Faces of Aviation

The trajectory of aviation was shaped on a hockey field in the winter of 1886 when a high school senior playing in a pickup game was fouled by an opponent’s high stick. While the young man’s grin would eventually be redeemed by a set of false teeth, the viciousness of the attack destroyed both his confidence and his aspirations for Yale. The trajectory of an Ivy Leaguer does not terminate on a godforsaken patch of sand just off the coast of North Carolina. But the most seminal moment in aviation did.

The young man who smashed Wilbur Wright’s face was named Oliver Crook Haugh. The middle name was clearly contrived in a fit of precognition. Oliver Haugh would be executed by the state of Ohio in 1907 for murdering his family. Wilbur Wright’s father saved the newspaper clipping of the crime with a note to the side: “The boy who hit Wilbur.” In spectacular fashion, Oliver Haugh would be accused in the press of nearly 20 other murders.

From a couple of bicycle builders to a motorcycle speed record holder to Presidents and world leaders, aviation has had an outsized impact on the history of the world.

Wilbur would eventually fall into several side businesses with his younger brother, from the printing press to newspapermen, and finally bicycle shop owner. They would not be the only bicycle shop owners in the burgeoning world of aviation. Nemesis Glen Curtiss raced bicycles and owned his own shop before matriculating into motorcycles and eventually aviation. For their part, the Wright brothers quietly upended the established hierarchy in 1903 when Orville successfully completed the first powered flight in history. The event went almost completely unreported at the time. Tipped off by a telegraph operator who had forwarded a message from the Wright brothers to their father regarding the accomplishment, the Norfolk-Virginian Pilot published an account that included substantial exaggerations and outright fabrications. It got picked up by the Associated Press and dominated the more subdued attempts by Wilbur and Orville to set the record straight.

One of the most famous pictures in history was captured by John Daniels, a member of the life-saving station at Kill Devil Hills. Having wandered over to the dunes where Wilbur and Orville were attempting their seminal flight, he was enlisted to operate the camera that the brothers had bought for the occasion (predominantly for the sake of patent claims). A replication of Daniels’ picture graces the front of FAA-issued pilot certificates. On the far right is Wilbur watching Orville making history in 12 seconds and 120 feet (the distance of the first flight covered two-thirds the wingspan of a Boeing 747). The average groundspeed was 7 mph (aided by 20 mph worth of wind). Within 25 years the airspeed record would be nearly 320 mph. Another 40 years and airspeed records were mostly moot – we had landed on the moon.

The first two faces of aviation are literally stamped on the back of an FAA Pilot’s License: Orville to the left, Wilbur to the right. Although Orville was the first person to complete a powered flight, historical documents point to Wilbur as the driving force behind the accomplishment. The bald brother with bad teeth (who never made it to Yale) penned the first verse in the modern era of aviation. It would not take long for the potential of the Wright brothers to be spoiled by a series of patent disputes, most notably with Glenn Curtiss. United States aviation would fall far behind Europe by the First World War as a result. Eventually, Curtiss and Wright would merge into the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States, yet neither Glenn Curtiss nor the Wright family would have any ownership in the corporation (Wilbur died before the company was formed; Curtiss died soon after).

Not far behind the Wright brothers in the pantheon of aviation greats is Charles Lindbergh. His nonstop flight from New York to Paris took an eerily symmetric 33 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds to complete. Lindbergh was too wired to sleep the night prior to the flight and had been awake for over 50 hours by the time he landed in Paris. At times he buzzed the chilly surface of the Northern Atlantic in the hopes that the sea spray would keep him awake. He was eventually forced above 10,000 feet for 10 hours in order to avoid a run of rain, sleet and fog. Utilizing dead reckoning and an earth induction compass Lindbergh, hit the Irish coast within three miles of his target. The Spirit of St. Louis burned 12 gallons per hour on the journey. The purpose-built aircraft carried 451 gallons. Fifty remained in Paris. Lindbergh could have continued to Frankfurt with an hour to spare.
The Wright Flyer cost less than $1,000 to construct (this was only for parts; the labor was provided gratis by the Wright brothers). The Spirit of Saint Louis cost $10,580 to construct. In 2021 dollars that is $30,000 and $160,000 respectively. The cost to make aviation history has rapidly escalated to the current era’s billionaires club. In the beginning, guile and ingenuity were enough.

A myriad of other names populates the history of aviation. Amelia Earhart would follow in Lindbergh’s footsteps across the Atlantic a year later as something of a publicity stunt. “[Wilmer] Stultz did all the flying…I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes,” Earhart would confess. A few years later (in 1932), she would “hop the pond” all by herself. In 1935, Earhart flew solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. The flight was 900 miles longer than Lindbergh’s famous run across the Atlantic. Ten people had already died attempting the feat. Earhart was not simply the first woman to complete the flight. She was the first pilot to do so.

Less famous was Florence Lowe. Raised in the shadow of a 24,000 square foot mansion in Pasadena’s Millionaire’s Row, she would marry respectably in 1919 to the Reverend C. Rankin Barnes (whose parish received a Bell Tower as a dowry). It was perhaps the last respectable thing Florence would do. She adopted the name “Pancho” during a stint south of the border (a better name for a woman running from arms dealers disguised as a man). Pancho Barnes would inherit the family fortune and learn to fly in 1928. She organized an ad-hoc barnstorming show, crashed in the 1929 Women’s Air Derby, and broke Earhart’s speed record in 1930. She moved to Hollywood and worked as a stunt pilot before losing the majority of her family fortune through lavish spending, poor investments and the Great Depression.

In 1935, she bought 80 acres in the Mojave Desert near the Rogers dry lake bed. She built a runway and christened it “Rancho Oro Verde Fly-Inn Dude Ranch.” The patrons eventually truncated the name to “Happy Bottom Riding Club.” The property abutted March Army Air Base. By December of 1949, the airfield was renamed Edwards Air Force Base, and Pancho’s ranch had expanded to 360 acres. Happy Bottom Riding Club would become the haunt of aviators, the likes of Chuck Yeager, Bob Hoover, Jimmy Doolittle and Buzz Aldrin. The club was famous for its foul-mouthed owner and its slew of highly personable waitresses. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier with a broken rib after falling off a horse on the Dude Ranch. He got a free steak out of Pancho for it.

Visionaries, Leaders, and Some Villains
There are a handful of names that are recognized around the world. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill. Joseph Stalin. Aviation competes step-for-step in name recognition. The Wright Brothers. Charles Lindbergh. Chuck Yeager. Amelia Earhart. Neil Armstrong. From the era of muslin fabric and spruce wood to the Saturn V rocket with seven-and-a-half million pounds of thrust, aviation has transformed the world. The coming decade is shaping up for another transformation with privatized space travel and perhaps a trip to Mars. It all began with a $1,000 investment made by a couple of industrious bike builders.

Aviation is a very large industry that can simultaneously function like a very small community. Pilots come from a wide variety of backgrounds. From movie stars and moguls to second-generation careerists and military cast-offs, aviation is one of the true melting pots of the modern world. The pilots that you meet day-to-day can be every bit as eclectic and interesting as those who made their mark on the history books.

By far, the most common background in professional aviation is ex-military. While the path from fighter pilot to the airlines is well-tread, helicopter pilots are increasingly making the transition from rotorcraft to fixed-wing. Pilot shortages were a burgeoning problem for civil air operators before the pandemic, and the shortage is rapidly approaching a crisis in the aftermath. The Army has proved fertile ground for the next generation of passenger pilots.

I have trained dozens of former Army pilots. War zone flying has its own set of rules, and the stories are always fascinating. I flew with “Bob” on a flight between DFW airport and Grand Junction, Colorado. He explained to me what it was like to be in a vehicle blown up by an IED. He had pretty good insight – it had happened to him twice. He sustained concussions (among other injuries) during both events. He added another concussion from a helicopter crash afterwards. He received a medical discharge as a result, though he was eventually able to obtain his First Class Medical in order to be employed as an airline pilot.

I also flew with “Steve,” who had flown N200WQ (a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400) into Newark, New Jersey, just prior to its final, fatal flight as Colgan Air 3407. Colgan was not a particularly large airline. It was the sort of place where everybody knew everybody. Steve wound up getting dozens of phone calls and text messages following the crash. Friends, fellow pilots, and family were concerned that he may have been operating the flight. Steve personally knew both pilots who were killed. He had exchanged greetings with them just before the flight.

I recently was a guest on a podcast hosted by Rob, a world-renowned air show announcer. If you attended Oshkosh this year, you most likely heard his voice over the speakers. Amid the pandemic, Rob announced the July Fourth airshow celebration in front of the President of the United States in Washington DC – a President who at one point had owned his own airline. Trump was not the only President with an aviation background. Dwight D. Eisenhower earned his pilot’s license after soloing a Stearman in the Philippines in 1937. Eisenhower was occasionally known to take the controls on trips even as President. George H.W. Bush was a WWII aviator who ditched one aircraft in combat and bailed out of another. He ultimately received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the Philippine theatre, where half of his squad died in the line of duty. His son George W. Bush flew F-102s for the Texas Air National Guard. On his application for the position, Bush stated that he wanted to pursue aviation as a career.

From a couple of bicycle builders to a motorcycle speed record holder to Presidents and world leaders, aviation has had an outsized impact on the history of the world. Pilots today sit at the tip of a very long spear. Outsized personalities continue to cast influence over the culture of aviation. From Branson to Bezos to Musk, there is something about slipping the surely bonds of earth and taking to the heavens that captivates the core of humanity. Aviation is built on the shoulders of giants. Remember that the next time you flip the master switch ON.