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Lincoln Beachey, who started his aviation career flying balloons, for aviator Thomas Baldwin, in 1905, was an exhibition flyer for the Curtiss Exhibition Company, in 1910, after starting out as a mechanic, with them. The first air meet he flew at was in January 1911, at San Francisco, California,(1) and he flew at the August 1911 Chicago International Aviation Meet, during which he set an altitude record, of 11,642 feet, in his Curtiss biplane, and pretended to be an aviatrix named Clarice Lavaseur, on one flight, by wearing a long-haired wig and dress.(2) He was later fined several hundred dollars, for flying too close to the crowd and running his biplane's wheels over the wing of Calbraith Rodgers's airplane, on his flight as Lavaseur, which caused Rodgers to lose control of his airplane and crash it into Lake Michigan.(3) Just before this air meet, on June 26th, he had earned $5,000, by flying through the gorge and under the Honeymoon Bridge at Niagara Falls, during the International Carnival. He drowned in San Francisco Bay, in San Francisco, California, on Sunday, March 14, 1915, during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, after the wings of his monoplane broke, while he was trying to level off from a dive. Aviatrix Katherine Stinson later bought this monoplane from his estate and used its Gnome engine in a biplane that was built for her by the Partridge-Keller Aeroplane Company, which she used to fly a loop in, for the first time. The monoplane had been designed by Beachey's older brother, Hillery Beachey. (1) Page 51, Frank Marrero, Lincoln Beachey,
Scottwall Associates, San Francisco, 1997.
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George N. Boyd flew the REX monoplane at a fair that was held, from August 7-11, 1912, on Staten Island, in New York City. |
Born in Keystone, Washington, on April 20, 1904, Vance Breese was an aviator who founded the Breese Aircraft Company, in 1926, and was its President, from 1927 to 1934. This photo and the next one, which were taken on August 11, 1926, show the Ryan M-1 monoplane, with a Wright J-4 engine, that he used for the 1926 National Air Tour, from August 7th to 21st, which started and finished in Dearborn, Michigan, and visited fourteen cities, while covering 2,585 miles. His airplane, which was one of sixteen Ryan M-1s that were produced, had number 23, on its fuselage and wings, and finished in eighth place, in the competition for the Ford Touring Trophy, though he had been in first place, on August 19th, when he reached Cleveland, Ohio, the third to last stop, on the tour. On August 11th, he arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, from Saint Paul, Minnesota, so these photos may have been taken at one of these two locations. The airplane to the right of his, with number 25, on its wings, is C. S. Irvine's Travel Air 2000, which also carried Sergeant Charles Leffler and Dr. J. A. Nowicki, the airplane's owner, during the tour, and which finished in fourteenth place. Walter Beech won this air tour, in a Travel Air 4000, while carrying R. R. Blythe, C. G. Paterson, and Brice H. Goldsbourgh, the President of Pioneer Instruments, which owned the aircraft. |
What may be Vance Breese standing on his Ryan M-1 monoplane, during the 1926 National Air Tour. He carried J. B. Alexander and A. L. Hufford, as passengers, during the air tour, which was the second annual commercial airplane reliability tour. He was also a test pilot, for the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, and was the first pilot to fly the North American P-51 Mustang, when its prototype, the NA-73X, first flew, on October 26, 1940. His company's most successful aircraft was the Breese 5 monoplane, which he sold about seven of, and two of them, the Pabco Pacific Flyer and the Aloha, were entered in the August 1927 Dole air race, from Oakland, California to Hawaii, and the Aloha managed to finish in second place, in the air race. |
Captain Hubert S. Broad, who was the chief test pilot for the de Havilland aircraft company, in 1923, with his Avro 504K. He won the 1926 Kings Cup Race, while flying a de Havilland Cirrus Moth, and he finished second in the 1925 Schneider Trophy air race, while flying a Gloster IIIA. |
SCHNEIDER
TROPHY HISTORY 1925
A
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB
The Stinson SM-1 Detroiter Pride of Detroit that William Brock and William F. Schlee used to make the first transatlantic airplane flight to England, which took 23 hours and 9 minutes, from Harbour Grace, New Foundland, Canada, on August 27-28, 1927. They had, originally, intended this flight to be part of a world flight, but they abandoned their attempt, after reaching Tokyo, Japan, reportedly, because of poor weather over the Pacific Ocean, though they may have also taken into account the United States Navy's refusal to post ships along their route or provide them with fuel at Midway Island, in the Pacific Ocean.(1) They had reached Japan, from England, in eighteen days, flying 145 hours and 30 minutes, and covering 12,995 miles, and sailed to San Francisco, California, from Japan, with their airplane, aboard the Japanese passenger ship Korea Maru. Brock died, of cancer, about five years later, on November 13, 1932. (1) Page 164, Lesley Forden, The Ford Air Tours 1925-1931, Aviation Foundation of America, New Brighton, 2002. |
WILLIAM
S. BROCK
HARBOUR
GRACE AIRSTRIP
On July 28, 1929, twenty-nine year old Canadian aviator Harold Bromley, who was a former Royal Air Force flyer, attempted a 4,762-mile transpacific flight from Tacoma, Washington, to Tokyo, Japan, in his orange-painted Lockheed Vega City of Tacoma, but crashed it on takeoff, after its overloaded fuel tank splashed gas into his eyes. These photos show his Lockheed Vega City of Tacoma, with registration number NR856H, on July 21, 1929, three days after its arrival in Tacoma and a week before his attempted flight. |
His Lockheed Vega City of Tacoma had a 425 horse power engine and could hold 904 gallons of fuel. He tried another transpacific flight, with the Emsco monoplane City of Tacoma , from Tokyo to Tacoma, with Harold Gatty, as navigator, on September 15, 1930, but the flight had to be abandoned, after covering about 1,250 miles, due to engine trouble, and they returned to Japan, landing, at a beach, at the Hachinohe Leper Colony, on Honshu. Bromley was a test pilot for Lockheed, in 1929, and started a flying school in Tacoma. He died at the age of 99 years old. |
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SOUTH
SOUND PHOTO ALBUM HAROLD BROMLEY
SOUTH
SOUND PHOTO ALBUM HAROLD BROMLEY 2