The McLaughlin Gold Bug Hotel, Aeronautical Headquarters.

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.

kpw

What about famous women? A real pearl!

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.

Faces at Mineola

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

By Special Request... LWFs at Mineola

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.

kpw

Ivan the terrible?

In the previous blog, I mentioned that the brothers Hughes were students at Mineola, and that there is a wonderful book written about their experiences, which includes flying with Ivan.  They wrote many letters to their mother, and recounted their recollections regarding their flying careers.  I shouldn’t be too amazed, but it really is kind of thrilling to read historical accounts of your ancestors in books, even if it’s less than flattering of them.

In the book, the brothers recount that they began flight instruction in April of 1917.  Ivan’s logbooks document his promotion to Junior Flying Instructor on May 9th, and that Hughes was his 5th flight of that day.  He spent 22 minutes with him in tail number T176.  He makes no entry as to the type of machine, although it might be inferred that it was a JN-4B as he had mentioned before.  I’ve had feedback here that these ships could not have been JN-4Bs due to the dates in question, and I won’t argue that point, but may return to it if it becomes clear that Ivan was in error.  At the time he transcribed these logbooks, he was a Senior Civilian Flight Instructor, and had hundreds of hours in Jennys.

At any rate, Hughes recalled Ivan, whom he remembered as “Wil” and the men in Ivan’s first group of aviators.  Jerry recalls the time by saying…

My instructor was a young fellow named Wil Wheaton.  This lad probably didn’t have much more than fifteen total hours in the air when he started with us, and he was perhaps more afraid of flying than his students.  There were six of us who flew with him - Willis Boggs, Sid Murphy, David Lindsay, Shiras Blair and Mike Dunn. And me, of course.  Mike Dunn had the distinction of being the only member of the entire outfit to crack up a plane.  I remember how Wheaton kept a tight grip on the controls all the while I was with him. It was only when he soloed me, and I was alone in the air that I felt that I was flying the ship.  This experience with Wheaton taught me a lesson because later, when I was instructing, I put myself in the place of my cadets and after a short time with them I held up my hands so that they could see they were flying - not me.  The one flight control on those craft which could get you into real trouble was the rudder.  You worked that with your feet, of course, and so for awhile I kept my shoes close to the rudder bar - just in case.  When the student overcame his initial nervousness, he was in complete control.

A couple of things about this. First, Ivan had nearly 69 hours of flight instruction on May 9th, according to his logbooks, and nearly 2 hours the day of Hughes first flight. While I might be accused of feeling the need to defend Ivan as a relative of mine, I feel it is fair to note that he was a seasoned racecar driver prior to taking up flying, so it's pretty unlikely that he was afraid of flying.  If you’ve followed this blog, you may remember that Ivan has already seen a number of his fellow flyers killed by this time and his own flight instruction seemed pretty rigid. So, it may be that he had a bit of a control problem. Hughes brother was under the tutelage of Bert Acosta, one of the most seasoned pilots at the field, so it’s not unlikely that their comparisons left Ivan on the very short end of the experience scale. After all, Bert had been flying since 1910. 

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this book when it arrives.  Since the Hughes brothers were much more prolific in their documentation, there’s a chance that more of their personalities will be shown.  I’m also learning more about historical accounts.  Simply writing one’s recollections down does not make them historically accurate, it merely makes them a recollection, which can be skewed to one’s own liking. I’ll have to keep in mind that this applies to Ivan, as well.

-kpw

A bad end for Merritt.

In comments from a reader a little bit ago, I learned about a pair of brothers learning to fly here at Mineola.  Fortunately, Google books allowed me to read the section of this book, which I plan to purchase.  It has a few great references to Ivan, or “Wil”, as they remembered him for reasons of forgetfulness or whatever. I’ll get to that in another post.

For the past few days, the photo above has been sitting on my desk, having knocked itself loose from the scrapbook I’m currently scanning from.  As you can see, the taller gent has the “death star” next to him along with his name.  I’ve seen it so much that I don’t think much of it, but it does represent a man who had died.  As I was reading through the Google display of this book I've just mentioned, I read the amazing account of this fellow, “Merritt”.

It turns out that Merritt was tasked with cleaning up an old LWF which had been condemned.  Now, Merritt had been passed over for flight instruction on enough occasions that he’d become fairly bitter about it.  So, he and another enlisted man were cleaning this old plane up for unknown reasons when Merritt decided it would be fun to start it up.  He let the engine warm up for a bit and yelled for the other fellow (named Spalino) to yank the chocks and jump in!  Who knows what was running through Merritt’s (or more importantly, Spalino's) mind, but he throttled up and made his attempt at a takeoff.  According to Jerry Hughes, who's narrative this is, Merritt had a couple of flights, but no stick time.  After a bit of over controlling, he did get the plane in the air.

Since most of the instructors and officers would have known that the LWF was not airworthy, they raised questions and quickly sounded an alarm, signaling all students to land.  An ambulance was readied at the center of the field and a crowd of some 200 men waited, wondering if Merritt would be able to return and/or land.

After 10-15 minutes, the LWF reappeared and seemed to slow down in an attempt to land.  He glided down briefly from around 1200 feet, but then applied full throttle and pointed the nose down!  I’ll quote the writer from this point…

As the ship came down and the wings fluttered away, and it was obvious that the two boys were doomed, there arose from that crowd of men an agonizing moan, the like of which I had never heard, and hope never to hear again.  It was a spontaneous cry of anguish.  That incident left a marked impression on us and let us know, in no uncertain terms, that flying has its dangers.

Now, that was interesting (and horrifying) enough to me, until my wife reminded me, over lunch today, of her father's similar story. Norman loved being around airplanes as long as I ever knew him. He took me with him (well, I was really after his daughter, but airplanes were cool, too) to fly sailplanes at Perris, California and introduced me to the Blanik L-13, which I absolutely loved. Toward the end of his life, he lived with my wife and I in Redmond, Oregon.  I used to torture him during the summer by asking him things like "Now do these clouds indicate good lift, Norm?"  Or, "Hey Norm, isn't that what they call a 'cloud street'?". He'd get playfully mad at me and tell me to shut up.  Anyway, Norm told me he got his aviation career started by bumming flights in exchange for washing airplanes as a young boy.

Norm had a rough upbringing, and he didn't have the means to learn to fly, but he ached to learn. Norm was familiar with the hangars and planes around the small airport in his hometown. He was there washing airplanes and listening to the pilots every spare moment. He knew of an old red Waco in a hangar that no one ever flew anymore, but he knew it worked. So one Saturday morning before sunrise, he sneaked into the hangar and pulled the Waco out, determined to teach himself to fly by sneaking flights before anyone arrived at the field. He started it up, and taxied out as the sun was rising, his wool beanie pulled down over his ears. He took off alright, but as he was climbing out, his beanie blew off his head.

He told me at the age of nearly 75 that he could still see that beanie floating down into a copse of trees, as he recounted the story to me.  He also remembered stalling and spinning the Waco down to the tops of the trees.  He was so intent on seeing where his beanie landed, that he forgot he was climbing out, no doubt pulling the stick back and right as he strained to see over his shoulder.  He actually managed to land the plane and get it back into the hangar, when a retired military pilot caught him sneaking out.

Apparently the old pilot knew Norm, and told him if he was so intent on learning to fly that he would risk his life (or jail time) that he would meet him on Saturdays and instruct him.  He also taught Norm about weight and balance, and how that old Waco was not being flown because it was too tail heavy.  How he got that tail-heavy thing out of a spin at the age of 14 seemed dubious to me, but I did not know Norm to be a liar.

Next post, I'll share how the Hughes brothers characterized their instruction from Ivan, err.. Wil.

-kpw