ORLANDO, Fla. — It was the trip of a lifetime, one in which an adventure-seeking woman made history.
It's fitting that Martha Esch’s “barnstorming” journey across 48 contiguous states, "hitchhiking" aboard antique airplanes in 1988, became the subject of an Orange County Regional History Center breakfast this Women’s History Month.
“Enthused, nervous and excited. This is a banner day for me,” said Esch, just prior to her presentation. “I’m nervous, but it’s an excited nervous — a fun nervousness.”
Before long, the aviator donned her goggles and leather, fitted hat to take center stage, with the backdrop of black and white photos and maps from her fantastic feat.
“I’ve got goose bumps, even on the bottom of my feet,” she said, laughing.
Esch grew up in the shadow of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, keenly watching planes flying overhead and lights dotting runways. She was fascinated by flight, and by the time she turned 14 years old, marveling at her first flight aboard an early 1900s-era Ford Trimotor, nicknamed the “Tin Goose.”
“I can’t stop looking up when I hear airplanes flying,” Esch said.
Yet, Esch never imagined her captivation by planes, and the romance of riding amid “the wind and wires,” she described, would one day land her in the history books.
Esch began journey by crafting meticulous plan
In college, Esch studied aviation at Kent State in Ohio, wanting to be a pilot at a time when “women didn’t make a living as pilots,” she explained.
But in her senior year of school, she stumbled upon a book titled, “Vagabonding in America,” and checked it out from her local library.
“It had one sentence, ‘You can also hitchhike via airplanes.’ And a lightbulb went off in my head, and I thought, ‘Yeah, why not?’” She recalled.
So, in 1988, that is exactly what Esch did, meticulously charting for months her course aboard vintage “aeroplanes,” as she affectionately referred to them. She worked out of a recreational vehicle parked at Orlando Country Airport, now renamed Orlando Apopka Airport.
She drew up adventure guidelines or parameters. For instance, the airplanes upon which she would catch rides would need to be vintage — at least 25 years old.
And Esch also penned letters to all the chapter presidents of the Antique Airplane Association, sharing with them her plans, dreams — and kindly requesting a ride.
Her send-off from Orlando Executive Airport and the hangar of the famed Rosie O’Grady’s Flying Circus was nothing short of spectacular. Cameras, reporters and local aviation legend Joe Kittinger even showed up, Esch said.
Soon, the 29-year-old was off on a 183-day, cross-country journey, sleeping anywhere she could — from airport lounges to tents and farms.
Esch now lives and runs both a bed and breakfast and an ice cream shop, but she returns often to Central Florida, where she began and ended her life-changing journey. The adventurer often takes “gigs” here, applying gold leaf to boats, antique cars and retired planes, like those at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Titusville.
It’s where, one recent sunny morning, while applying the labor-intensive gold leaf to a T-2 Buckeye Navy trainer, Esch reminisced about her journey high above the clouds and the notion of putting her stamp upon vintage planes, like she did upon aviation.
“It feels good to be a … small piece of the history,” she said.