Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout 1906-2003 born: Greenup, Illinois
One afternoon in 1918, a sixth-grader walking home from school heard an
unfamiliar sound. Growing louder to a roar, the noise came from overhead. She
looked up and exclaimed, "An Aeroplane!" She rushed home to describe what she
had seen declaring, "Someday I'm going to fly an aeroplane." At age 12, Evelyn
Trout had made up her mind to become a flyer. Evelyn had her first flight at age
16. Between then and the last time she piloted an airplane in 1984, she became
one of the nation's most illustrious female aviators--breaking numerous records
and becoming very much a part of aviation history.
In 1920, Evelyn and her mother joined her father in California. Evelyn, working in
the Trout family service station in Los Angeles, told a customer of her dream of
becoming an aviator. By coincidence, the customer, W.E. "Tommy" Thomas,
owned a Curtiss Jenny. He asked if she would like to go up for a ride. An
exuberant "Would I?" answered his question. Evelyn enjoyed every minute of her
first airplane ride, taking off from Rogers Airport in west L.A. on December 27,
1922. From that moment, everything was directed at becoming an aviator.
About 1928, screen star Irene Castle had her hair "bobbed"-cut short. It became
the rage, and Evelyn decided that was the right hairdo for her. When friends
teased her about the new look, she said, "Just call me Bobbi." She has been
Bobbi ever since. (It was about this time Marlena Dietrich, Pancho Barnes, and
Bobbi Trout were setting the style for slacks.)
Bobbi saved all she could and accumulated $2,500. She had heard about Burdett
Fuller, who owned an airport on South Western Avenue in Los Angeles where he
operated Burdett Airlines, Inc., School of Aviation, offering flying lessons for $250.
Bobbi went to Burdett and proudly wrote a check for her instruction. She was up
at first light on New Year's Day 1928, excited and eager for her first flying lesson.
Bobbi never wavered or lost her love of flying, and on April 30, 1928 she soloed
and received her solo certificate. In the spring of 1928, Bobbi's mother bought her
an International K-6, a four-place biplane. Bobbi received her pilot's identification
card from the U.S. Department of Commerce on the first day of September 1928.
Bobbi soon began to look for business ventures to fund her flying expenses. Her
airplane, part of a May Company aviation exhibit, was the most popular in the
show. That exposure brought an offer from the Sunset Oil Company to provide
aircraft fuel and oil in exchange for permission to paint its logo on the side of her
airplane. She accepted. That recognition brought another opportunity.
A short time later when she landed the Jenny after a flight, Bobbi saw a man
walking toward her. He was R.O. Bone, builder of the Golden Eagle monoplane,
and he needed a good pilot to show the Golden Eagle around the country. Bone
offered Bobbi $35 a week plus expenses--a dream come true. She soon flew the
Golden Eagle to a first-place finish in an air race at the dedication of the Los
Angeles Metropolitan Airport, now Van Nuys Airport. Before dawn on January 2,
1929, Bobbi took the Golden Eagle on a flight that was not to end until dark.
Twelve hours and eleven minutes later she brought the aircraft in for a smooth
landing. At only 22, she had just set a new solo endurance record for women,
topping the previous record by four hours and made her first night landing. Los
Angeles newspapers' headlines read: "AVIATRIX BREAKS WOMEN'S
ENDURANCE FLIGHT MARK."
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