Aviation History: Cowboy Virgil Vance Traditional Cache
Ice and Wind: No response from owner. Archiving.
Aviation History: Cowboy Virgil Vance
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Aviation History:
Cowboy Virgil Vance
Virgil Vance on one of his favorite riding horses.
The Foster-Russell Aviation Field was located about a quarter mile north of this cache location on the north side of Sprague Avenue where today you will find big box stores. The airfield operated there for about five years around 1920. Lt. Cecil Langdon flew his Curtiss Jenny biplane from this airstrip in Spokane to Okanogan, WA; located about 80 miles northwest of here. It was the first airplane to fly at Okanogan and there was quite a story to tell at the end of the 4th of July celebration in 1922.
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The Omak Stampede and World Famous Suicide Race probably is the biggest event of the year in the Okanogan Valley, providing excitement and entertainment through an August weekend. While it offers thrills and spectacle aplenty, it can’t quite compare with the Fourth of July celebration held in Okanogan back in 1922.
In observance of Independence Day of 1922, Okanogan intended to put on a three-day show to surpass any previous celebration in Okanogan County. Apparently it succeeded. From the time the Okanogan and Wenatchee baseball teams trotted onto the diamond on Monday morning until the last tribal member quit the stick games on Wednesday night, scheduled events kept the crowds coming. Those events included bucking contests, parades, horse races, baseball games, stick games, band concerts, stunt flying, special attractions at the Paramount Theatre and even a public wedding—whose participants remained a secret until the appointed hour. Later, the barnstorming pilot who had brought in the first airplane to land in Okanogan—Lt. Cecil Langdon, from the Foster-Russell Aviation Co. of Spokane—treated the newlyweds to a free flight. Lt. Langdon attained a maximum altitude of 4,200 feet with his Curtiss Jenny biplane.
Old photo of saddle bronc riding.
The imaginative pilot invited the winner of the bucking bronco contest to strap his saddle on the airplane’s fuselage and make an exhibition ride. Fred Lambkin of Tonasket won the bucking event, and thus was entitled to take up the challenge. However, Lambkin’s wife put her foot down, depriving Fred of his chance at fame.
A young rider, Virgil Vance, had taken second place in the bucking contest—and, although he had never even been near an airplane before, he readily agreed to straddle the machine. Apparently there were no family objections to Virgil riding the aerial bronc—or, if so, he was not deterred by them. According to the newspaper account, before the pair left the ground, the saddle was securely cinched behind the rear cockpit of the two-seater plane, but Virgil made the takeoff in the passenger seat. After Lt. Langdon had done a few loops and turns, he nodded to Virgil, who then crawled out of his seat and into the saddle. Then, when Virgil was snugly planted in his saddle, Lt. Langdon put the biplane through more stunts, flying directly over the crowded grandstand.
Virgil Vance saddled up to the Curtiss Jenny biplane from Spokane's Foster-Russell Aviation Company.
An old picture from Virgil’s photo album shows him in the saddle cinched just behind the rear cock-pit. The saddle stuck with the plane and Virgil stuck with the saddle. When the airplane landed after that wild ride, spectators who had been holding their collective breath exhaled with a mighty sigh and rushed forward to clap Virgil on the back or shake his hand—according him all the honors due the cowboy who made what was indisputably the highest and wildest ride of that Okanogan rodeo. Spectators recalled how Virgil grinned when he told them, “That’s the most damn leather I ever pulled in my life!”
Virgil Vance died in 1981, after ranching and riding horses all his life—but he never again slapped his saddle on an airplane.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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