Orville's Aviators: Outstanding Alumni of the Wright Flying School, 1910-1916

197 Pages·2009·3.96 MB·English

by  John Carver Edwards

Orville’s Aviators
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Orville’s Aviators
Outstanding Alumni of the
Wright Flying School,
1910–1916
JOHN CARVER EDWARDS
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Edwards, John Carver.
Orville’s aviators : outstanding alumni of the Wright
Flying School, 1910–1916 / John Carver Edwards.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4227-0
softcover: 50# alkaline paper
1. Air pilots—United States—Biography.
2. Wright Flying School—Alumni and alumnae.
I. Title.
TL539.E39 2009
629.13092'273—dc22 2009006340
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2009 John Carver Edwards. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image: Photograph from a series of flights from May through
July, 1910, just after the opening of the Wright Flying School,
probably with Orville acting as instructor;
Simms Station, Dayton, Ohio, Library of Congress.
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
CONTENTS
Preface 1
Introduction 5
One. Arthur L. Welsh: The Wrights’ Peerless Salesman of Flight 15
Two. Howard Gill: Baltimore’s Privileged Birdman 41
Three. Arch Freeman: Pioneer Flying’s Man Friday 61
Four. Grover Bergdoll: Early Aviation’s Loose Cannon 75
Five. George Gray: Flying the Resort Circuit 95
Six. Howard Rinehart: Orville’s Favorite 123
Epilogue 157
Appendix A: Wright Timeline 163
Appendix B: Wright Aircraft 167
Appendix C: Students of the Wright Flying School 172
Bibliography 175
Index 187
v
For Judy
PREFACE
During the heyday of the Wright Company, the Wright-Martin Aircraft Com-
pany, and the Dayton-Wright Aircraft Company (1909–1923), Dayton, Ohio, was
the nation’s Cradle of Aviation and fairly teemed with skilled craftsmen and daring
pilots, the former who constructed the Wrights’ gossamer planes at their spartan work
stations and the latter who flew these craft on a daily basis as exhibition, instruc-
tional, test, and acceptance flyers for their respective companies, all of whose names
have since dipped below history’s radar screen. By today’s standards their labor may
seem hopelessly rudimentary and their machines downright primitive; but for them,
every day dawned as a learning experience and, more important, as an adventure.
It was at this critical stage in aviation history, when early laboratory and on-site
experimentation was giving way to the equally challenging realities of aircraft
refinement and more sophisticated line production, that the individuals who appear
in my book made their mark. For nearly a decade, while the Wrights searched for
markets at home and overseas for their aircraft and defended their patent rights against
a bevy of perceived interlopers, these aerial pioneers, as former Wright students and,
in several instances, subsequent employees, worked tirelessly to spread the gospel of
flight. Their active involvement in numerous air-minded organizations, publications,
and national and international competitive meets would bring home the possibilities
of aviation to many of their countrymen and a phalanx of enthusiasts abroad. For-
tunately, several of them would survive near fatal crashes during their incipient careers
to witness remarkable changes in aeronautical advancement such as the transition of
aircraft control from the wing warping process to the use of ailerons, the adoption
of improved power plants, research into new engine fuels, the introduction of
retractable landing gear and ground-to-air communication, and many additional
improvements too numerous to mention here.
The six unsung individuals I have chosen to profile in this study are more than
representative of the entire Wright student body in terms of biographical interest and
aeronautical accomplishment. These colorful Simms Station alumni include Russian
immigrant Arthur L. Welsh for his fine work as an early flight instructor and a pro-
moter not only of Wright machines but of the public’s understanding and accept-
ance of flight as a practical everyday phenomenon; Howard W. Gill, the beneficiary
1
2 Preface
of wealth and social position, whose reputation as pioneer aviation’s devoted patron,
publicist, and pilot has been sadly overlooked; New York native Archibald Freeman,
who made headlines as this country’s early architect and demonstrator of strategic
bombing; Grover C. Bergdoll, whose brilliant early career as America’s leading ama-
teur flyer presented such a shining prologue to an otherwise tragic life; George
Alphonso Gray, whose multifaceted career as a skilled exhibition flyer, test pilot, and
flight instructor only begins to describe his amazing contributions to aviation; and
Howard Max Rinehart, a true twentieth century adventurer whose exploits beggar
the imagination, ranging from his Dayton days as barnstormer and test pilot for
Orville—with a foray into revolutionary Mexico as flyer-of-choice in Pancho Villa’s
pathetic air force—to his time in Brazil as an explorer and a consultant to the Roo-
sevelt administration’s Rubber Development Corporation during World War II.
Without question, the
selection process was difficult,
and my attempts at tracing
careers and major flying
records—which were seem-
ingly set and broken on a rou-
tine basis—were even more
daunting. As stated earlier,
despite the fact that the half
dozen pioneer flyers profiled in
this book came from dissimi-
lar backgrounds, taken collec-
tively they, in my judgment,
fairly represented their 113 fel-
low alumni in so many ways
and were therefore my picks.
Their common characteristics
as pilots included an all-con-
suming love of flying; a supe-
rior intelligence coupled with
a near genius for mechanical
innovation; overweening self-
confidence; obsessive-compul-
sive behavior; a superb
knowledge of the aircraft of
the day; a dash of sardonic
fatalism in their otherwise
optimistic outlook on life;
restlessness; a gritty persist-
The Wright Flying School Brochure (Wilbur & Orville
ence; a somewhat irascible
Wright Collection, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). temperament (varying in
Preface 3
degree) which did not suffer fools lightly; and an absolute devotion to their instruc-
tors and the Wrights.
In the preparation of this book I discovered that the contemporary primary
sources and the rich store of secondary works were barely sufficient to keep abreast
of the nomadic and often irregular lifestyles of these engaging personalities. A few of
the Wright airmen, aside from their commitments to the firm, moonlighted on the
side in various enterprises, and even flew random exhibition dates on their own, risk-
ing violation of the brothers’ patent infringement policies, which not only limited
their use of Wright aircraft to company purposes but also forbade them contractu-
ally from flying competitive machines as well.
There were other research hurdles to overcome. Since flying school operators
and the exhibition team coexisted during 1910–1911, what few instructors there were
often filled one capacity or the other. The “road pilots,” as Orville referred to his
exhibition performers, were constantly fulfilling engagements across America, and
what we know about them is limited to select sources, such as correspondence between
the Wrights’ manager, Roy Knabenshue, and his itinerant birdmen concerning flying
dates, aircraft malfunctions and crashes, hotel bookings, and personnel complaints.
Back in Dayton, documentation is equally circumscribed regarding some of these same
individuals who also flew as instructors, test pilots, or demonstration and acceptance
flyers. Tattered instructional logbooks are great artifacts and acceptable predictors of
an early flyer’s potential, but they reveal little about the personality, character, or moti-
vations behind the subject’s decision to make the pilgrimage to Simms Station.
Conversely, scrapbooks, reminiscences, memoirs, and especially hometown and
national newspapers afforded me a peek into the private lives of my subjects. These
sources answered many questions I had about the formative years of these early flyers
and, more important for the focus of this work, their crowded lives following Simms
Station. The issues of a flyer’s youth, parental and spousal support or opposition,
divorces and breaches of promise legal filings resulting from divorce, and other low
points in one’s flying career such as poor pay, few benefits, the inability to keep one’s
own winnings, and the loss of compatriots, all factored into what it meant to be not
only a pioneer flyer, but a Wright flyer as well.
Many friends and colleagues read versions of this book in manuscript form, and
I am grateful for their suggestions and support. In particular, special thanks to Dr.
Mary Anne Whelan, daughter of Bernard L. Whelan, for her invaluable advice, for
the use of her father’s wonderful diary, and for her family’s extraordinary pictures of
Howard Rinehart and Arch Freeman. My new Aussie friend (American by birth), Rob
Grant, has afforded me much welcome material on, and photographs of, his great-
uncle, Howard Rinehart, and his beautiful wife, Miriam Dove Rinehart. I am also
indebted to the archival staffs of the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space
Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Special Services Division, Research Branch, Wright-
Patterson AFB, Ohio; Special Collections and Archives, Dunbar Library, Wright State
University, Dayton, Ohio; the Historical Collection, Kettering University; Univer-
sity Archives, Roesch Library, the University of Dayton; the Manuscripts Division