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Monday, March 4, 2019
Page #13
Texas History Minute The twentieth century opened up a new frontier for innovation and adventure: the skies. With the first successful Dr. Ken airplane flight of Bridges Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903, airplanes began making rapid advances that would change transportation forever. Aviation had come to stay, and Texas would play an important early role. Two pilots in particular, Louis Paulhan of France and American army pilot Ben Foulois, would make Texas an important center in aviation as they completed the first airplane flights in the state.
Foulois eventually became head of Sam Houston, the army’s first aviation squadron. As the number the army air corps and retired as a major general in 1935 and lived his of pilots grew, by March 1914, the Aviation Section of the Signal later years on the grounds of Corps was established within the Andrews Air Force Base before his death in 1967. army. Eventually, aviation separated into its own branch. By Today, aviation continues to a large the end of 1915, the squadron role in the state’s economy, from consisted of 300 pilots and support technicians and more than both military and civilian efforts. Texas today is home to some of the fifty aircraft, mostly scattered Martin T tractor planes, Curtiss R- busiest airports in the world, boasts aerospace manufacturing firms, and 2 biplanes, and Curtiss JN-3 “Jenny” biplanes.
When raiders under Pancho Villa attacked the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, the squadron was reassigned from San Antonio to Columbus in order to assist Gen. John J. Pershing’s punitive raid into Mexico. However, the was still so primitive Paulhan was a jovial French aviator technology and reliability so limited that the who took the world by storm. He planes were shipped to New was one of the first ten licensed Mexico by train. The planes were pilots in France and one of only a used mostly for reconnaissance handful around the globe. In a purposes and for relaying short time, he became one of the to the different units best in the world. In January 1910, messages under Pershing’s he broke his own record by flying at Though the planescommand. faced serious an altitude of more than 4,000 feet problems because of the thin at a California air show. Later that mountain air, the squadron was year, he would complete the longest successful in their reconnaissance flight to that time: more than four hours in the air. Huge crowds came efforts. to see him flying an airplane, the World War I created a massive new technological wonder, as he in aviation in the state. The brought his air show to Texas. And surge air station at Ft. Sam Houston on February 18, 1910, he completed expanded rapidly and became an important milestone in Texas Kelly Field. Love Field, then just History: he completed the first north of Dallas, was established successful airplane flight in the by the army in 1917 as a training state. And he had only learned to center for army pilots. That same fly a plane the year before. year, Call Field opened in Wichita as an army flight school. Most of the early advances in Texas Falls The University of Texas offered aviation would come from the classes in radio and aviation to military. The army quickly became cadets. British pilots also came to interested in airplanes and worked Texas for training, as Pershing with Orville and Wilbur Wright for invited the Royal Flying Corps to pilot training and purchasing establish flight schools in the airplanes. United States. Royal Flying Corps cadets from England and Lt. Ben Foulois, a Connecticut Canada trained at Camp native whose first flight was with Taliaferro in Fort Worth starting Wilbur Wright in 1909, was in 1917 and set up three small ordered to Ft. Sam Houston in San airfields across Tarrant County for Antonio in 1910 with a Wright new pilots: Hicks Field near Model A Military Flyer for Saginaw, Barron Field near experimental flights. It was the and Benbrook Field just only plane the army even had at the Everman, north of Benbrook. Through time. Foulois later quipped that for these training centers, Allied air a time he was the entire United power expanded rapidly, but most States Air Force. Just a month after closed in the years after the war Paulhan’s groundbreaking flight, ended. Foulois completed the first successful military airplane flight in Though the federal government Texas on March 2, 1910. He made experimented with delivery of the four brief flights that day, mail as early as 1911, regular air accidentally crashing the plane on mail service did not begin until one flight. After repairing the May 1918. Texas air mail routes plane, Foulois had a seat belt not become available until installed as well, noting the need for would the mid-1920s. Meanwhile, pilot safety. aviation continued to expand Texas in spite of post-war The somewhat centralized position across military cutbacks. The City of of Texas in comparison to the rest Dallas purchased Love Field from of the country, the mild climates, the army in 1927, and other cities and wide-open fields absent of began constructing their own air mountains or thick forests across fields while private aviation firms North and Central Texas were seen and passenger airlines began by aviators as great advantages for operating. early aircraft. Foulois began training new pilots. As the for Foulois and Paulhan, they Mexican Revolution swirled across As remained respected figures in the Texas border, the army was aviation. Both survived World employing pilots for reconnaissance War I as decorated war heroes. missions along the border as early Paulhan was a special guest on as 1911. Air France’s inaugural non-stop jet flight from Paris to Los The 1st Aero Squadron was in 1960. He lived quietly organized on March 5, 1913, at Fort Angeles in France until his death in 1963.
serves as the headquarters for some of the nation’s largest airlines. By 2017, after a century of flight, aviation had grown to a multibillion dollar industry in the state, employing more than 135,000 Texans. Dr. Bridges is a Texas native, writer, and history professor. He can be reached at drkenbridges@gmail.com.
