David Mars, The 1929 Curtiss Robin, and A Girl Named "Pearl"Or Touching Flying History, With David Mars
I was at Tom Rose's Fly-In to raise money for the "Domestic Violence Shelter" and the turn out was small.Approaching from the west was a slow, high-wing aircraft that I first thought was an old Cessna,
but as it got closer I realized it was traveling too slow to be a Cessna.
As it entered downwind to the south and then turned final to what is more of a driveway than a runway,
it looked like something I'd never seen before in my 30 years of air traffic control experience.
It rolled passed me and as the Air Boss cleared another Rans 6 to land behind it, I crossed my arms above my head
to stop the tail-dragger at the west end of the strip, then pointed at the aircraft short final to the east.
After the Rans 6 exited three-quarter field into the grass and shut off its engine,
I motioned for the red aircraft to come to an open spot the Air Boss was pointing at.
As it passed me, I read "Curtiss Robin" N3277G on the tail. David Mars, of Pocahontas, Mississippi, introduced himself to us and seeing he was older than myself,
I took the tool he handed me, knelt down at the tail wheel and hooked the tool as he instructed me to do.
Immediately the crowd gathered around the Curtiss Robin and Mr. Mars took out a plaque and leaned it against the right main landing gear.
Then he took two pamphlets out and put them on the ground in front of the plaque.
Then the real history began. David Mars told of knowing one of the Keys brothers as a child.
Brothers Fred and Al Key are a record breaking/setting team when it comes to flight endurance.
On June 4, 1935, The Flying Keys, as the brothers later became known, lifted off in a borrowed Curtiss Robin monoplane named Ole Miss from Meridian, Mississippi's airport. For the next twenty-seven days, they flew over the Meridian vicinity.
Several times each day, the crew of a similar plane would lower food and supplies to the brothers on the end of a rope,
as well as supply fuel via a long flexible tube.
They landed on July 1 after traveling an estimated 52,320 miles
and used more than 6,000 gallons of gasoline.
The Ole Miss is permanently displayed in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C..
The hangar and offices used by the Key brothers preceding and following the flight are still in use today and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Mr. Mars continued the history by telling us how he come to save the 1929 Curtiss Robin "N3277G", constructor number 237 from being
- Relegated to the back of a large hangar full of old airplane parts in Georgia, N3277G’s once-brilliant red paint
was nearly camouflaged by a mottled coating of opaque dust. Nevertheless, it was the first Curtiss Robin that David Mars had ever seen
outside museum walls, and it won his heart instantaneously. That was fortuitous,
for the Robin had been destined for static display in the foyer of the Merrill Lynch office building in New York.
David Mars discovered the 1929 Curtiss Robin (serial number 237) during an estate sale a couple of years ago. (
In his genteel, southern bass voice, David explains,- “I’ve always been enamored with the Curtiss Robin, because I grew up within 30 miles
of where the Key brothers set their endurance record in a Robin, and I actually knew one of the brothers.
I really fell in love with it;
it’s not very much of a performer and doesn’t fly very responsively,
but I kind of like the Art Deco looks of it, and this is the era of aviation that I’m most interested in.
This originally had an OX-5, then it had a Challenger engine installed,
and then this 220-hp Continental R-670 was installed.
It was registered in Mexico, and I can only imagine what exotic thing it was used for down there!”
The Robin was designed and built by Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Company of Garden City, New York,
and manufactured at Curtiss-Robertson Airplane Manufacturing Company in Anglum, St. Louis County, Missouri.
In 1929, Curtiss Aeroplane and Wright Aeronautical merged and became the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
All told, more than 750 Robins were manufactured before production ended in 1930,
and today there are 51 Robins listed on the FAA Registry.
The Robin was touted for its durable construction, along with its in-flight stability and ease of handling.
Ground Operations were facilitated by a steerable tail-skid.
N3277G has made its own mark in more recent history — at least twice.- The first occasion was about 17 years ago, just after Glenn Cruz had completed a partial restoration of the monoplane at Gillespie Field in San Diego.
He and his bride just couldn’t resist the opportunity to fly the grand old Robin to their own wedding reception.
The second event was its role as lead airplane in the movie Pearl, which was independently produced by the Chickasaw Nation and Media 13.
It all started during 2008, when the Chickasaw Nation decided to produce its first feature film — a movie about Pearl Carter Scott’s early flying career. Pearl was born in 1915 and learned to fly a Curtiss Robin in the late 1920s, in Marlow, Oklahoma.
She had her very first flight with Wiley Post when she was 12, and he sensed that this passionate and inquisitive young girl was a natural-born flier.
After hearing Wiley’s observations, along with repeated insistent pleas from his daughter,
George Carter, a successful blind businessman who dearly loved Pearl, declared that if Wiley would find an airplane
and hire a good teacher for her, he’d build a landing strip and a hangar on his property.
It wasn’t long until Wiley found an OX-5-powered Curtiss Robin (which Carter purchased) and a teacher for Pearl.
After learning to fly, she earned her way as a barnstormer and stunt pilot at local air shows.
- (In 1995, she was inducted in the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame.)
Donna and her husband conducted some online searches, and then she contacted the American Barnstorming Tour
about shooting some footage of their airplanes, with the pilots and bystanders dressed in period clothing.
“We contacted Clay Adams,” recounts Donna, in her soft, gentle tone, “and he indicated that another movie was supposed to be shooting their barnstorming tour that summer.
So I checked back with them a few weeks later, when I was sure that we had the green light for the project.
Clay said they hadn’t heard from the other movie company and invited us to come on up.
And still at that point, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to pull it off—but as soon as [our production people] went up there and saw all the planes, they knew this was a done deal!”
David recalls that the producers met the American Barnstorming Tour in Great Bend, Kansas.
“They asked if we had a Curtiss Robin in our midst, and it was known that I had the only Robin in our group —
I don’t barnstorm in it, but I did have it, so it worked out fine,” he says.
“And that fall, we went to El Reno, Oklahoma.
Ted Davis and Chris Price brought their New Standard, and Clay Adams brought his 1929 Travel Air 4000, and I took my Robin there, where we filmed the scenes that required flying.”
Ted Davis explains that the New Standard’s role in Pearl was that of portraying Wiley Post’s airplane.
“I took the actress up in it, with a cameraman in the front,
and since the New Standard holds four people in the front cockpit, it was great.
The cameraman could shoot back and get some footage of the actress riding in it, and the pilot as well, so I think that worked out real well for them in that respect.
Chris Price did a little flying in the Robin, with a wig on to look like Pearl, and he flew in the Standard a little bit.
I did most of the New Standard flying, and Dave did quite a bit of the Robin flying.
It was neat, it really was. It’s a neat movie, and it’s a neat story.”
Perhaps only the discerning antique airplane buffs will detect a misstatement in the movie, when an actor gestures to the Robin’s 220-hp Continental engine and refers to it as an “old reliable OX-5.”
Donna shares that even though she and the director, King Hollis, knew that David’s Robin didn’t have the OX-5,
“He wanted to use the line as written because it accurately described the plane that Pearl flew.”
Donna talked with literally hundreds of aviation enthusiasts at the Pearl booth during AirVenture this past summer,
gleaning insight from them about the movie and the nature of aviation itself.
“Some of the people that came to our booth at Oshkosh have said that aviation people are very passionate about flying —
but you can only go so far with a bunch of planes in the air;
you have to have a story, and there’s a real story here that is touching people,” shares Donna.
“Those who have seen Pearl tell us the final scene of the whole movie is their favorite; it’s very touching.
We worked on that scene the longest - that’s how important it was to get the final scene right.”
