Bendix Trophy

Bendix competitors flew from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, except for two years when the contest began in New York and ended in Los Angeles.

Famous competitors for the trophy included Jimmy Doolittle, who won the first race, and several women.

Amelia Earhart and Ruth Rowland Nichols were the first women pilots to enter the Bendix, taking fifth and sixth places, respectively, in 1933.

In 1938, Jacqueline Cochran, arguably the greatest female aviator of all time, took home the trophy.

Mister Mulligan was designed to fly the entire length of the race nonstop and at high altitude.

Entered again in the Bendix in 1936, the Mister Mulligan was completely destroyed when the craft lost one of the propeller blades, resulting in a forced landing, 40 miles (64 km) north of Crownpoint, New Mexico; this crash landing almost killed Howard and his co-pilot wife, Maxine.

The original Bendix Trophy on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.