Clarence E. Clark, Date Unknown

Clarence E. Clark was born July 12, 1904 at Garnett, KS. He was called, simply, "Clark". He learned to fly in 1920. He was hired as Chief Test Pilot at Travel Air in Wichita, KS in 1925.

At the age of 22 he signed the Register on Tuesday April 5, 1927 at 4:30 PM. He flew a Travel Air that he identified as "160". He carried a single passenger, C.W. North. Based at Wichita, KS, they were westbound from El Paso, TX to San Francisco, CA. Clark noted in the Remarks column of the Register "Ferry trip".

Seven months earlier, during August 7-21, 1926, Clark placed 7th in the second annual Ford Reliability Tour flying the "Pioneer" Travel Air 3000 (see the Air Tour link in the left sidebar). Chapter 2 of the link includes images of Clark's 180HP Hispano E-powered Travel Air, and a (poor) portrait on page 38. He is not mentioned anywhere else in the text of that chapter.

Clark was chief test pilot for the Travel Air Company based at Wichita. The airplane he brought to Tucson is serial number 160, one of two prototypes of the monoplane later to be known as the Model 5000. Indeed, it was an important ferry trip.

The airplane was sold to Pacific Air Transport of California. According to sources reviewed by Mr. Wyels (right sidebar), the plane appears to have left Wichita on April 2,1927 accompanied by an OX-5 Model B with D.C. Warren and Louise McPhetridge (although both Warren - the Oakland, CA Travel Air dealer - and Louise McPhetridge Thaden signed the Register, they did not sign near this time).

The airplane, now named "The City of Oakland", was sold by Pacific Air Transport to Ernest Smith (age 34). Mr. Smith and Emory Bronte (age 29) flew the airplane to Hawaii July 14-15, 1927. It was destroyed on landing on Molokai after 25 hours and two minutes aloft. Photos of the airplane do not show a Department of Commerce registration number, but we are sure of the serial number, as written by Clark in our Register.

An interesting build on the Smith-Bronte flight is that a similar Travel Air was used by Art Goebel during August 1927 to fly the same route to Hawaii as competitors in the Dole Race. Goebel, and his copilot/navigator William V. Davis, Jr., used the same radio set as Smith and Bronte in their own Travel Air, named the "Woolaroc". That set can be seen here being loaded into Goebel and Davis' airplane before their flight. An account of the successful Goebel/Davis flight is in the book cited in the left sidebar.

Clark's test pilot duties at Travel Air were long-term and prodigious. His work began in 1925 with serial number 10 and Aviation (reference, left sidebar) cites that he had tested 667 planes for Travel Air as of October 1928, and that was just for the past year. Imagine test flying over two brand new airplanes per working day for that period. He very likely test flew every Travel Air still in existence, including the "Woolaroc".

He also tested the Travel Air "Mystery Ship". A page from his pilot log, below, shows his flights with NR613K (owned by Pancho Barnes) and NR614K. This page show 27 of the fifty-some hours he flew these two Mystery Ships. According to Travel Air Tails #16 (left sidebar) his logs seldom included dates. These flights are ca. 1929.

Undated Pilot Log Book of Clarence Clark

After he left Travel Air during the fall of 1930, he worked for the Phillips Petroleum Company at Bartlesville, OK, remaining with them of 37 years.

Pilot Clark flew West to his final horizon on December 31, 1988 at age 84. A piece of the original fabric from the "Woolaroc" sporting the registration number (NX869, not a Register airplane) was among his personal effects.

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Dossier 2.1.183

UPLOADED: 03/10/08 REVISED: