My grandfather was an early aviator, who flew in WWI. I'm blogging through thousands of vintage photographs and newspaper articles he kept of his exploits between 1913 - 1920.
By this time Ivan had seen more than a handful of aviation deaths. He noted the passing of an individual in his scrapbooks with a star and there are many of them. These next photos document a very different kind of funeral in which Ivan participated.
Ivan dedicated three full pages in his scrapbooks to the death of fellow instructor Peter Carl "Tex" Millman. There are five magazine and newspaper clippings carefully laid out surrounding photos of the flight preparations. This "aerial funeral" is purported to have been the first of its kind.
Ivan was in his early seventies when he added his notes in ball point pen to the photographs. I recall seeing these scrapbooks laid out on tables in his bedroom in Long Beach, California and thinking it would be neat to look through them one day.
As I've done in the past I'll simply let the newspaper article tell the story:
In case it's not legible Ivan has written "Plane I Flew" on this photo.
This last magazine clipping is taken from Flying volume 5-6
I found the following quote regarding Mr. Millman (from Aerial Age volume 5) particularly poignant. ""Tex" was a good pilot. Although he had never won fame for any death-defying feats of the air, he was known as being as steady and intelligent a pilot as this country possesses...Yet with all this experience..."Tex" never had and accident, - never broke a stick. And it was not an airman's death that Peter Carl Millman died, for it was pneumonia that took him off..."
Here is a group of photos all from one page of the scrapbook of Jennys in flight. I particularly like the clouds in these photos since most of Ivan's photos show very little details in the sky. For me, they capture the feeling of a day at the airfield with plenty of activity and the wonderful sound of ancient engines sputtering by.
I thought it would be fun to give a pilot's perspective of what it was like to fly the Jenny as an accompaniment to these photos, but they are harder to locate that I had imagined. The little I did find indicated that these first planes climbed very slowly (around 200 feet per minute), and needed plenty of rudder leading into turns due to adverse yaw. I found an excellent film of a pair of Jennys doing mock combat, which featured some steep turns and loops.
Stalls, steep turns, loops, and spins were all a part of Ivan's flight training and are plentiful in his logbooks. I recall him telling me his favorite aircraft was the Nieuport 28 due to it's ability to roll. I'll have to recheck the logbooks for rolls in the Jenny.
Actually this isn't much about safety, but about equipment other than aircraft at Mineola. Ivan kept photographs of all kinds of things which were interesting or significant about his life, and his letters indicate that he kept these scrapbooks on the fly (sorry, I did it again). There isn't really much to say about these photos from my perspective other than the above except the first photo below.
I had the good fortune of working for Lance Neibauer soon after moving to Bend, Oregon. Lance started a company called Lancair around a handful of kitplanes and later came out with a certified version. Lance sold the company which would become Columbia, where I worked on the flight line, calibrating systems and making sure the aircraft were kept in a flight-worthy condition during flight testing for conformity.
Engine calibration was a big part of our job, so this photograph resonates with me pretty deeply. I have to laugh when I see the fuel tanks sitting right under a set of transformers, though. I feel happy that I have this in common with Ivan; we were both aircraft mechanics!
Ivan's biography notes that he did early testing in bombing and night-flying. I assume this bank of lights is in the collection for this reason. The other item behind the lights is a larger spot light covered up, probably for the snow.
I'm including the next two since Ivan was an automobile nut, and who can resist an early model Harley Davidson? Teddy Lyons is credited as the rider.
I landed on (sorry) two obscure photos this week. Like the two photos on the 'hazing' recently, these photos are so different that they force me to look into them. There are literally hundreds of photos of Jennys, dozens of F-boats and over 300 of the Indy 500. But these two also tell a story, and one that I will probably revisit.
First, a close shot of two gentlemen, one in the cockpit. One person in the cockpit is significant. All of these trainers had two cockpits, a forward cockpit for the student, and the aft for the instructor. Even from this angle things don't look quite right. That rudder is very small, and the elevator cables look cobbled together. It is covered with what looks like very dry canvas and you can see the blotches of castor oil all over the forward part of the fuselage.
Next, a view from farther away. It may be hard to see from this distance but there is a single-piston engine driving the prop, which is huge compared to the plane. There is a small gravity fed fuel tank above the pilot. Notice also the very narrow wingspan. The whole 'airplane' is very small and it rests on four wheels which do not appear to be steerable.
I recall from my reading that there was a plane designed for taxi training at this field, and I'm suggesting this was it. The student would tear around the field in the trainer getting the feel of the controls on the ground prior to getting in a 'real' plane. Perhaps this is why it had four wheels. Notice how far aft the rear wheels are located and how far forward are the front wheels.
I feel disappointed not to have found any source material for this little device. I hope to revisit this post when I find it, or if someone can provide the documentation it needs.
The old joke in our family about my grandpa Ivan is that his father invested in his flying career because it was safer than auto racing. Ivan wanted to begin preparing for Indianapolis (and, presumably other national events) but Van balked. Within months he was taking flying lessons.
My belief is that Ivan quit flying for one of two reasons. He saw many of his contemporaries die in aircraft accidents. In some cases he likely actually witnessed their deaths. The second reason was a crazy and manipulative fiancée, but that's another story.
There are so many photographs of crashes is this one scrapbook that it's difficult to limit the number even to the six that I ultimately chose for this post. I'll present them in the order of calamity, from best to worst.
The two photos above are of the same crash. I chose these two photos because of the expressions on the faces or for what (iirc) they call in art appreciation terms "eye lines". Eye lines captures interest in a photo or painting by creating a point of interest either in the photo or outside the photo, to where people are looking. In the first photo, five of the seven men are waiting, looking expectantly to the left outside the frame. In the second photo the flyer on the left looks a bit embarrassed, with his hat in his hands. (Happy Bagnell, by the way)
Now things have gotten a little more serious, I guess that goes without saying. Again, I chose this photo for the expressions on the faces, and for eye lines. In this photo the stance of two of the men indicates that at least four of them were concentrating on the same thing before the photographer walked up. Notice that they've not shifted their feet from the direction in which they were looking. They don't look particularly happy to see the photographer, either.
I like the photo above because it's so difficult to tell what happened. Maybe engine failure? Why not miss the hangar by steering a little to the right? I'm leaning toward a stall because of the broken fuselage. Anyone's guess.
This is just a mess. I think we're looking at an early Curtiss model similar to the headed pusher we saw a few posts back. They say that "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing". I don't think this was a good landing.
I've yet to find photos in the collection more shocking than the set of photos depicting this wreck. Ivan marked one of the photos "Bill Miller's Wreck". I was unable to find anything about Mr. Miller, but I have a book on the way about early aviation at Mineola that may shed some light on the subject. I will update if I find anything, or if anyone can provide credible information.
Enough death and destruction for one post! Next time I'll post photos of the training mock-up at the airfield, and perhaps some equipment.
Some of the photos in Ivan's scrapbook catch my eye right away and others get passed over many times before they wake up some interest in me. Today, I was really looking for another photo I had planned to scan and publish here. I guess I was curious to see what the name of the place (a hotel) was on the sign in the photo. The detail and focus of the photo is very good, so I grabbed my loupe and took a closer look.
McLaughlin Gold Bug Hotel | Aeronautical Headquarters, the sign read. Well, that sent me to my friend Google, where I found some fascinating references. Glen Curtis had a hangar, well really a tent across the street from his father-in-law's (Peter McLaughlin) hotel in Mineola, NY. A lot of seminal flying accomplishments took place across the street from the hotel; and what better to do after a day of flying than to go across the street and drink some beer and talk about flying!? So Curtis and fellow flyers made it their own, and McLaughlin capitalized on the meeting by naming the hotel after the Gold Bug. (you astute aviation buffs saw that right away, didn't you?)
The Gold Bug was Glen Curtis' early headed pusher. Headed, meaning it had a horizontal stabilizer in front of the pilot, and pusher meaning the propeller pushed the plane, rather than pulling it. Interestingly, the sign shows a headless pusher at the top.
Library of Congress photo
Looking at the above photo you can see the steering wheel which controlled the rudder. How were the ailerons actuated? Below, (from this site) you can see a pair of bars on either side of Curtiss' shoulders. This setup has been seen before in the blog and was known as Curtiss controls, with the steering wheel used for rudder and elevator, and the shoulder harness used for ailerons by leaning into and out of the turn. If you're a pilot you can imagine why this never caught on. An airplane gets pushed around a lot while in flight and your body swings like a reverse pendulum up from your hips. You would need to keep leaning back into the controls for one thing, and try and keep your body from rocking side to side to avoid involuntarily rolling the aircraft, too. Completing the controls was a foot operated throttle on the right side.
After I had finished studying the wonderful photo of the Gold Bug I realized that the hotel is seen in the photograph, just to the left of the telephone pole! A little bonus like that when doing my research really makes doing this fun.
I remember seeing a documentary by a fellow who built one of these for the anniversary of it's first flight a while ago, and found that Kermit Weeks had purchased it from him. Notice that this reproduction does not have Curtiss controls, and the throttle is between the two seats since the rudder has been put in its modern place.
I'm still trying to get to the crash photos. Shooting for the next post.
After going through this current scrapbook looking for famous men, it occurred to me that I had neglected a woman who was far more famous than any of these men!
Pearl White was a silent film actress who starred in "serials" films. Her starring role in "The perils of Pauline" and later in "The exploits of Elaine" made her a well-known starlet by the time these photos were taken. I believe they must have been shooting for the film "Pearl of the Army" because of the subject matter and the proximity to the film's release in 1916-17.
I don't have any documentation of any kind other than the proximity of these photos in the album to tie them to Mineola other than to observe that the aircraft is a Standard J1 which was plentiful at the airfield. Ivan often received photos from other sources and pasted them into the scrapbook. In any event, here are the photos of the famous actress, Pearl White.
There are a few names and faces in the scrapbook who turned out to be fairly famous at some point in aviation history. Some were famous already: Glen Curtis, Capt. Thomas Baldwin, Victor Carlstrom. Ivan was now a flight instructor and friends with many of aviation's earliest pioneers. He collected photos from other sources, as I've mentioned before, and in this scrapbook he has pasted far too many to reproduce here. As usual, I'm just posting the ones which I find interesting or photographically appealing.
First up is Ralph Taylor. Capt. Taylor shows up a lot in the scrapbooks as you've noticed if you've been reading along. Taylor Field near Montgomery, Alabama was named in his honor. If you're new, the star associated with his name means he passed away during Ivan's lifetime. In Capt Taylor's case, Ivan was very likely at the accident scene. Here, he poses for the camera perhaps weeks before his death.
Notice that some of the photos are inscribed with fountain pens and some with ball point pens in blue. Ivan maintained these scrapbooks nearly up to his death.
Joseph Carberry, a West Point graduate, would rise to the rank of Major, and lived into the early 1960s.
I'm posting these three airmen because I found their flight jackets interesting. Unfortunately, Ivan did not include their names. (I'm not cetain this was taken at Mineola, either)
Next post, I'm going to be sharing more crash photos.
kpw
I've met some fascinating people during the course of writing this blog. There are many very knowledgeable folks who love auto racing and flying. I've even met some folks who actually own one of the cars listed in the Indy 500 photos!
So, when I received an email this week requesting to see some LWF models, I decided to just hunt them down and pull them out for a post. Here's a portion of the reader's request...
With great interest I searched your blog with photos from your grandfather. I would ask you for two questions. My name is (reader's name) and I am an aviation historian from Czech republic. I am very interesting about U.S. aircraft L.W.F. Model V which your grandfather maybe also flew.
These are actually photos that I may not have posted at all if not for the request since I don't think Ivan even flew one of these models. In fact I'm hoping the reader can inform me if these photos are the L.W.F. Model V. The request goes on to ask if there are any logbook entries, and since they are in storage right now, I'll postpone that until I can get them out.
In the last photo there are four of the LWFs at the near end of the line. After those four are J1 Standards, and at the far end are a group of JN4s. I doubt you'll be able to make those out from this photograph. I think this photo was a lineup of planes preparing to take off for the funeral of Tex Milman. Also, I made reference to a LWF in this post about a flyer taking up an "old" LWF, but after reading up a little on the plane, it appears this model was not an "old" plane at all. The company got its start in 1915.
Last week I made reference to the large amount of personal photos of fellow flyers and instructors at Mineola. Next week I hope to post some of those names and faces.
I'm in a section of photos in the scrapbook right now where I see a lot of really great portraits of flyers, and some photos of what life around the camp was like. My photographic eye wants to find photos that are interesting to me and hopefully to you as well. So, I'm trying to discover what will be interesting to post photographically, and hopefully develop a narrative that gives a little insight into those photos.
My eye caught these two photos in a corner of one page. They are in a different format (size) and they are on different paper, so someone gave them to Ivan to add to his collection. They are pretty poor quality, actually. And even though I'm having a very difficult time coming up with something interesting to write about this, these photos are just too interesting to pass up.
The poor sap on the receiving end of this... what? prank? hazing? looks to be completely subdued already. Two of the guys have on aprons, and one looks to have some pointed rod or something in his hand. Ivan is looking over his shoulder at the camera. I don't recognize the faces in the photos as being any of the flyers from the rest of the scrapbooks.
In the first photo it's difficult to see the victim's face. Next we see him with some sort of prosthetic snout strapped on? It's obviously great fun for almost everyone in the photos.
What's your take on this? I'll publish any comments that are not profane or obscene if you're willing to make a guess as to what's going on here!
Well, I took a little break from blogging, there. But there is a lot more material to cover, and I'm back to covering it.
This post highlights Ivan's participation in an event he was very proud of, and one of the events I remember him recalling to me. He worked with Lester Barlow to perfect techniques of aerial bombing. In the early 1960s Ivan was awarded a commendation for the work which covers an entire page in the scrapbook. Lester wrote Ivan later to let him know of his success in selling the plans to the government on letterhead from the Marlin Rockwell corporation.
Here are Ivan and Lester Barlow holding the test bomb.
It's very difficult to tell exactly the method of mounting, but it looks well engineered. The history I found on Lester indicates that he was a talented mechanic, and had a background in automobiles. Perhaps this common ground explains the nature of their pose in the photo above.
I have yet to find any other photos of these early experiments, but I expect there are more to be found. I doubt there are many of them showing the airplane taking off with the bomb attached, though!
Finally, the end product. Obviously no munitions packed in the bomb. Lester later wrote to Ivan... "No pin-wheels, no junk, just a great big streamline (sic) can in which the load is about 2/3 it's (sic) total weight... The big bomb you are familiar with, we are now making about 13,000 of."
Barlow's bomb never did see use in France. There is an excellent article on Lester Barlow and his bombs here. The article does say that the bomb being tested here was well regarded, but points out that the contract for the bombs was cancelled by the American Expeditionary Forces. Interestingly, Ivan served in France under that very command.
I've made a change to the blog. I've added a link to my photographs on Etsy.com on the right. Over the last three years, a number of readers have contacted me for photo prints. There is a book on early racing that will feature many of Ivan's photographs which will be published this year. I thought that it would make it much easier for folks to get copies of photos this way and hopefully help me defray some of the costs of producing the blog. I hope you'll have a look and perhaps order a print or two.
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