Let's Take A Ride On The Miss Veedol
I got to tag along on the iconic aircraft's Memorial Day flight, and didn't miss the chance to make a video of it
On Memorial Day, May 29, I got the rare opportunity to take a ride in the Miss Veedol and experience a little bit of what Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon must have felt when they flew a nearly identical Bellanca CH-400 Special Model J from Japan to the US in 1931, completing the first non-stop trans-Pacific flight in history.
Their flight took more than 40 hours, and ours was only about 40 minutes, but it was long enough to get an understanding of how cramped the cockpit of the original historic plane was. The aircraft was piloted by Tim Bovee, a member of the Spirit of Miss Veedol, which is a club of aviation history enthusiasts who built an “exact-as-possible” replica of the original Miss Veedol.
The original Miss Veedol was sold after Pangborn and Herndon’s historic flight and renamed “The American Nurse.” It went down somewhere over the Atlantic during a flight to Europe in September 1932.
Pangborn and Herndon’s flight has always been overshadowed by Charles Lindbergh’s non-stop trans-Atlantic flight in 1927, but the trip across the Pacific was longer and more difficult. The folks from the Spirit of Wenatchee call that flight “the greatest story NEVER told” on their website and want to educate the public about The Miss Veedol’s place in aviation, and American, history.
I got the chance to take a ride in The Miss Veedol after I won a silent auction bidding war at the 2022 Chelan Douglas Volunteer Attorney Services gala in Wenatchee. It’s a very rare opportunity and I was elated to get the chance, even if I had to squeeze through the window to get into the cockpit.
We took off from Pangborn Airport in East Wenatchee and flew over the cemetery in Cashmere for a Memorial Day ceremony and then on to Leavenworth. We filmed as much footage of it as possible and I cut this video together with footage from GoPros, a Black Magic Pocket Cinema 6k camera in a chase plane and a Lumix Gh5 in the Miss Veedol.
Special thanks to Garrett Smith who piloted the chase plane and Oliver Lewis who filmed from that plane. And thanks to Russ Alman for grabbing footage and stills from the ground at takeoff. I’d also like to thank Tim Bovee who piloted the Miss Veedol as well as Jake Lodato, Chris Rader and everyone in the Spirit of Wenatchee group for making this opportunity possible. I hope this video gives folks everywhere the chance to experience what it’s like to fly in the Miss Veedol.