“We damn near got it,” he said. “The rudder stuck, and I kicked it and fought it all the way down. I just kicked it hard enough and got it loose. But we almost spun in.” Pilots always talked about “spinning in,” never about crashing. After that, Ben didn’t spin anymore. A few days later, the owner of the airplane they were using, a man named Jimmy Rosen, spun in. The ship was demolished, and Jimmy was killed instantly. A while later, another flyer crashed into the old balloon mooring mast. His plane ricocheted and bounced onto the Pacific Electric railroad tracks that bordered the airfield, cutting down twenty-eight power poles along the way. Crashes were commonplace, although it was equally commonplace for a pilot to walk away from a wreck. The planes flew only ninety miles an hour, often less, and were easy to jump clear from. The dirt runways and pasturelands where the pilots set down were forgiving. Pancho didn’t think about the danger, or if she did, it was only to acknowledge that it was the danger that leavened the thrill.

By early summer, she was ready to learn how to land. The Arcadia airstrip was short with a nasty prevailing cross-wind and a stand of tall eucalyptus trees on the east end. A few of the trees had been topped and trimmed to leave space for an airplane to slink through on its approach, but the clearance was tight. A pilot had to side slip a plane through the gap in the trees, left wing pointed down, then quickly straighten out before setting the ship down.

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