Flying High

Pansy Botts, a small town girl who moved to the big city to become a mother, is a waitress in a diner. She believes that "a girl can't go through life with a tray on her arm," so she places an ad in the Pilot's Gazette for a husband. At a nearby airfield, Rusty Krouse, the inventor of a flying machine called the aerocopter, is displaying his invention for the upcoming Tenth Annual Air Show, when Sport Wardell takes an interest in the copter. Rusty, in financial straits and dogged by his creditors, turns to Sport for help in finding a wealthy investor to bail him out. Soon, an interested Mr. Smith avails himself to the two, and Sport offers to make him president of the company. Smith, however, is temporarily low on cash and is unable to cover Sport's check for Rusty's engine. It is then that Sport meets Smith's lovely daughter Eileen, who teaches at an aviation school. Sport cautions Rusty that if he cannot cover his check, he will surely go to jail. Sport then convinces his partner that he must marry the desperate Pansy and use her $500 marriage reward to keep himself out of jail. Rusty grudgingly agrees to the scheme, and Sport tells Pansy the good news. Pansy is overjoyed at the prospect of finally landing a husband, especially after Sport shows her Clark Gable's photograph and tells her that the pictured gentleman is to be her groom. Unable to contain her excitement, Pansy rushes to Sport's office to meet her new husband. The love-starved Pansy, upon learning that Rusty is a mechanic, instantly falls in love with him and chases him around the office. Frightened by her aggressiveness, Rusty takes refuge in Doctor Brown's office, where he is subjected to an impromptu medical examination. When he emerges from the office, Pansy promises him that if he marries her that night she will never ask him to marry her again. Meanwhile, Sport plans to elope with his new sweetheart Eileen, but he is soon thwarted by the arrest of her father, who is in trouble for selling stocks without a license. Sport is arrested too when Mr. Smith tells the police that he was not aware of Sport's unscrupulous business practices and was duped by the man. Sport relies on Rusty to come through with the bail money and sees an aviation contest prize as his only ticket out of jail. Rusty, who has never flown his aerocopter and is afraid of flying, decides that he would rather marry Pansy and use her $500 to spring his friend. On their wedding night, Rusty tries to distance himself from his new wife and ends up sleeping in the bathtub to avoid her. The next morning, the day of the aviation contest, Pansy, determined to make him love her, locks Rusty in the room, but he wrestles her for the key and finally escapes. She follows him to the air show, where she insists on flying with him and jumps into the flying contraption as it makes a clumsy takeoff. Once airborne, Rusty informs Pansy that the part necessary to make the plane descend has been ejected onto the tip of the wing. Pansy climbs onto the wing to retrieve the part, but parachutes to safety when she learns that the aerocopter cannot stop its ascent. Rusty, meanwhile, rises into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where he decides to release the aerocopter's fuel to force a landing. Rusty finally descends, passes Pansy on her way down and lands safely at the airfield, where he is awarded first prize for reaching the height of 53,000 feet.