The Time Traveler has already chronicled the story of Dorothy Ruether, who flew her OX5 Eagle Rock out of Ardis Field, a cow pasture south of what is now Rockwell.
And the world knows well the saga of Amelia Earhart, who flew throughout the Southland and whose death in the South Pacific is still a mystery.
But an even wilder and more daring woman of the air was Pancho Barnes, whose name is best known for her operation of the Happy Bottom Riding Club during the great test flight days at Edwards Air Force Base so colorfully chronicled by the book and subsequent motion picture "The Right Stuff."
She and America’s greatest test pilot, Chuck Yeager, were kindred spirits who met at Edwards and realized they were alike almost at once. Both were great pilots who believed they could do almost anything in the air.
And both had a dangerous taste for excess.
Yeager’s daring is told in "The Right Stuff" when he takes off without permission to single-handedly break the altitude record then held by the Russians. (Almost losing his life in the process). This, plus the fact he was the first pilot to break the sound barrier has secured his place in male aviation history.
Barnes’ story is a series of events, each demonstrating independence and raw courage (which sometimes replaced good judgment).
Barnes was born in San Marino. Her maiden name was Florence Leontine Lowe, and as the daughter of a wealthy family, she studied ballet and manners as a child. All appeared to be proceeding well when a marriage between the girl and an Episcopal minister was arranged. But when she took up flying the "ordinary" in her life became a thing of the past.
She marked her break with tradition by buzzing her husband’s Pasadena church in 1928. It then became strictly a life of adventure.
She often flew from a field in South Gate.
In the late 1920s she was mentioned romantically with silent film star Ramon Novarro, and flew as a stunt pilot in the Howard Hughes’ movie "Hells Angels." In fact, deciding that she and other stunt pilots were not paid enough, she helped organize the Motion Picture Pilots Association which represented film pilots for many years.
In 1930 she smashed a woman’s speed record held by Amelia Earhart. But her name is famous for more than air records. She was wed several more times, once to a magician. She got her name "Pancho" when (disguised as a man) she allegedly worked as a crewman on a banana boat running guns to Mexican revolutionaries.
"Colorful" hardly describes her.
She sometimes barnstormed with her "Mystery Circus of the Air."
Certainly not a beauty herself, she could be merciless to women she considered "too" beautiful. One favorite trick was to give an unsuspecting beauty a ride in the "Mystery Circus." The debutante, strapped into a parachute (allegedly for safety), was then tossed out at altitude, the chute opening by way of a rip-cord as she fell. Many a young woman floated down screaming to the audience below. This also resulted in some legal matters.
The courts didn’t seem to bother Barnes at all.
In 1933 she traded an apartment building she owned in Los Angeles for an 80-acre ranch in the Antelope Valley.
A mother and respectable hog rancher, things might have cooled down, but the Air Force discovered the 44 miles of dry lake near her ranch made a perfect testing field.
It was first called Muroc Army Air Field, and later Edwards Air Force Base. Pancho raised alfalfa and sold milk to the base. She also collected its garbage which she fed to her hogs. But she then established the Happy Bottom Riding Club made famous by Yeager in his autobiography and "Young" Tom Wolfe in his book "The Right Stuff." Indeed, at one point the Air Force became so concerned at the condition she returned their test pilots in that it accused her of running a bordello!
Even Yeager broke ribs while riding a motorcycle home one night from “the club.” The Air Force finally got rid of her after the club burned down by claiming her land for base expansion.
Pancho, a legend, died following two cancer operations in 1975 in Boron. But she is still fondly remembered. Every year a reunion is held at the club’s ruins, marked now only by the shell of a swimming pool. The event is usually billed as a barbecue.
One of those who remembers her fondly is Yeager, now a retired Air Force general.
Much that was salvaged from the fire at the club is kept by her fourth husband, Eugene (Mac) McKendry. There is often talk of reestablishing the legendary club, but all know it would not be the same without her.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Professor Gloria Ricci Lothrop will speak on “Up in the Air: Women in Early Aviation in Southern California,” at a meeting of the Downey Historical Society at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 24 at the Apollo Park Neighborhood Center. The event is free and open to the public.