Review of "The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club," Nick Spark Productions

 Review of

The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club, Nick Spark Productions DVD

Five out of five stars

Great story of what should be an aviation star

 For most people, their knowledge of female aviation pioneers begins and ends with Amelia Earhart. While Earhart accomplished many things, including having an expert public relations group, she was not the best female pilot of her time. There were other women that were better pilots, and even more daring. One of those women went by the name of Pancho Barnes.

 Born Florence Leontine Lowe and into wealth, her adult life began rather traditionally when she married a minister and established a traditional home. However, after a sojourn in Mexico where she passed as a man and became involved with leftist revolutionaries, she adopted the name “Pancho.” It was a fitting choice, for she was quite revolutionary in her breaking of sexist norms.

 Pancho was such an intuitive pilot that she soloed after only six hours of instruction. She was so talented that she became a movie stunt pilot, flying with and among the most daring flyers. The work was dangerous and one of the major contributions she made was the formation of the Associated Motion Picture Pilots union that standardized pay scales and working conditions.

 Pancho broke Amelia Earhart’s speed record and after going broke at the onset of the Depression, she bought land adjacent to Muroc Field, where new planes were being tested. She created the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a dude ranch that catered to the pilots that were flying the planes. Three of the pilots that knew her well were Buzz Aldrin, Chuck Yeager and Jimmy Doolittle. Clips of comments from Aldrin and Yeager appear on this video.

 Her dynamic and revolutionary personality are captured in this video, as well as the conflicts she had with a specific Air Force commander. Her ranch house burned down under mysterious circumstances, and she had to face down trumped up charges that her ranch was a site of organized debauchery.

 Spoken of with reverence by some of the best pilots the United States has ever produced, the sheer dynamism of Pancho Barnes is captured in this video. While this is a documentary, it will be clear to all who view it that her life should be the subject of a feature film. She was a legend in her time and should be a legend for all time in the aviation industry.