“I cut the emergency switch just in time to keep ‘Winnie Mae’ from making an exhibition of herself by standing on her nose. That would have been fatal to our hopes.” –Wiley Post Throughout his incredible career, Mr. Wiley H. Post unceasingly strived for excellence and continuously pushed the envelope in aviation. Despite several hardships and the obstacles he faced, he never knew the meaning of giving up. He made numerous breakthroughs during the era of the Golden Age of Aviation. In these following paragraphs you will see several “snapshots” of the amazing life of a one-eyed pilot who drastically changed aviation. Wiley H. Post, the pilot who put it all on the line to fly not only a little faster, at a little higher altitude, but a little farther than everyone else, just one more time.
It was November of 1898 that one of our country’s most influential aviators would come bright-eyed into this world. Wiley Hardeman Post was born in a small Texas town. When the boy was just five years old his family uprooted and moved to yet another small town near Maysville, Oklahoma. It was in that tiny Oklahoma town where they would start their new lives. Wiley’s general disregard and lackadaisical attitude towards the academics led to his withdrawal from school in only the eighth grade.
One afternoon the young teen took a trip to the county fair in Lawton, Oklahoma. The county fair was host to an aerial exhibition revealing to Wiley Post, his first glimpse of a manned aircraft. It was at that moment when he realized his destiny to become a pilot. Without delay he enrolled in aviation school in Kansas City, Missouri. Post had high hopes to fly for his country, but the war ended faster than he could sign the dotted line. After a few years went by, consequently while working as a roughneck in the oilfields, he would finally get an untimely second chance to fulfill his destiny
Many have heard of the Tuskegee Airmen and their accomplishments. They were a group of African American fighter pilots. They proved to be quite vital to the success of World War II. What many people may not know is the Tuskegee Airmen had several squadrons which fought throughout Europe during the war. The most famous squadron was the 332nd fighter squadron, they were commonly known as the Red Tails. Charles McGee was among those men apart of the Red Tail squadron. Charles McGee is one of most notable men in the Red Tails due to his accomplishments throughout the war. I will be explaining his life and all of his accomplishments throughout this paper on famous individuals in aviation.
Airmen: An Illustrated History: 1939-1949.” Oct. 2012. Vol. 65 Issue 4, pg. 316-319. 4p. Ebsco Host. Tucker, Phillip Thomas, 1953. Web.2014.
Billy Bishop’s path to greatness was not an easy one. He encountered many challenges throughout his young life that recognized him as a fiercer fighter pilot and a true hero. Billy Bishop faced an incredibly tough task to achieving his dream of becoming Canada’s greatest ace. Bishop had a tough life at Owen Sound Collegiate. He would be the subject to many jokes and preferred the company of girls. However his anger and fists won him acceptance on the school ground. He was a good natured boy born on February 8th, 1984. In 1911, at the age of 17, his parents sent him Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario due to his mediocre marks in school which his father knew would not allow him to get accepted to the University of Toronto. He was not an academic student and in his third year of high school was found cheating on a class exam which would later be the subject to many controversie...
Tom Wolfe explains that a career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinary high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move hig...
Lindbergh’s passion for mechanics didn’t come as a surprise to many. As a young boy, Charles seemed to be very interested in the family’s motorized vehicles, such as the Saxon Six automobile and Excelsior motorbike. But after starting college in the fall of 1920 as a mechanical engineer, his love for aviation started to bloom. Deciding that the field of aviation was more exciting, he dropped out within 2 years. He then decided to take lessons at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation’s flying school and was up in the air for the first time on April 9, 1922 when he was in a two seat biplane as a passenger. But his solo flight would not be until May 1923 at the Souther Field in Americus, Georgia, an old flight training field where Lindbergh came to buy a World War I Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane. It only took half an hour to practice with another pilot at the field to decide that Lindbergh was ready to fly the plane himself. After a week of practicing, Lindbergh took off on his biplane on his first solo cross country flight and few weeks after that, achieving his first nighttime flight near Arkansas, both marking huge milestones for the young pilot.
A black man that’s falls in love with planes and would never give on his dream to become a pilots from everyone and everything that got in his way didn’t stop him that’s what I really love about him and glad to tell the story of the furthermost man ever to change history for black people who has a dream to fly and this is the story of Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Was born in Washington D.C on December 18, 1921 and he was the second of three children. The parents of Benjamin O. Davis were Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. and Elnora Dickerson Davis, but if you didn’t know about his father was a U.S. Army Davis was in the army for 41 years before he got promoted to a brigadier general in the fall of October 1940. At the age of 13 of Benjamin O Davis Jr life on the summer of 1926, Davis went for a flight with a barnstorming pilot, however if you don’t know what a barnstorming pilot was they were a group of pilots that did tricks in the USA in the 1920, that stunt pilots would execute trick with airplane for entertainment. The experience led to his willpower to turn out to be a pilot himself. He was the prime officer to get his wings since the Tuskegee Army Air Field on March 7, 1942. (http://www.aldine.k12.tx.us)
Canadian Air Force Office of Public Affairs. (1996). The Flying Career of William Avery Bishop. [WWW Document] Retrieved May 2nd, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/comment/bishop.html
James T. Wiley was apart of the Tuskegee Airman and talks about his experiences. When he was younger he wanted to fly an airplane. "All the leadership was strong, and the men were a good bunch of superior guys with high morale" (Wiley) Bledsoe, Helen Wieman.James T Wiley has had many experiences, for example his mission in India. When he flew back to his hometown they ...
just wanted a job, he went from place to place trying as hard as he
In 1913, at the age of 15, Wiley Post saw his first real life airplane in flight at the county fair in Lawton, Oklahoma. Post immediately fell in love with the Curtiss “pusher” plane, and soon after he enrolled himself in the Sweeney Automobile & Aviation School in Kansas City. After graduation, Post returned to Oklahoma to work at the Chickasaw & Lawton Construction. Post quickly grew tired of his construction job and turned his attention back to what he really had a passion for; aviation. Eager to become a pilot, Post enrolled himself at the Students' Army Training Camp located at the University of Oklahoma where he was taught the fundamentals of radio technology/communication. Due to Germany’s defeat, Post did not get to become a pilot for the United States Army Air Services and was once again he was out of work. Post then pursued work in oil fields in Oklahoma. While working in the oil fields, he took a second job with the Burrell Tibbs' Flying Circus, where he originally worked as a parachute jumper and later learned how to fly. During the fall of 1926, Post was injured in the oil fields when a piece of metal struck his left eye leaving it permanently blind. With the money he received for his injury, Post purchased his f...
Juan Trippe was born just before the beginning of the 20th century in 1899. He was born into a relatively wealthy Protestant family with his father being a Wall Street banker and his mother, a real estate speculator. Juan was named after his mother’s favorite aunt, Juanita. Later, he would change he would informally change his name to Terry which was more fitting for his Anglo Saxon heritage. Trippe’s fascination with aviation began at a young age while watching the conquests of early pilots such as Wilbur Wright. At the age of 18, Juan began to take flying lessons at Curtiss Flying School in Miami, Florida.
Before the war, African-American pilots weren't able to fly in battle due to segregation, even though blacks have been flying for a while beforehand, including pilots such as Bessie Coleman, Charles Alfred Anderson, and more, who'd fought oppression to become pilots (George 5). Army officials thought blacks couldn't fight, aren't as smart as whites, and weren't worthy enough of operating machines as complicated as airplanes. There was hope for African Americans who wanted to fly in the 1930s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to build up the U.S. armed forces, thinking of military-related ideas such as teaching civilians to fly, passing the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) in April 1939, which would provide training for 20,000 college students yearly as private pilots, and soon allowed the Secretary of War to lend equipment to schools for African-American pilot training (George 6). While this program was being developed, Edgar G. Brown, an African-American spokesman for government employees, arranged an unusual flight. Two black pilots from the National Airmen's Association, Dale White and Chauncey Spencer, would fly from Chicago, IL to Washington, D.C. in a run-down biplane. They met with Missouri senator and future president Harry S. Truman on May 9, 1939. Aviation was fairly new and a feat like this was impressive, and thus, it had impressed the president. Harry S. Truman was going to help them, and with the ...
Wilbur and Orville Wright spent their lives building and working with mechanical devices. They began with little toys as children and then grew up and began working with bicycles. These works lead them towards their work with airplanes. The Wright Brothers tried for many years to build a successful flying machine and succeeded. The Wright Brothers laid the foundation for aviation when they made history by being the first to create a successful flying machine.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were pioneers, skilled craftsman, and engineers not only in aviation but in many other trades as well. “They loved to tinker and experiment with mechanical things and it characterized the Wrights through out their lives. Each of the brothers had a deeply ingrained inquisitive streak that was nurtured in a home that was encouraged.” (Moolman, 1980, p. 107) They had a good family upbringing, but moved frequently. The Wright brothers paved the way for aviation to take off with their thoughts, ideas, and inventions.