Nancy Hopkins (aviator) - 1930 National Air Tour

1930 National Air Tour

In 1930 she entered the Women's Dixie Derby which was a 2,000 mile air race from Washington, District of Columbia to Chicago, Illinois. She flew her Viking Kitty Hawk B4 biplane, NC30V. That same year she was one of four women in the 5,000-mile Ford Reliability Air Race, and the only woman pilot.

George Vecsey writes:

"Ever since I was in high school, I had just one determination—to fly. I don't know why either." She says she didn't get much encouragement from the all-male staff at the flying fields, who may or may not have known she was a niece and namesake of Lady Astor. When she made her first flight, a perfect landing in the crosswinds across the Potomac, the social reporters and Ernie Pyle all wrote features about her. Later she moved to the Old Curtiss Field on Long Island, working in the same office as George C. Dade, and taking more lessons in her spare time. Tier became so good that she was invited to fly in the 1930 Ford Reliability Tour, one of the most famous air events of this decade of development. Edsel Ford of the automobile family was trying to prove that fixed-wing aircraft—particularly Ford-produced aircraft—were so dependable, they could keep a regular schedule. The tour was first held in 1924, and by 1930 it had been expanded to a five-thousand-mile marathon around the United States, with a daily itinerary that had to be maintained. "You started in Dearborn, Michigan", Tier recites, "flew on to Kalamazoo for lunch, then flew to Chicago and stayed overnight. Milwaukee, Eau Claire, Wasau, you kept going for sixteen days, regardless of weather. You were trying to show you could maintain your pace despite the weather. Down the Rockies, Great Falls, Sheridan, Colorado Springs, Cheyenne, Garden City, Kansas." "I had a forced landing in Arkansas", she continues. "She really blew at four thousand feet over the Mississippi, forty miles from Memphis. I just made a big circle—I was used to landing in small fields. I landed in the back of a little shack, tree stumps all around, hit an irrigation ditch and blew a tire. "But the main thing was to see what was wrong. I pulled the propeller, checked out the cylinders, found the problem, went to work with a screwdriver and some wire, and it started right up. All I could think about was the great shop course back in Central High, and how glad I was to take it." The twenty-two-year-old pilot kept her schedule that day, despite the breakdown, flying out of the stump-filled field, and finishing fourteenth out of nineteen pilots.

Another account from 1930 states:

She is back, her suit case covered with stickers from some of the far distant cities she visited on the 5,000-mile air tour, her ship spattered with oil and her face grimy. The paint is worn off her Kitty Hawk and her leather jacket is spotted and a button gone. "But it was a marvelous trip!" she said as she hopped out of her ship after she had listened with expert ear to the sound of the motor. "I'm not a bit tired! And I didn't mind having a slow ship either. I came piking in last every time, but I always got there, and that's what counts." "It wasn't so hard." she insisted as she tucked her helmet and goggles under her arm and shook hands with some of her many admirers. "And I'm so glad we finished", she said as she nodded back at the blue ship which stood on the runway beside her.