Summary

Chapter 20 is titled “Playing Hunches.” This chapter begins with a description of the frustration and anger of Walter Beech, Thaden’s former employer, as he struggled to keep Travel Air alive in the face of improving technology from competitors and the economic downturn of the Depression in the early 1930’s. There is also a description of how he hired, worked with, and married a woman named Olive Ann, who became his assistant and business partner, and with whom he worked on the development of a new type of plane. As their plans, and the plane, came to fruition, they tested and marketed it with a degree of success, but realized they needed to do something more noteworthy to make it a genuine success. Olive Ann started making plans to hire a female pilot.

The narration then shifts focus onto Ruth Nichols...