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Race to Hawaii cover art

Race to Hawaii

By: Jason Ryan
Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
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Summary

Today, a trip to Hawaii is a simple six-hour flight from the West Coast. But almost a century ago, the first flights to Hawaii required a nerve-racking and uncertain 26-hour journey to isolated and elusive islands located in the middle of the world's largest ocean. Pilots prayed they would encounter land after flying a full day and night across 2,400 miles of the open Pacific.

Race to Hawaii chronicles the thrilling first flights to Hawaii in the 1920s, during the Golden Age of Aviation. These journeys were fraught with danger. To reach the tiny islands, fearless pilots flew unreliable and fragile aircraft outfitted with primitive air-navigation equipment. The first attempts were made by the US Navy in the flying boat PN-9 No. One, whose crew endured a harrowing crossing. Next were Army Air Corps aviators and a civilian pilot, who informally raced each other to Hawaii in the weeks after Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris.

Finally came the Dole Derby, an unprecedented 1927 air race in which eight planes set off at once across the Pacific, all eager to reach the islands first and claim a cash prize offered by "Pineapple King" James Dole. Military men, barnstormers, a schoolteacher, a Wall Street bond salesman, a Hollywood stunt flyer, and veteran World War aces all encountered every type of hazard during their perilous flights, from fuel shortages to failed engines, forced sea landings and severe fatigue, to navigational errors. With so many pilots taking aim at the far-flung islands in so many different types of planes, everyone wondered who would reach Hawaii first, or at all.

©2018 Jason Ryan (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Race to Hawaii

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A splendid and gripping book!

This is engrossing from the first page, a combined aviation and social history that brings the US 1920s to life. There's cold-blooded and competent heroism here as well as delusion. folly, courage, greed and exploitation. The fault for the tragedies involved (and there were several as well as victories) lay to a great extent with the media that whipped up near hysterica while disregarding the dangers. It's as exciting a read as any good adventure novel, and parts of it (including the USN effort in 1925) are so amazing that no novelist would dare mak them up.

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Gripping stories that just happen to be true

As an aviation fan, I found this to be a really gripping book, telling the true stories of an ocean crossing that it's easy to take for granted nowadays.

All I would say is that Part 3, covering the Dole Race itself, requires a bit of careful listening in order to keep track of the names of the various pilots, navigators, and their related aircraft. However, I was still able to happily listen whilst working.

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Great early aviation history

This was a very good book, well written and narrated. It covers quite a bit of early aviation history in addition to the first flights to Hawaii. Highly recommended for anyone interested in aviation or just general history of the 20th century.

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