The Four Horsemen

A total of 518 flights was scheduled for the seven months of operation in 1926, This was a remarkable record, considering that these were early stages of development of the aircraft and the standards of maintenance, not to mention the trailblazing and pathfinding talents demanded of the pilots. Bernice DeGarmo, daughter-in-law of the youngest of the pilots, neatly summed up the flying conditions: they had “no brakes, no lights, no radios.”

The Four Horsemen

In the beginning, Harris Hanshue had only four pilots to maintain that almost incredible record of regularity. Pictured on this page, they became legendary in the aviation world of California and the West at that time. The exact source of the affectionate title bestowed upon them is not recorded. One reason passed down is that it referred to the then impressive power of the Liberty engines in the Douglas mailplanes. The pilots are said to have given themselves the name, and legend has it that on occasion they backed it up by arriving for work on horseback