Carnegie Science Center's Podcast

This is the Q&A portion of the talk with Michael Gough. Amidst great fanfare, three American racing airplanes were shipped to France to fly in the prestigious Gordon Bennett Race in the fall of 1920. None completed a single lap of the race. American aviation plunged to a nadir. The Pulitzer Trophy Air Races, endowed by his sons in memory of publisher Joseph Pulitzer, lifted American aviation to the top. In 1923, after the first three of six Pulitzers and an American racer setting world speed records, a French magazine lamented American "pilots have broken the records which we, here in France, considered as our own for so long." Winning speeds increased 60 percent to 249 mph, and Pulitzer racers set closed course and straightaway speed records in 1922, 23, and 25. The winning racers in the 1922 and 25 Pulitzers, mounted on floats, won the most prestigious international air race – the Schneider Trophy Race for seaplanes in 1923 and 25. More than a million people saw the Pulitzers; millions more read about