“Vulture Coast” by Lester Dent
Lester Dent is best 
known as the man behind Doc Savage. But he wrote all number of other stories before he started chronicling the adventures of everyone’s favorite bronze giant. Here we have one of his earliest stories to appear in the pulps. From the pages of the September 1930 issue of Air Stories, it’s “Vulture Coast!”
It started as a test flight for the new amphibian. Then came the offshore rescue, pirate craft out of the China Sea, and a grim, terrible test for Power O’Malley, pilot.
- Download “Vulture Coast” (September 1930, Air Stories)
If you enjoyed this story, Black Dog Books has put out an excellent volume collecting 8 of Lester Dent’s early air adventure stories! Dead Man’s Bones: The Air Adventure Stories of Lester Dent includes “Vulture Coast” as well as seven other two-fisted sky adventures! It has an introduction by historian Will Murray and appendices featuring background material, outlines and story submission notes from Dent’s personal papers! A great read! Pick it up from their website! It’s Dead Men’s Bones by Lester Dent!
And as a bonus, here’s a short plucky article from the Norman, Oklahoma Sooner State Press!
Fiction Field Beckons To Tulsa Tribune Man
Sooner State Press, Norman, OK • 20 December 1930
Lester Dent, who for the past four years has been an Associated Press operator and maintenance man detailed to the Tulsa Tribune, writing fiction on the side, has received an offer from Sky Riders, fiction magazine in New York, suggesting that he join the staff of this publication, according to the Tribune of December 8.
Less than two years ago, Dent turned his attention to fiction writing. He sent out 13 stories, all of which were rejected, then wrote the fourteenth, and found a market for it. He has sold to Popular Stories, Air Stories, Top-Notch, Action Stories and Sky Riders.
Some of the earlier titles were: “Pirate Cay,” “Death Zone,” “Buccaneers of the Midnight Sun” and “The Thirteen Million Dollar Robbery.” Later he wrote “Vulture Coast,” “The Devil’s Derelict,” “The Skeleton From Moon Cay,” and most recentlv “Hell Hop.”
the City of New York on November 16, 1900. It was snowing like blazes that day, if I remember rightly. Anyway, 1 managed to survive the hazards of Manhattan boyhood until I was sixteen, then, while the native New Yorkers of my age were pouring in from Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota, I followed the family star of destiny to Colorado. I had prepared at Manhattan College Prep in New York for an engineering career, but this proved to be a misdeal and I took a whirl at reporting for a Denver daily. I never progressed past the cub stage and was fervently advised by a harassed city ed. that I never would. After that I became one of the young men who signed the coupon.
Great thinkers are not lions for courage—thought convinces them of the folly of risk. I am thinking of the men who brought the law to the wilderness in the first place (the same type who will bring it back when it strays). Most of them were men who sought escape from the law some place else— not sticklers for the fine points of the written law, but foursquare for a square deal and for the rights of human beings to live their lives and keep what they have. Derek Dane stands for that and, if he steps outside the statute book to get results, he has fundamental laws to justify him.
tale of the Cuckoo’s Nest from the prolific pen of Alexis Rossoff. The Cuckoo’s Nest stories ran in War Birds in 1930. The Cuckoo’s are an outfit a lot like Keyhoe’s 
tale of the Cuckoo’s Nest from the prolific pen of Alexis Rossoff. The Cuckoo’s Nest stories ran in War Birds in 1930. The Cuckoo’s are an outfit a lot like Keyhoe’s 
a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author O.B. Myers! Myers was a pilot himself, flying with the 147th Aero Squadron and carrying two credited victories and awarded the 
short story by renowned pulp author Frederick C. Davis. Davis is probably best remembered for his work on Operator 5 where he penned the first 20 stories, as well as the Moon Man series for Ten Detective Aces and several other continuing series for various Popular Publications. He also wrote a number of aviation stories that appeared in Aces, Air Stories and Wings. “The Cloud Cracker” was published in the September 1930 issue of Air Stories magazine.
a story by another of our favorite authors—
tale from the prolific pen of Alexis Rossoff. Rossoff started out in the ’20’s writing air and war fiction for the various magazines. By the mid-30’s he had shifted his focus away from tales of WWI intrigue to sports stories. Here we have the first of his Cuckoo’s Nest stories that ran in War Birds in 1930. The Cuckoo’s are an outfit a lot like Keyhoe’s 
a story from the pen of C.M. Miller! Miller is known to Age of Aces readers as the author behind 
the second of three Three Mosquitoes stories we’re presenting this month. The Three Mosquitoes have been dispatched to the Scottish Highlands to investigate sightings of German Gothas! Equipped with brand new Sopwiths, the Three Mosquitoes take on The Black Raiders and try to fathom how these planes could even be this far from their Fatherland and so perilously close to the shipbuilding yards of Deemsgate! It’s a mystery whose answer lies in the craggy mountains of Scotland!
pen of the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth. Bosworth wrote a couple dozen stories with Humpy & Tex over the course of ten years from 1930 through 1939, mostly in the pages of War Aces and War Birds. The stories are centered around the naval air base at Ile Tudy, France. “Humpy” Campbell, a short thickset boatswain’s mate, first class who was prone to be spitting great sopping globs of tabacco juice, was a veteran seaplane pilot who would soon rate two hashmarks—his observer, Tex Malone, boatswain’s mate, second class, was a D.O.W. man fresh from the Texas Panhandle. Everybody marveled at the fact that the latter had made one of the navy’s most difficult ratings almost overnight—but the answer lay in his ability with the omnipresent rope he constantly carried.
of Barrett’s aviation themed tales—one each Friday—and a few of his factual features—Famous Firsts and Is That a Fact?—peppered throughout the month. First up we have a tale of Tommy Curtis and Sergeant Clymer, observers with the 4th Balloon Company. Clymer was old and grizzled—as hard as they make them, and born to army life. He had hooted at first, when they teamed him with Tommy “That weak sister!” Curtis—nothing in his experience had prepared him to understand a man who blushed and stammered and carried another man’s picture in his watch! Curtis was a slender hundred-and-forty pounder, to whom no talk was fighting talk and Clymer had been prepared to dislike Tommy Curtis and to make his life miserable. That was before he took to the air with him!
a story by Raoul Whitfield! Whitfield is primarily known for his hardboiled crime fiction published in the pages of Black Mask, but he was equally adept at lighter fair that might run in the pages of Breezy Stories. We’ve posted a few of his Buck Kent stories from Air Trails. While the Buck Kent stories were contemporary (1930’s), “The Ceiling Ace” from the August 1930 issue of War Aces is set in The Great War.
a story by Syl MacDowell! MacDowell is probably best known for his westerns. Here, MacDowell gives us a aviation yarn with a western twist—the title character is an albino Navajo who is able to see clearly in the dark! From the December 1930 issue of War Aces, it’s “Night Bird.”
pen of the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth. Bosworth wrote a couple dozen stories with Humpy & Tex over the course of ten years from 1930 through 1939, mostly in the pages of War Aces and War Birds. The stories are centered around the naval air base at Ile Tudy, France. “Humpy” Campbell, a short thickset boatswain’s mate, first class who was prone to be spitting great sopping globs of tabacco juice, was a veteran seaplane pilot who would soon rate two hashmarks—his observer, Tex Malone, boatswain’s mate, second class, was a D.O.W. man fresh from the Texas Panhandle. Everybody marveled at the fact that the latter had made one of the navy’s most difficult ratings almost overnight—but the answer lay in his ability with the omnipresent rope he constantly carried.