Like many projects in aviation, the Spirit of Wenatchee Project has its roots in casual hangar talk. EAA members and aviation enthusiasts in the Wenatchee Valley area could never understand why the accomplishments of “local” pilot Clyde E. Pangborn – especially the story of the first nonstop trans-Pacific flight – were so unknown in aviation circles. To them, the Pangborn story seemed “the greatest story NEVER told!” The comparison to Charles Lindbergh’s well-known 1927 New York-to-Paris epic is natural but the differences are substantial. 1927 was the midst of the Roaring Twenties, the stock market was soaring, skirts were rising and – most importantly – Lindbergh flew solo, the Lone Eagle of the Atlantic. Pangborn and Herndon’s flight, though longer (4,500 miles vs. 3,600 across the Atlantic), was somewhat overshadowed by news of the Great Depression.

The Wenatchee group insisted that Pangborn deserved a much higher aviation profile than the one he currently owned, and the first nonstop trans-Pacific flight story deserved a much wider distribution than existed in 1993. The group agreed that the situation called for a replica aircraft, the original having been lost at sea in 1932, and a flight across the USA (and even around the world!) to increase awareness of Pangborn, Herndon and the historic flight.

Money was raised: bake sales, T-shirt and hat sales, sponsors signed on. Misawa, Japan began sending donations to the project! Soon a serious plan emerged to build a replica aircraft. Then a prominent Tokyo businessman, Kaz Ogura, stepped up. In exchange for promotional rights in Japan, Kaz agreed to finance the balance of the project, eventually contributing more than $350,000. Pangborn Memorial Airport donated the use of an old hangar which the Spirit of Wenatchee members rehabilitated. In 1998 Spirit of Wenatchee incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the state of Washington. They set a goal of having a flyable replica to celebrate the 100 Years of Powered Flight activities to take place nationwide in 2003. They made it!

Construction required thousands of volunteer and hundreds of paid hours of skilled labor. Imagine building a Piper Cub times 50 in effort, time and complexity. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, construction crews gathered to measure, cut, glue and sand, sand, sand – and in May 2003 Miss Veedol took to the air for the first time. Within weeks the bright red-orange Bellanca was headed eastward across the U.S. to displays, air shows, Oshkosh and, eventually, Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers celebrations.

In October 2010 Miss Veedol was shipped in an ocean container to Misawa Air Base (USAF), Japan, where it remained for more than a year. Spirit of Wenatchee air crews flew to Misawa to pilot the aircraft in numerous Japanese celebrations and airshow events. It is estimated that close to 500,000 people viewed Miss Veedol while the plane was in Japan.

Replica Miss Veedol Stats

The replica aircraft was constructed using reverse engineering: the construction crew found parts and copied them. Most challenging was the steel fuselage and rudder which was built in a jig that had been formed over an actual but corroded fuselage rescued from an Alaskan swamp!

The replica weighs nearly 3,000 pounds empty, some 300 pounds heavier than a standard CH-400 Skyrocket. Wingspan is nearly 50 feet, length 28 feet, height just over 8 feet. The most significant departure from the original Bellanca is the replica’s Pratt and Whitney R-985 radial engine. The original mounted a Pratt 1340. The R-985 version in Miss Veedol produces 450hp versus the 425hp of the original because of modern aviation fuel’s higher octanes. The replica aircraft also has a more sophisticated instrument panel, including a communications radio.