79224 1937 BENDIX TROPHY RACE PLANES & PARTICIPANTS FRANK FULLER SEVERSKY P-35 AIRPLANE

This silent footage appears to be a fragment from a longer film about the 1937 Bendix Trophy Race and the National Air Races, which were held in Cleveland, Ohio, September 3–7. The final day of the races was attended by more than 200,000 people. The film was likely sponsored by the Kendall Oil Co.

The movie begins with shots of the raising of the Stars and Stripes at the start of the races, along with the National Aeronautic Association flags. At :39, U.S. Marine Corps aviators in biplanes fly into the event in formation. These are probably Great Lakes BG-1 airplanes, large two-place dive bomber biplanes. At 1:08 the Bendix Trophy Race is shown, with participants at the start at Union Air Terminal in Los Angeles (today’s Hollywood Burbank Airport). Frank Fuller, the winner of the Bendix, is shown as well as Frank Sinclair. Both flew modified Seversky P-35 aircraft. At 1:47, Fuller is shown making a test flight. At 2:28, Fuller’s aircraft is shown. At 3:02, a Sundorph A-1 “Special” airplane belonging to Sundorph company founder Eeler C. Sundorph is shown. The Sundorph Special was piloted by Eiler Sundorph and John Yost during the race; they finished sixth. At 3:39, Earl Ortman and his Keith Rider Special (also known as the Rider R-3 Jackrabbit) are shown; the plane finished second in 1937. At 5:53, Milo Burchman is shown flying a Lockheed Electra, tail #NC18130, which finished in fifth place. The film ends with a shot of Jack Berry, manager of the Cleveland Airport.

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