prize after their round-the-world attempt failed and they were arrested and stranded in Japan.
• Pangborn later earned the Harmon Trophy but the flight was largely overlooked; a flying reproduction of Miss Veedol is preserved in Wenatchee today.