The Loughheed Years in Santa Barbara

NOTICIAS NOTIC IAS Journal Of The Santa Barbara Historical Museum

Vol. LIII

The Loughead Years in Santa Barbara

No. 4

T

HE AUTHOR: Brian Burd worked as a writer and staff photographer for the Lansing State Journal and the Ventura County Star Free Press for ten years. He also worked as a contributing photographer for the Associated Press and United Press International as well as for publications as diverse as the Encyclopedia Britannica, the National Enquirer, and The New York Times. Included in the numerous articles he has written for newspapers and academic journals is his piece on the history of Santa Barbara postcard photography he penned for Noticias in 2003. He is currently Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.

AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I wish to thank John Fritsche for his years of dedication to collecting material about the Loughead operation in Santa Barbara and for sharing his discoveries with me. My thanks to David Tambo, Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California Santa Barbara for facilitating access to the library’s fabulous Loughead archive and for publication of photographs from that archive. Finally, a special note of appreciation goes to my wife, Fran, for enduring the many days, nights, and weekends when I was so focused on this project.

All photographs are from the Richard A. Heath/Early Lockheed History Collection, SBHC – Mss 76 (designated Heath Collection) and the Joel Conway/Early California Aviation Photograph Collection, SBHC – Mss 79 (designated Conway Collection) archived at Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California Santa Barbara, unless noted otherwise. Front cover image is from a Loughead Aircraft Company promotional brochure (Heath Collection). Back cover image shows the undercarriage of the Lougheads’ F-1 seaplane (Heath Collection).

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS: NOTICIAS is a journal devoted to the study of the history of Santa Barbara County. Contributions of articles are welcome. Those authors whose articles are accepted for publication will receive ten gratis copies of the issue in which their article appears. Further copies are available to the contributor at cost. The authority in matters of style is the University of Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. The Publications Committee reserves the right to return submitted manuscripts for required changes. Statements and opinions expressed in articles are the sole responsibility of the author.

Michael Redmon, Editor Judy Sutcliffe, Designer © 2011 Santa Barbara Historical Museum 136 E. De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101 www.santabarbaramuseum.com Single copies $8.95 ISSN 0581–5916

The Loughead Years in Santa Barbara

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I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced skies on laughter-silvered wings…

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. —John Gillespie Magee, Jr.1

n t e earl ears of American aviation Allan Loughead repeatedly soared over Santa Barbara. Yet Loughead did not fly solo; political honchos, publicitycraving actresses, businessmen, European royalty, scientists, and regular folks with an adventurous streak all flew out over the ocean and back along the mountains with the Lougheads in their seaplanes. Flight came early to Santa Barbara and it was a passion that possessed many of our citizens and inspired them to dream and to invest.

While Allan and Malcolm Loughead, with consultation and help from their halfbrother Victor, built their first airplane in San Francisco, it was in Santa Barbara that they started the company that first bore the family name. The spelling of this name changed over time. When spelled in

Brian Burd

the original, “Loughead,” it was regularly mispronounced as “Luff-head,” “Lug-head,” “Lock-head” 2 or even “Log-head.” Victor, Malcolm, and Allan all eventually changed the spelling of their last names. Victor changed the spelling to Lougheed around 1900, Malcolm and Allan changed to Lockheed decades later. Only their parents kept the original spelling.

Over the next few decades the Lockheed name became synonymous with flight and aviation innovation in America. The Santa Barbara Loughead story also includes the brothers’ parents, John Loughead and his wife, the independent-thinking Flora Haines Loughead; a talented young draftsman named John K. Northrop; and a host of local notables composed of businessmen, civic boosters, self-promoters, adventurers, and dreamers.

The Lougheads ran their company principally from William Rust’s garage at 101 State Street and, between Allan and Malcolm, great ideas came to fruition

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126 at the drafting board of young John Northrop. The public was infatuated with flight. Barnstorming tours drew thousands.

Airfields often consisted of any available strip of land that did not have a cow or a tree in the middle. Planes were made of slivers of wood, strands of wire, linen stretched over the frame, and unreliable motors that frequently failed during flight.

Early efforts of aviation engineering and construction produced mere flights of imagination as often as they produced actual flying contraptions. Many early airplane designs never got off the ground, and that was often a better result for the pilot than the planes that experienced a single flight and ended in catastrophe. The fatality rate of early exhibition flyers was estimated by one aviation scholar to be as high as ninety percent.3 These early flyers were widely celebrated for their gutsy bravado – or foolhardiness, as others would put it. Their astonishing demonstrations appearing to defy the rules of gravity inspired everyone’s fantasy and ultimately boosted the development of the aircraft industry. That this industry might take root in Santa Barbara was exciting to the local population.

Early Aviation in the West The Los Angeles International Air Meet in January of 1910 is regarded as the first big aviation exhibition in the United States. Enormous publicity accompanied this event and the Loughead boys had to have been following the daily escapades of the flyers, as stories about the meet were in the newspapers of the times. In an area now inside the city of Carson, California, over 250,000 spectators turned out to examine flying devices, watch the deathdefying exhibitions, and meet the flyers.

The Wright brothers were there, but did not fly. They showed up to try to enforce their patent claims against some of the

builders. The Wrights were particularly incensed at Glenn Curtiss’ success and were convinced that he had infringed upon their patents. The Wright Company spent about $152,000 in legal fees pursuing Curtiss. In defending himself from the Wrights, Curtiss incurred expenses of about $175,000. The federal government ultimately negotiated a settlement that freed aviation builders, writers, and designers to focus on their aviation activities with less fear of being sued.4 William Randolph Hearst first flew at this meet in a plane piloted by Frenchman Louis Paulhan.

Allan and Malcolm Loughead were not the first aviators in Santa Barbara.

On May 25, 1911, French aviator Didier Masson flew his biplane from a field in Hope Ranch to a landing on the front lawn of the Potter Hotel, in what was likely the first flight over Santa Barbara. In early July of 1911, C.E. Cargill, identified as an “aerial impresario,” had put together another aerial demonstration. Spectators were directed to get to the airfield by taking the “Oak Park street car and get off where the car turns off Bath Street toward the park. Then walk a block north and a block east to Hollister Avenue, where the field is located.”5 Dwight Faulding, who had successfully flown a plane in the Los Angeles area while attending the Eaton Brothers’ flying school, was one of the scheduled flyers. Faulding had noted that he had “been lucky so far…

I just started in for myself, going up for the first time alone.” The other scheduled flyer was Jack Cannon. The field was not really an airfield but rather a rutted and unpredictable barley field with grain stacks scattered around. Cargill, in fact, became known as the “hayviator” because he had to race around moving half-ton stacks of barley from one place to another to try to accommodate the planes.6 Cannon got off the ground first and noted that, “This was one of the riskiest fields to fly from that

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Flora Haines Apponyi, c. 1879.

Although only in her mid-twenties, she was already a much-published author. She divorced her first husband, Charles Apponyi, in 1883 and married John Hurst Loughead a couple of years later.

Heath Collection

I’ve ever seen… It’s a case of fly or bust, for the ground is so rough that every foot you stay on it you are taking a big chance of smashing your machine.”7 Just two years later Masson was in the news again when he was apprehended

by United States authorities south of Tucson, Arizona, when he tried to take into Mexico a plane that had been dismantled into five crates piled onto a wagon drawn by four horses. Masson was suspected of trying to smuggle the plane across the border to help Mexican insurgents fighting in Sonora.

Successfully arguing that his only goal was testing his plane on the Mexican flatland, Masson was released.8 He traveled on, however, and signed on to fight with the forces of the revolutionary Pancho Villa and named his plane the Sonora in honor of the location of his base. While flying might have been his real passion the mercenary pay was also a powerful draw; $300 per month base pay, $50 per reconnaissance flight, $250 per bombing run, and $5,000 toward buying the plane.9 Masson dropped bombs on the Federalist ship, General Guerrero, in Guaymas Harbor. Around 150 pounds of bombs were dropped from 3,000 feet.

Despite Masson missing the target, it was reported that the captain of the ship realized his vulnerability and hightailed it out to sea.

This action is widely recognized as the first combat airstrike from an airplane.10 Soon Masson encountered heavy fire during his bombing runs and decided to “retire” from his mercenary work in Mexico after only a handful of flights.

Lincoln Beachey made a highly publicized flight on February 8, 1914, above Hope Ranch. Glenn Martin, another aviation pioneer, helped Beachey prepare his plane for what was dubbed the “Aerial Circus.” A special train ran from Santa Barbara to take spectators to see the flight.

Beachey was already a world-renowned flyer, setting various flight records. He was one of the featured award-winning stunt flyers at the 1911 International Air Show in Chicago, where he set an altitude record

128 by climbing in wide circles for nearly two hours until he ran out of fuel. He descended by gliding (a flying maneuver called at that time a volplane) until he touched down. His instruments showed that he had ascended to over 11,000 feet. His barnstorming in Santa Barbara, however, ended badly when he initiated a loop, lost control, and crashed on top of an oak tree, remarkably suffering only minor injuries.11 Key Players in the Loughead Story Flora Haines Lou ea utierre 1 1 Flora, mother of aviation pioneers Victor, Allan, and Malcolm, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was equipped with a strong will, a keen mind (she earned an A.B. from Lincoln University, a small school begun only a few years earlier by the local Presbyterian church, in 1872, while still in her teens), and an indefatigable sense of adventure. She was described as having “a pleasant face, gray eyes that are always dreamy with thought, a low, broad and full brow, a firm chin and mouth, and an ivory complexion, seldom tinged with even the faintest pink.”12 During her early years she lived in Illinois, Denver, San Francisco, and perhaps some smaller towns in California before coming to Santa Barbara in the early 1890s.

A prolific writer, researcher, and editor, Flora published over one hundred nonfiction and fiction books and short pieces.

Flora’s interests could not be pigeon-holed.

Her newspaper writing began in 1873, when she was only eighteen years old, for the Chicago Inter-Ocean and continued at several Denver newspapers during the mid1870s. Among the magazines she worked for were Argonaut, Drake’s Magazine, Chicago’s Current, and Overland Monthly.

She married Charles E. Apponyi in 1875.13 Apponyi was an architect and Hungarian immigrant who sometimes tried

NOTICIAS to pass himself off as European aristocracy.

They had three children: Mary Hope, Victor Rudolph, and John Haines (nicknamed “Nello,” he lived only from 1879 until 1884). Life was difficult during Flora’s marriage to Apponyi. He was away from the family for months at a time and wrote letters about the fine clothing, boots, guns, and other luxury goods he was purchasing for himself, while Flora and the children suffered near starvation. Rumors abounded about a possible affair Apponyi was having, perhaps involving bigamy. During this time notice of a scandalous incident appeared in a Livermore, California, newspaper describing the arrest of Apponyi and a Mrs. Hill for “tying to a tree a Negro girl they employed and beating her cruelly.”14 In an intensely personal handwritten scrapbook titled, My Children’s Book ; In which Mamma is trying to garner up the treasured recollections of their childhood and especially our darling Nello, to be left for the family after she died, Flora shares the despair she reached once when Apponyi was away from home: When Victor was ten months old mamma commenced the struggle for bread. There was no other resource. We were absolutely penniless and the wolf was at the door…

[W]ith a nursing baby at my breast – this story has never before been hinted to anyone. I do not want anyone to know of it until I am dead. Its details will never be told.

In October 1878 my husband went to Los Angeles and afterward to San Bernardino, where he did some work and sent home a little money – about two hundred and fifty dollars in all – the last he ever did for the support of his family.15 Flora eventually asked her parents for money and was grateful that they provided assistance without ever making a comment about her obviously desperate situation.

Flora took the children and fled to Wausau, Wisconsin, in late 1883 to stay with Ben

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Flora’s second child, Victor Rudolph, was adopted

by John Loughead and would take his surname.

Heath Collection.

James, the widower of her late sister, and assisted him in the care of his children.16 This also gave Flora a chance to keep herself and her children safe and to reassess her family’s future. Amidst lurid claims as early as 1878 of Apponyi hitting her and culminating with Apponyi threatening to kill himself and Victor, James assisted Flora in obtaining a divorce 1883.17 Despite the turmoil of these years, in 1878 Flora produced one of her earliest books, The Libraries of California; Containing Descriptions of the Principal Private and Public Libraries throughout the State. Her research for this book necessitated visiting with bibliophiles ranging from the established Hubert H. Bancroft to young men who were just starting with their own small collections. She sent a copy of this book to A.J. McGlumphy, the president of her alma mater, Lincoln University. He responded

129 that the book was “a demonstration that you have skill and genius as a writer. And I trust you will not lay your pen aside until you have given the world more from the rich treasures of your mind.”18 She observed in the foreword that books in the home were always a safeguard, providing protection for the child that wealth and objects could not buy and that, “Even if the young taste runs to impossible fairy tales and nonsensical stories, it is better to encourage it.”19 Only a couple of years after her divorce from Apponyi she returned to the San Francisco area and married John Hurst Loughead. Loughead adopted her children and fathered two additional children, Malcolm (1886), and Allan (1889). That the independent-minded Flora would remarry after the failure of her marriage to Apponyi was perhaps predictable from a line in her 1886 novel, The Man Who Was Guilty.

“Marriage is the manifest destiny of all women who are passably good-looking, free from melancholy, healthy, and of a well balanced mind…”20 All three of her boys who made it to adulthood were involved in aviation. All of the boys experienced a healthy dose of home schooling; Allan, for example, had no formal education past the eighth grade.

Much of Flora’s fictional writing seemed to be grounded in events in her own life.21 Her 1891 novel, The Abandoned Claim, brought her eight hundred dollars and won the McClure Award. In the novel she uses her daughter’s name, Hope, for the name of the main character and there is reference to a scurrilous husband that makes the reader wonder if she is writing about one of her own husbands, “…her worthless little husband had at length fallen a victim to the mania for strong drink that always possessed him.”22 One of the most popular of her novels, The Black Curtain (1898), was set in a “fine little valley in the Coast Range in Santa

130 Barbara County”23 – undoubtedly Santa Barbara, and featured a hero who was a painter with failing eyesight – undoubtedly at least partially based on her second husband. A reviewer at the time noted that Flora was “a woman who knows her corner of California better than most women – or men.”24 She worked for the San Francisco Chronicle intermittently between 1878 and 1909 and was on staff from 1898 to 1902. She also wrote for the San Francisco Examiner from 1890 to 1901, for Santa Barbara’s Independent, and many more. At one time she was in the stable of esteemed contributors to the Chronicle that included Bret Harte, Charles Frederic Holder, and Yda Addis. Flora was held in extremely high regard for the intelligence of her writing, the breadth of the fiction and non-fiction subjects she covered, and for the sensitivity of her writing. One early reviewer of her work noted that “she had spun silken fabrics in the shape of short stories, that have made a profound impression upon the minds of the public,” and “while the moral purpose is always kept cleverly in the background, yet it prevails unconsciously, in producing a sort of a stained-glass radiance of optimism.”25 Another commentator noted that she was among an elite corps of writers who had “done work of high importance in the world of American fiction.”26 In addition to scientific books and novels, Flora wrote a general housekeeping and cookbook, Quick Cooking; A Book of Culinary Heresies for the Busy Wives and Mothers of the Land, by One of The Heretics (1889). Her editing work included a book of Hebrew folk tales and a volume of the collected writings of California Associate Supreme Court Judge Oscar Lovell Shafter.27 Her 1896 article, “The Old California Vaquero” published in The Land of Sunshine magazine paired her story with the drawings of Edward Borein.28 In 1906 the San Francisco Chronicle sent her out to cover the earthquake and “assigned

NOTICIAS a car and driver plus a photographer.”29 Malcolm was coincidentally driving across the broken and debris-strewn streets of the city with loads of dynamite to help fight the fires.30 Anyone who knew Flora would have expected her to bravely and stoutly face the danger and hardship of the assignment. Twenty years earlier she had written that “San Francisco girls do not faint at the sight of blood or in the presence of danger.”31 Around 1908 Flora married her third husband, David Gutierrez, but had no children with him. Gutierrez was more than a decade younger than Flora. “It was a quick decision we made… when we got married,” Flora once commented. “I had intended that we wait a year before marrying, but circumstances were such that I had to decide in 15 minutes whether it would be yes or no.”32 Gutierrez was working as a hired hand picking grapes on the Alma, California, ranch Flora owned.

In many ways it is easy to imagine the connection that developed between whitehaired Flora and the younger Gutierrez.

Like Flora, Gutierrez had done many things; been a star local athlete, barber, wood cutter, a luthier, and a professional fiddler.

Gutierrez sported a black mustache and the physique of a fit and strong man. They had both lived lives of variety and their mutual interest in the arts likely made for a good fit. Their marriage did not last, however, and according to some accounts was as short as only a few months33 while other accounts give it several years duration.

In 1915 the Chronicle sent Flora, then sixty, hundreds of miles northeast into the mountains to do research for an article on opals and opal mining. Flora had a sound scientific foundation for this research, having written the small volume, The Natural Sciences: A Hand-book Prepared for the Use of Pacific Coast Students (1886). Flora fell in love with opals and purchased at least a dozen mine claims.34 Opals would be a

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS life-long passion for her. In 1916, in Santa Barbara, she met Mrs. Gardiner Hammond, a prominent member of local society and the wife of the Hammond organ company owner, at a social event. She eventually partnered with Mrs. Hammond, combining Hammond’s money and her mines to create the Rainbow Ridge Mining Company.35 Each opal mining season, usually the summer months, Flora would assemble a crew of four or five college students or out-of-work miners and have them driven to her Virgin Valley, Nevada, sites. Flora would manage the operations and cook for these salaried employees.36 Flora was quite a unique female character out in the mine fields. In addition to her rigorous mine work, in which she would sometimes walk twenty miles in a day to work a site, she also cared for burros, kept guinea fowl, and trapped coyotes and wolves. She also was well-known for a proclivity to fire warning shots with her 30-32 rifle towards strangers or would-be visitors with whom she did not want to speak. It is needless to say that when she was up at her diggings she did not have a lot of visitors.37 Despite all of her writing and publishing acclaim, Flora maintained such an ironwilled sense of privacy that even in the middle of her successful writing career it was written of her that, “She has many times refused to give her portrait to the public, and has not even been before the camera for years.”38 It was also written that Flora was “an indefatigable worker, seldom mingling in society… devoting herself to her family and her literary tasks.”39 o n Hurst Lou ea 1 0 1 21 The Canadian immigrant Loughead was an artist, portrait photographer, and actor who sometimes used the stage name of John Hurst. While living on the East Coast he occasionally acted with Edwin

131 Booth, brother of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The Booth brothers and Loughead were all members of Ward’s acting company. One division of the company was playing at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was assassinated, but Loughead was not a part of that show.

In 1870 Loughead moved to San Francisco to continue professional acting. When that failed he became the operator of a Polk Avenue hardware store that also sold paints and shades, continued acting as an amateur, and pursued artistic painting. John had a first marriage to a woman named Susan,40 but it is not known if they divorced or if Susan died. John and Flora married in 1886 and the family moved to Santa Barbara around 1891. A literary magazine of the era noted that Flora moved to Santa Barbara to find a “soft, equable climate beneficial to her invalid husband.41 The family lived in Mission Canyon where John worked at farming. Flora also supported the family with her writing. John and Flora separated, perhaps within a year of coming to Santa Barbara, and divorced. Allan, Jr., later recounted how his father “described kneeling over an old stump, with tears streaming down his face, and praying that John and Flora would stay together.”42 John and Flora continued on an apparently friendly basis for some years following the divorce. In 1899, while still living in Santa Barbara, John wrote Flora, who was then in San Francisco, that he was trying to take care of business matters in Santa Barbara and painting. He noted that he was using only “five-cent brushes,” and added that, “The children made me a Christmas present of a few 10-cent tubes [of paint], the canvas I picked up about the house, the pieces for frames, etc., came from the stable…I do not think it is advisable to let the public know that things are done on such economic principles as it may create a prejudice in the minds of some.”43 Describing his painting style, John wrote

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that, “I have abandoned a too-close copy of things or objects as they occur in nature. I have given the imagination greater play and yet have kept the subject well within the lines of natural effects aiming to reproduce a soft and hazy condition throughout the work.”44 John returned to the Berkeley area where he continued to paint.45 ictor u ol Lou ea 1 1 Victor was the older half-brother of Malcolm and Allan. Always inventive, Victor thought of a process for creating a carbon substitute for industrial diamonds while he was still a teenager.46 Sometime around 1900 Victor changed the spelling of his last name to Lougheed. In 1900 Victor was living in St. Louis, Missouri, working as a typewriter repairman, and telling the census enumerator that his father was born in Hungary.47 Victor was, like his mother, a prolific writer and during his early years contributed numerous articles to newspapers and magazines.48 Around 1902 Victor married Kate Calhoun, but they divorced in 1910. In June of 1915 Victor married Mabel Carlson, whom he described as “a little wildcat of the jungle when I found her, with youth, beauty, and brains in rarest degree – yet thoroughly and most appealingly feminine.”49 Under twenty years old when they married, she was also about twenty years his junior. That marriage was soon annulled after Victor discovered a lusty and explosive letter from another of Carlson’s suitors. In 1917, at age forty, Victor married Mary Hunter, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in Louisville, Kentucky. Allan Ledford, Flora’s grandson, recalls meeting Victor and Mary in 1919 and described her as a “very beautiful young girl.”50 Flora strongly voiced her displeasure with Victor’s action towards such a young girl, but the marriage endured.

By 1910 Victor was living in Chicago.

The U.S. Census record of that year,

Victor Loughead was the first of the brothers to make his mark in aviation. He published works in both the aviation and automotive fields and designed a highly regarded airplane engine. Heath Collection.

however, recorded his father’s birthplace as “unknown” and his mother’s birthplace as the generic “United States.”51 This leads to an interesting area of speculation.

Virtually all written accounts regard Victor as the son of Charles Apponyi and Flora and note that he was adopted

by Loughead and given his new family name. Yet why would Victor suddenly, at age thirty-two, appear to have such a memory loss? There is an unproven theory that Victor was actually Flora’s son by a brief relationship or marriage to a John Ketzler.52 A more likely explanation is that Victor decided to disassociate himself from his Apponyi heritage after

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS learning the details of how Apponyi treated his mother. Yet that does not explain his lack of specificity concerning his mother’s birthplace. Perhaps a simple explanation is that the enumerator talked to Victor’s wife who did not know the details of Victor’s family.

In 1911 Victor designed an airplane motor that was widely regarded as one of the most revolutionary designs of the era. The Taft-Pierce Lougheed V-8 motor was made from Krupp chrome nickel steel at a cost of $15,000. The cylinders and crankcase were turned from single blocks of hardened metal. The extraordinary cost of labor and materials made mass production impractical. Although it was never run, the engine is in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.53 Victor ultimately noted that his motor was “never put on the market because of its cost and lack of funds.”54 Victor was almost certainly an attendee, or even a participant, in the 1911 International Aviation Meet that took place at Chicago’s Grant Park. There he would have seen Beachey set his altitude record.

Victor was the first of the Lougheads to achieve prominence in the new air frontier.

Victor’s early Motor-Car Handbook, published in 1905, was a must-have by automobile travelers. It was followed by 1908’s How To Drive an Automobile. His first aeronautical publication was Vehicles of the Air: A Popular Exposition of Modern Aeronautics, with Working Drawings (1909) – a publication likely made possible by the settlement between the Wrights and Curtiss – and the best-selling technical book on aviation for about ten years.55 It was followed by the 1912 Aeroplane Designing for Amateurs; A Plain Treatment of the Basic Principles of Flight Engineering – including Heretofore Unpublished Facts Concerning Bird Flight and Aerodynamic Phenomena. Also in 1912 Victor authored an article in Popular Mechanics discussing

133 the aerodynamics of birds’ wings. The principles were illustrated with drawings of wings showing how the wind flows over the surface of the wing. That article also had a photograph of a cut cross-section of a pelican’s wing embedded in a block of paraffin to show its actual shape.56 Malcolm Lou ea 1 1 In 1913 Malcolm traveled to Hong Kong with a Curtiss biplane and the intent of establishing an airplane dealership. The British Royal Navy intercepted the plane as contraband and Malcolm was forced to abandon the enterprise. Malcolm ended up in Mexico upon his return and spent a short stint as the “chief engineer” for the single-plane air force of the government of President Venustiano Carranza, who was fighting Pancho Villa and his army.

Didier Masson and Malcolm worked for opposite sides in the conflict, yet they had to have known one another. Even more intriguing is the accusation that pilots in the Mexican Revolution took turns using a single plane to bomb both sides so that both pilots could collect the combat flyer’s pay from their respective sides.57 A pilot might have gone out, for example, and not returned for a long time, during which time he would have loaned his plane to his buddy pilot. Upon his tardy return the first pilot would fabricate a plausible excuse. There are no records specifically linking Malcolm to this practice, but there were few planes and pilots in Mexico and the size of the mercenary paycheck would certainly have been an inducement for such ruthless activity.

In May of 1918 Malcolm married Eunice Watts of Chicago, the sister of Allan’s wife, Dorothy. Eunice had been in Santa Barbara for about a year visiting her sister. Despite the brothers’ craving of publicity for their company, their personal actions were kept relatively private. Only a

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Malcolm Loughead (sixth from left) and stunt pilot Didier Masson (seventh from left) flew for opposing sides during the civil war which raged in Mexico, c. 1916. Heath Collection.

handful of people attended the ceremony at the home of Allan, and then the newlyweds left for a motoring vacation. llan Haines Lou ea 1 1 Born in Niles, California, near Mission San JosĂŠ de Guadalupe, Allan was a sickly child who never finished grammar school.

His youth was divided between Santa Barbara, the Oakland/San Francisco area, and Alma, California at the family farm.

Allan was soon reading all the publications he could find that covered aviation. By 1910 Allan, like Victor, had been working for a distributor of White automobiles; he then took a job in Chicago as a mechanic for a man owning a glider and a Curtiss pusher airplane. Allan failed at attempting to retrofit an engine into the glider and instead, concentrated on improving the flying capabilities of another plane. In the course of dealing with balky engines and

mechanical failures, Allan taught himself to fly.

After surviving a crash in Chicago, Allan married Dorothy Watts. In 1911 Allan became a barnstormer flying exhibition circuits in the Midwest. During one exhibition his plane crashed and was totally destroyed, yet he again walked away.

In 1912 Allan left Chicago and returned to San Francisco with his own design for a new airplane. Allan, Malcolm, and Max Mamlock, operator of the Alco Cab Company, joined in forming the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company to build the Model G seaplane. This company was active for only about a year.

Allan Loughead became a barnstorming pilot in Illinois, c. 1911. Pictured is the aftermath of a crash he suffered during that time; amazingly, he walked away unscathed. Heath Collection.

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136 o n

ort ro 1 1 Northrop was born in New Jersey in 1895 and moved with his parents to Santa Barbara in 1904. As a teenager the towheaded58 Northrop watched French aviator Masson assemble his plane and fly it across Santa Barbara. It was later written that the experience inspired Northrop to pursue a career in aviation.59 Northrop graduated from Santa Barbara High School in 1913 and took a three-month working stint on a cattle ranch in Maui. Following his return Northrop did a little work for his father’s contracting business,60 some drafting for architect Winsor Soule, and automobile repairs in the garage of William Rust. He was also known to have collected stale bread from Bradley’s bakery to feed to sea gulls so he could study their flight.61 Northrop later recounted that in 1916 he was so nervous about applying for employment with the Lougheads that he paced back and forth on State Street before “he summoned up courage” to go in and ask them for a job.62 He later recounted, 1

nu sen

When I got the job I found that they really had no engineering, as such. They were building a float for a seaplane, but there were no layout drawings of the airplane – it was just being built by “guess and by golly.” I was given the job of designing the wing truss. I hardly felt I was qualified, but at least the wings didn’t come off.

Fortunately I knew enough about math, stress, structures and strength of materials.63 At the beginning, at least, his work area was pretty Spartan.

I had a drafting board over in the corner and a T-square and triangle, and did what engineering was done. I calculated the stresses, the wing loadings, and what size the brace wires should be because neither of the Loughead brothers was capable of doing it.

Anyhow, it worked.64

John Northrup’s graduation picture, Santa Barbara High School, 1913.

Northrop was to become an invaluable figure in the Lougheads’ aviation efforts. In 1917, in the middle of a terrific workload and with the World War ongoing, Northrop found time to fall in love. In January of 1918 he married Inez Harmer, daughter of Alexander F. Harmer, one of the most prominent artists in the west. They were married in Hollywood.

The Early Years Around 1891, Flora, John, and the children moved to Santa Barbara where she hoped “to find the soft, equable climate beneficial to her invalid husband.”65 For nearly the next decade the family lived in Laurel Canyon, just above Foothill Road.66,67 Allan and Malcolm were well-known for the hours they “wasted” flying kites along the Santa Barbara seashore in the 1890s.68 It was likely this time spent blending the science of “flight” with engineering and construction techniques that inspired all three boys to

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS go into various avenues of aeronautics. In 1909 Victor addressed the importance of observing birds in flight, “For in nature’s mechanisms of flight must exist answers to all the problems of flying, awaiting for their discovery only the analyses and applications of sufficiently persevering and painstaking investigators.”69 The Loughead boys’ engineering interests were also undoubtedly tickled with a Mr. Gates’ bizarre contraption dubbed, “The Snail.” Gates’ invention was described as a cross “between an old-fashioned steam locomotive, a truck, and a handcar”70 that he used to ferry massive loads from Stearns Wharf to his Bath Street business. “The Snail” left deep impressions in the street from its geared wheels, could pull as many as twenty wagon loads of supplies at a time, and was boisterous enough to scare nearby horses. This large, hissing, puffing, noisy machine would have been enthralling to boys on State Street with a bent for engineering.

During the second week of April 1893, Santa Barbara’s Floral Festival was in full bloom and the Loughead children joined other families in participating in the activities. Hope, Malcolm, and Allan joined Anita Sullivan and her brother; Minnie Smith and her brother; and Wilbur Spence as children on a parade float christened, “Old Woman In the Shoe.” Mrs. John Spence was in charge of the float and likely had the role of the “old woman.”71A photograph of the float became popular at the time and about ten years later was turned into a postcard.

One of the earliest engineering collaborations between Malcolm and Allan took place when both were pre-teens, perhaps while living in the Oakland area. They attached four bicycle wheels to a platform, erected a mast and sail, and “sailed” around the streets causing consternation among the horses.72 Within a few years both boys were accomplished mechanics, and both

137 raced cars, sometimes against such notable drivers as Eddie Rickenbacker and Barney Oldfield.73 Around 1902 Flora and the children left Santa Barbara and moved to a thirtyfive-acre fruit ranch and vineyard near Alma, California. She carried the family financially with the sale of fruit from her ranch – primarily grapes and prunes – and with her writing and editing.

The early 1900s found Victor, Malcolm, and Allan moving around, sometimes living in the same cities, working with automobiles, and especially becoming involved with aviation. Although there is no record of formal three-way collaboration, the boys talked and wrote one another about aviation and engineering. Numerous letters exist in which they reveal ongoing engineering consultation with one another.74 In 1904 Malcolm became an engine mechanic for White automobiles in San Francisco and Allan would later say that it was during this time that Malcolm initially came up with his idea for hydraulic braking,75 although it would be another ten years before he would sketch his design. Allan went to San Francisco in 1906 and found work in a shop soldering and doing repairs on all sorts of mechanical devices. 1909 found all three brothers in San Francisco with Victor arriving to work with White automobiles and trucks. The excitement and challenges of aviation had gotten into the blood of all three young men. Victor’s employer also owned a glider and a motored biplane, which no doubt fed his passion for aviation and keyed his early writings on airplanes.

By 1910, Allan’s mechanical skills and adventuresome spirit had him working for Corbin automobiles in San Francisco and driving a race car. Word of Allan’s mechanical skills with engines clearly got as far as Chicago as Victor’s boss, James Plew, hired Allan as a mechanic for his two airplanes. Allan joined the fledgling Aero Club of Illinois upon his arrival and

138 got his first flight that summer as a copilot for George Gates, operating some of the controls of Gates’ small home-made plane with a home-built four-cyclinder engine.

Later in 1910 Allan had a chance to solo in one of Plew’s planes. Other pilots could not get the balky plane off the ground but Allan made bets all around that he could get it airborne. He made numerous changes to the structure of the plane, and reworked and fine-tuned the engine for maximum horsepower. From a small snowy race track, with marshes at the edges, Allan got the plane off the ground, circled and landed without crashing. Later in the day Allan made a second jerky short flight. Years later he described the experience, “It was partly nerve, partly confidence, and partly damn foolishness… But I was now an aviator.”76 It was probably after this flight that Allan had a fortuitous meeting with Anthony “Tony” Stadlman, an early aviation enthusiast born in Kourim, Bohemia (later part of Czechoslovakia), who came to America in 1905. Stadlman became enamored of flight while growing up in Europe and took every opportunity to observe flyers. He enrolled in the Chicago School of Aviation but was surprised to learn that before you could fly you had to build your own plane. Most of the students washed out because of that requirement but Stadlman’s machinist background and engineering skills allowed him to build a plane based on sketches he had seen of a Curtiss aircraft. In January 1911, he went to the Hawthorne Racetrack in Chicago to watch two flyers try to get a plane up.

Only one flyer was able to safely do so and Stadlman recounted the story, These daredevils tossed a coin to see who went first. The first flyer barely got off the ground – a hop or two, then the plane sputtered to a stop. But the second flyer took off with verve and made a beautiful circling flight. As he landed, we all dashed to the ship to shake

NOTICIAS the hand of this daring young and successful conqueror of the sky. It was the handshake that was to last fifty-seven years. His name was Allan H. Loughead.77 “It was not a good way to learn,” Stadlman later recounted. “Cost many airplanes and many pilots. But it was the only way in the early days.”78 Another would-be aviator wanted to take the same plane up that day, but Allan was afraid the flyer was not competent, so he surreptitiously pulled a spark plug wire.

The other pilot, unfortunately, discovered the ruse, reconnected the wire and took off.

Seconds later the plane was destroyed in a crash. The terrified would-be pilot survived but it is not known if he ever piloted again.

In 1911 Plew bought a plane to replace the one just wrecked. Allan took it up on a cold January day only to crash nose-first.

Afraid the engine mounted behind the seat might come crashing through and kill him – not uncommon in early flights – Allan pitched himself out of the seat at the last moment and escaped with only bruises.

Following the crashes of his two planes Plew took a brief respite from aviation and Allan returned to automobile engine repair. But soon the aviation bug returned to Plew, and Allan was hired to repair Plew’s two wrecked airplanes. On the day the two planes returned to duty Allan flew successfully, but Dan Kraemer, the pilot of the other plane, was killed in a crash.

Plew had had enough and quit the aviation business.

In an ironic twist of fortune, Allan achieved too much success in the summer of 1911. He agreed to pilot a plane at an air show benefit to raise money for the widow of Dan Kraemer. A brand new Curtiss-style biplane was on the field; one that had not yet been assembled, whose engine had never been turned over, with a propeller that had never been stressed. Allan assembled the plane and successfully flew

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Allan and Malcolm made a number of triumphant flights of their new Model G seaplane around San Francisco Bay in 1913. Conway Collection.

around the course.79 Allan did a majestic job of smoothly handling the plane in its very first flight and concluding without putting a single scratch on the new varnish. His flight was the picture of perfection. The operators of the airfield were so terrified by Allan’s apparent easy success that they grounded him for five days because they were afraid his flying mastery might inspire others to attempt what he had just done.80 Allan took a job as a flight instructor despite having little more than an hour of time aloft. When that job did not really pan out he took a job piloting a barnstormer.

One night the plane was left out in the rain at an Illinois railway depot and got soaked.

This caused some of the glue on the linen skin to loosen and the plane also became much heavier from absorbing water. Flying a waterlogged plane in miserable weather and with very limited visibility, he crashed spectacularly into some telegraph lines, survived, and secured a photographer to take photos of the wrecked plane hanging in the

wires. That was the end of barnstorming for Allan, but the beginning of a brilliant career publicizing his aviation activities. Melding all the experience he had had working on planes, piloting, and studying the wrecks that he had seen and the ones he had been in, he started formulating plans for a plane of his own design.

Introducing the Model G Allan returned to San Francisco and persuaded Malcolm to join him in developing his new Model G seaplane. Several stories have always circulated regarding where the Model G designation originated. One story claims that Allan made several designs and assigned sequential letters, finally selecting this “G” design as his best. Years later, however, Allan related that, “We called it the Model G because we did not want people to think it was our first airplane.”81,82 Investors were likely to be more impressed if the Model G was at least their seventh design.

140 By day both men worked as mechanics, and at night and on weekends they planned and built their Model G. Because they could only work part-time on the plane it took about eighteen months to finish.83 The plane was an amalgam of numerous features that Allan and Malcolm had learned over their years of flying, tinkering, and studying flight and the designs of others; a “steering” wheel was attached to a stick controlling multiple functions including the rudder, the ailerons, and the elevators, a tail design was incorporated that had been developed by the French, and a frontmounted engine referred to as a “tractor type” (think of how a farm tractor has the engine in front of the driver instead of behind). The only instrument was a tachometer to show engine revolutions.

The Model G was large for its time with a forty-six-foot wingspan, thirty-foot length and weighing about a ton.

Instrumental to the project was $4,000 cash invested by Max Mamlock, owner of San Francisco’s Alco Cab Company. The new company was called the Alco HydroAeroplane Company. It merged Mamlock’s money with Allan’s and Malcolm’s skills and labor. The cash investment was almost certainly the result of Allan’s ability to persuade individuals to invest their money in his ideas. In one of the first days of flying the new Model G, Allan managed to get four flights completed before the afternoon winds could kick up over San Francisco Bay. Malcolm was a passenger for a twenty-minute flight that circled the bay, Alcatraz, and roared over the city. In an example of his promotional skills, Allan soon flew a “prominent society woman of San Francisco” low over the Siberia, a Pacific Mail liner.84 The San Francisco Call, however, was not nearly so coy about the identity of the society woman that flew out and around Alcatraz and circled the Siberia. “Mrs. John D. Spreckels, Jr. has taken to aviation and

NOTICIAS is an enthusiastic admirer of the dangerous sport.”85 Mrs. Spreckels was ecstatic with her flight, telling the Call, “I felt as if I were a part of the machine itself. I didn’t have the slightest fear in the world. I was just like a bird skimming over the heads of the people hundreds of feet beneath me… I am going to make another trip very soon.”86 Her flight had been arranged by another member of San Francisco’s social elite, Ferdinand Theriot, who was a flying student of the Lougheads.

Theriot himself brought attention to the Lougheads when he had them fly him from San Francisco’s Laguna Street to a water landing near Burlingame so he could attend a church festival.87 All of this attention was exactly what Allan had desired.

The Lougheads had arrived as real aviators with a real company. A minor bit of damage at the conclusion of a successful passenger trip, however, caused the plane to be stuck in storage for a couple of years while Allan redesigned and rebuilt some parts.

During this time Mamlock reconsidered wanting to be involved in aviation and the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company ceased to operate. The brothers headed into the California hills to gold prospect and were successful in supplementing their income and in earning enough money to buy the plane from Mamlock.

It was during one of Malcolm’s gold mining expeditions in December of 1914 that he took the time to finally draw up the diagrams for his hydraulic braking system and send the sketches to Allan. He wrote that he hoped Allan could understand the drawings as all he “had was a knife and a water glass as drawing instruments.” Malcolm also wrote that he thought the idea “would sell easily to one of the companies that are advertising new features, like the Cadillac, Co.”88 Allan wrote back, “You have a million dollar idea.”89 The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco presented the next lucky break for Allan and Malcolm. Flight was quite the rage at

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The aviation Loughead brothers, left to right, Malcolm and Allan, aboard their F-1 seaplane. Heath Collection.

the exposition and exhibitions as well as passenger flights were offered. Art “Bird Boy” Smith entertained crowds with his solo barnstorming routines. One of Smith’s stunts was to attach lights to the wing-tips of his plane and fly dizzying patterns at night. Time-lapse photography captured the light as threads of light corkscrewing and looping across the nighttime sky.90 Lincoln Beachey, who had wowed crowds in Hope Ranch just a year earlier before flopping onto an oak, had a contract to provide fairgoers thrilling displays of daredevil flying. Beachey by this time had become one of the best-known flyers in the world, possibly having flown before as many as 20,000,000 spectators.91 He’d managed over one hundred loops at a time, had survived many crashes, and had once retired from

flying due to the terrific loss of life among friends trying to replicate his adventures.92 At the time of his brief retirement Beachey had bitterly commented that, “I am through with flying. You couldn’t get me into an aeroplane again at the point of a revolver. I am convinced that the only thing that draws crowds to see me is the morbid desire to see something happen.

They call me the Master Birdman, but they pay to see me die.”93 But the adrenaline, the challenges, and the money drew him back. A PPIE crowd estimated at over 50,000 heard Beachey screaming as he plunged to his death when the wings of his plane buckled during a steep dive. A good portion of the crowd continued to watch for the two hours Navy divers needed to recover his body. Many of

142 the men in the crowd removed their hats as Beachey’s body was brought to the surface.

His death at the exposition ironically came from drowning as he was unable to extricate himself from the mangled frame and tangled wires of his plane.

The Lougheads had bid on the opportunity to be the concessionaire to give exposition goers chances to fly, but Bob Fowler won the slot. Fowler was a prominent early American aviation pioneer renowned for his coast-to-coast flight of 1911 (California to Florida), piloting for the first motion pictures from an airplane in 1912,94 and for the first non-stop transcontinental flight in 1913 across the Isthmus of Panama.

Fowler’s plane crashed on its first flight at the Exposition95 so the Lougheads took over the concession. The Model G turned out to be a reliable and solid flyer.

It never crashed during its entire run at the exposition. The Lougheads’ flights did not engage in any daredevil antics and consisted basically of a large gentle loop around the area of the exposition. But some attendees could never be persuaded to fly under any circumstances. Exposition luminary Henry Ford, for example, exclaimed that “[T]here wasn’t enough money in the whole State of California to get him off the ground in anybody’s airplane.” He added the he would “do everything in his power to make certain that Mr. [Thomas] Edison would also refuse an invitation.”96,97 In less than two months the brothers earned $4,000 profit from hundreds of tenminute tourist rides. About six hundred paying patrons and, as Allan later noted, “about an equal number of free-loaders,”98 safely flew with the Lougheads.99 That money allowed them to move back to Santa Barbara in 1916 where they believed that clearer weather and calmer ocean waters would be supportive of flying and of their new airplane manufacturing business. The new business was christened the “Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company.”

NOTICIAS Ramping Up for the Santa Barbara Years Even before the Lougheads had established a business or built an airplane here, they were lobbying the local business and political powerbrokers to support them by building a launching ramp. This schmoozing process began while the plane was still being reassembled from its shipping crates.100 “Tractor hydrobiplane” rides could be only days off, the Lougheads said, if the city would commit to building a ramp.101 Launching and beaching the plane on sand required lots of muscle and a large crew whereas a ramp would greatly ease the operation, perhaps allowing only a single man to handle the plane. The proposed ramp would consist of sixteen piles, some planking, and would cost around $250.

The brothers skillfully played the local leaders by dangling before them the possibility that the ramp would entice private flyers to come here, would boost tourism, and could support the establishment of an aeronautics manufacturing business in Santa Barbara.102 The Morning Press noted that, “Two of the beaches near Los Angeles are bidding for the attraction, but the boys find conditions here superior and much prefer this location.”103 On Saturday, May 20, 1916, Allan and Malcolm made their first flight out of Santa Barbara. It was not without some anxiety. While they struggled to get the plane oriented in the ocean, a breaker clipped the tip of the propeller breaking off a small piece. Undaunted by the minor damage the brothers took the plane up and came back to a loud ovation.104 Beach crowds ranging from one thousand to six thousand witnessed the early Loughead flights. City leaders recognized the obvious potential of the seaplane and supported actions to make the operation run more smoothly.

On May 21, the Lougheads returned to the air with a replacement propeller.

The first passenger of the Loughead era

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS in Santa Barbara was Peverill Meigs, after whom Meigs Road is named, and the second passenger was his daughter Leonora.

Because the replacement propeller did not offer as much power as the original propeller the Lougheads limited the weight of the plane to only the pilot and one passenger.

The original propeller had been designed and manufactured by the Lougheads in San Francisco and loaned to Silas Christofferson for his American record setting altitude flight over Mt. Whitney in 1914.105 During May the effort to build the ramp became serious with meetings between the Lougheads and various city and business leaders. K.B. McCarthy, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Finance Committee, was appointed to head the ramp fundraising effort. McCarthy arranged for the Chamber of Commerce to supply planking, Santa Barbara Gas & Electric to donate planking, and the street railway company to donate labor. One of the remaining questions before the Santa Barbara City Park Commission was the inconvenience caused to horse riders who would be forced to make a fifty-foot detour around the ramp.106 This problem was apparently quickly resolved, and it was reported on May 30, 1916, that the first donation had been made; twentyfive dollars from the local Flying A movie studio.107 The Lougheads continued to crank up the pressure on city leaders over the construction of the ramp when, at the end of May, they claimed there would no more flights until the ramp was built.108 The Morning Press wrote that the Lougheads “do not care to risk their valuable machine further in the crude manner of entering and leaving the water” without the ramp.109 The ramp was quickly funded and completed by early June 1916. It allowed one man to transport the plane up the ramp when ten men were previously required to pull the plane up onto the sand. The ramp ended up using only fifteen piles “driven deep into the sand,” was one hundred

143 twenty-five feet long, thirty-two feet wide, topped with two-by-six-inch planking.110 1916 - The Summer of Success The summer of 1916 saw recurring mentions in the local newspapers of Loughead flights and often included passengers’ names and comments. Newspapers became boosters of the Lougheads’ efforts to garner local support. “The presence of the Lougheads here has already resulted in publicity for Santa Barbara,” enthused the Morning Press. “A number of the state papers,” it continued, “have referred to their operations and what an attraction it is proving to the city. There is no doubt but that their continued presence will help to stimulate the summer business.”111 A few weeks later the newspaper noted that the majority of the flying customers of the Lougheads’ were out-of-town visitors and that flying with the Lougheads was safer, and far more exhilarating, than riding in an automobile.112 These early flights were often only four hundred or five hundred feet in altitude, usually consisting of short trips up and down the coast and over the Santa Barbara Channel.

Civic pride flowed when Allan and Malcolm decided to establish their operation in Santa Barbara. “It was, certainly, a fortunate day for Santa Barbara when these young men selected this point as best adapted to the development of their profession,” stated the Morning Press.113 Out-of-town newspapers also took note.

The decidedly upscale society and gossip columnist, “Cholly Angeleno,” of the Los Angeles Examiner, after her Loughead flying experience, wrote what a special experience was now afforded the society people in Santa Barbara and Montecito. “Never again could you lie idly on the sand, looking far out to sea and imagine yourself gazing into vacant space. There would ever be a sense of having reached into that wonderful

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The F-1, one of the largest seaplanes in the world. The Lougheads had high hopes that government contracts, with U.S. entry into World War I, would make the F-1 profitable for the company. Heath Collection.

new world before you – a world of forces yet little understood – a world of mystery, of ever-alluring promise – one, indeed, that sends out an irresistible call which sooner or later must again be heeded. Who that has once thus risen from the earth is content never again to accept the air’s challenge? I have found no one.”114 Perhaps the most novel of those flights in the summer of 1916 was taken on August 27 when Prynce Hopkins, founder of Boyland, a boy’s school that later became the Samarkand Hotel, and Margaret Waterman introduced “hydro-aeronatics” to Santa Barbara. Hopkins had been fascinated by flight since 1896 (when he was only eleven years old), had experimented with helicopter and motor design while attending Yale, and actually submitted a patent application for a helicopter in 1906.115 Difficulties securing financing, and likely his roving intellectual interests, moved Hopkins onto other subjects. The availability of the Lougheads’

plane clearly excited him once again about flight – only this time from a different perspective. The hydrobiplane, almost certainly piloted by Allan, flew over the water at Miramar where, just before noon and before hundreds of spectators, Hopkins and Waterman dove out of the plane before it touched down in the water. Hopkins and Waterman paddled around for thirty minutes before coming ashore.116 The fall of 1916 marked the first use of a Loughead plane for aerial movie footage when the Flying A’s Kolb and Dillman team filmed from the Model G.117 The Flying A would eventually pay fifty dollars per hour for flying their cameraman and fifty dollars per hour for detention time when the plane was being kept available for a shoot.

By October 1916, Allan was floating the idea that the Lougheads would like to build a bigger plane, one capable of ferrying more passengers on longer trips out over the Channel Islands or on regular routes to San

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS Diego or San Francisco. He said that the only limit to the Lougheads’ business expansion was the “lack of capital.”118 After ticking off a list of Loughead successes and goals – safe flying,119 handling many passengers, passenger requests for longer flights, desire to provide more opportunities for lessons – Allan put the future of the company squarely before the citizens of Santa Barbara, “We have not decided how to handle the project, but we feel that it would be a good thing for Santa Barbara to have this attraction, and it would make more certain the development of a permanent aviation station at this point. We would be very glad to receive suggestions from those who have watched our work here and who believe it will be to the interests of the community to encourage an enlargement of the scope of operations.”120 Successfully bankrolled by investors, the Lougheads embarked on a major redirection of their efforts in flight. While much flying in that era consisted of barnstorming and stunt flying, and taking passengers up for a thrill ride, their new plane would focus solely on passenger travel. Originally planned to be powered by twin one hundred-horsepower Curtiss motors and featuring a new “tonneau” passenger compartment, this new plane could handle eight passengers. It also featured twin booms at the rear of the fuselage leading to three vertical stabilizers on the tail. But to make sure the new concept embraced additional interests, Malcolm noted that the new plane could also be used for duck hunting, “The ducks cannot get away from us. We simply chase them down, beating them at their own game.”121 The new factory, opened in January 1917, was at William L. Rust’s garage at 101 State Street. It was filled with various saws, planes, and tools, and had enough space that the shop could build two planes simultaneously. The initial staff was only six men. A second branch of the Loughead

145 operation was at the Western Machine and Foundry Company at 422-424 State Street.

Some parts fabrication took place at the W.L. Hunt machine shop, some metal and carpentry work and the general assembly was done at Rust’s garage. Howard P. Miller was in charge of cables and engine construction. Fred Low did the sheet metal work and Carl Christofferson worked on wings. High quality spruce for the aircraft frame was purchased from Van Brown at the Santa Barbara Lumber Company.122 It was believed at the time that this factory was the only one on the Pacific Coast that could build any model of aircraft. Santa Barbara’s location was thought to be ideal because it could be easily linked to wood suppliers, engine makers, linen suppliers, and all the other components needed to make an airplane.

While work continued on the new supersized seaplane, the Lougheads continued to give flights in their Model G which raised funds and kept their name in front of the public and possible corporate sponsors. An example of this quest was Allan taking Mrs. H.B. Duryea in the first flight from Santa Barbara to the Channel Islands. Duryea, of Red Bank, New Jersey, was the widow of multi-millionaire Hermanus B. Duryea.

Hermanus had been a successful breeder of race horses and one of America’s leading yachting competitors. Mrs. Duryea, a lengthy guest at the Potter Hotel, had flown three times before on the Loughead craft but claimed she would not be satisfied with her experience until she had flown across the Santa Barbara Channel. On January 25, 1917, Allan; Mrs. Duryea; and her cousin, Mrs. Harry B. Hart, departed Santa Barbara around 10:45 A.M. About twenty-one minutes later they passed over Pelican Bay, Santa Cruz Island. Their return trip took them on a slight detour over the channel while they “chased down” a steamer before returning to Santa Barbara. Flying at an altitude of one thousand feet, and in clear

146 weather, their sixty-mile trip had taken only an hour. Duryea “declared that it had been the most fascinating journey of her life,” and that it was her intent to return and fly out again in the even larger plane the Lougheads were building.123 The Lougheads followed up Duryea’s comment about the new, bigger plane to say that setting the world’s passenger-carrying record would be one of their first goals with the new plane.124 Getting the Company Capitalized and Beginning the New F Model Airplane The new Model F-1 was an ambitious project. It would be one of the largest seaplanes in existence with an upper wingspan of seventy-four feet, a lower wingspan of forty-seven feet, height of thirteen and one-half feet, able to carry up to eight passengers with a crew of two.

The construction would require highly skilled engineers and craftsmen. High quality wood, metal, and Irish linen for the outside skin of the plane would be required on a reliable schedule. Numerous external factors were in play during the fundraising and construction.

The possible involvement of the United States in the European war provided additional impetus for rushing the construction project. The Lougheads wanted government contracts for their airplane business. In 1916 the United States government had ordered nearly four hundred airplanes for military use, but the entire American industry was able to build only sixty-four. It was thought at the time that “100,000 American airplanes could win the war in three months.”125 With $700,000,000 believed to soon be committed to procuring airplanes, the Lougheads knew that meeting current military specifications might make them a government supplier.126 The Loughead brothers felt their new plane

NOTICIAS would offer superior abilities for observation and surveillance. They sweetened their bid to secure a government contract by offering to share “the secret of our rust-proof process, whereby wires and the metal parts of a machine will last from four to five years… [wires] without the non-rust process must be replaced every eight months. We have wire that has stood against rust for four years and is still in use.”127 The directors of the newly formed “Loughead Air Craft Manufacturing Company” were Burton R. Rodman (a local Studebaker auto dealer and garage owner), Willard P. Lindley, K.B McCarthy, and Allan and Malcolm Loughead.128 The June 12, 1917, incorporation filing listed each of the five directors as having a single share worth ten dollars. Their initial capitalization got them started, but in July of 1917 the Lougheads sought ten thousand dollars just to complete their new F model.

Alvin (Al) Oviatt, known as the “Oil Cloth King” for the fortune he had made in that business in Ohio, had retired to Montecito and became a significant financial backer of the Loughead Company.129 People invested for a variety of reasons. Aviation writer Denham Scott wrote that some of the “principal” investors buying the new stock “had actually been inspired by a desire to set up a draft-exemption haven for their sons”130 through their investment in a company that potentially could be involved in supporting the war effort.

Over the next months plans evolved to increase the capitalization of the company.

When Malcolm met with investors interested in his new automobile brake design he would also talk to them about investing in the aircraft company. People were directed to visit the plant and then buy some of the 1500 shares being offered for ten dollars per share. The stock sales were handled by local businessmen Alfred Edwards of the Commercial Bank and James M. Warren of Santa Barbara County National Bank.

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William Leon Dawson, a key figure in the founding of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and Flying A Studio film star Mary Miles Minter christen the inaugural flight of the F-1, March 1918.

Conway Collection.

The business plans anticipated airplane construction going around-the-clock with three shifts totaling hundreds of employees, Santa Barbara becoming an aviation center, and the current lead-up to war demand being followed by a desire to link all cities together via flight. The pending war effort allowed the Lougheads to appeal “to the patriotism of wealthy persons”131 to buy into their company. The projected capitalization of the company was hoped to be over $40,000 and hopefully would reach more than $250,000.

The slow evolution of America’s involvement in World War I, which everyone expected to boost the Loughead Company, created anxiety over the availability of motors. Finally, in September of 1917, two Hall-Scott aviation motors arrived from Berkeley and were put on display in the windows of the Loughead manufacturing facility on State Street. The Lougheads simultaneously moved ahead

with plans for a flight school accommodating as many as two hundred pupils. Samuel Purcell, a veteran flyer of six years, was brought down from San Francisco to be one of their aviation instructors.

Military personnel from General George O. Squire, Chief Signal Officer for the U.S. Army, to Navy Ensigns C.B. Ames and R. K. Warren, both aviators, made official visits to inspect the Lougheads’ new plane and State Street facility. Local hopes for rapid expansion soared when Ames and Warren took copies of the factory plans with them and said that they would recommend that the plant be designated as an official naval seaplane station.132 F-1 Ready to Fly Enthusiasm built for the Lougheads’ pending March launch. During March of 1918 local newspapers covered the imminent first flight, noting that Mayor H.T. Nielson

148

NOTICIAS The cockpit of the F-1.

Conway Collection

lined the beach, cheering, during the ceremony. Dawson spoke first, with a passion that conveyed the multiple interests of the day:

and ornithologist William Leon Dawson would both speak. Dawson, also identified as the “Birdman” on notations of early Loughead photographs depicting him, was a founder of the Museum of Comparative Oology, the predecessor to the current Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and a nationally known author of books on birds. Now he was also affiliated as an investor in the Lougheads’ effort to build some really giant “birds.” The Flying A Studio’s fifteen-year-old starlet, Mary Miles Minter, was to break a ceremonial bottle of spring water at the launch.133 The christening of the F-1, on Thursday, March 28, 1918, was a major Santa Barbara civic event with a blend of war-time patriotism, religion, and community and entrepreneurial pride. Thousands of people

This is no private enterprise in whose honor we are met today, and this is no holiday crowd, gathered together to celebrate some casual example of engineering skill… We are here to pledge anew our faith in democracy, and to register an implacable determination to banish tyranny from the face of the earth…We have only one plane to offer. Would to God it were a thousand. Please God it shall become a thousand, or ten thousand, if our country shall require so many, and if this community will back our faith and match our courage and ratify the skill of our engineers.134 Minter’s remarks, made above the whirring of Flying A cameras capturing the scene, were far briefer; “I name thee F-1. I dedicate thee to the service of thy country, to the service of human liberty, and to the winning of world-wide peace.” A flock of white pigeons was then released, Minter broke the bottle of spring water across the bow of the fuselage,135 and then she and her sister suited up for the first official flight of the F-1. They left to the cheers of the crowd and were greeted by more cheers upon their return from a short flight. A cloud of doubt has long existed about the authenticity of some of the movie clips supposedly showing Minter flying in the

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS inaugural flight. Within days after that flight a Mrs. McDuffie was filmed in a re-enactment. William McDuffie and his wife were Bakersfield residents staying at the Arlington Hotel. It is not known if the reshoot was required because the filming was bad or if something else had gone wrong.136 In the back of the Lougheads’ minds was anxiety about securing government contracts. With the war going on there was minimal chance of actually establishing commercial routes, so the military was now their primary projected buyer. But on a day of great excitement and enormous community pride and patriotism, there was one symbolic foreshadowing of problems to come; many of the white pigeons released did not successfully complete their journey home.

The days following the christening were filled with more celebratory flights.

Allan and Malcolm took their mother, Flora, and their sister, Hope Ledford, for a long trip, returning to land “with the ease and grace of a seagull yielding to a drowsy impulse.”137 Flying A cameraman Mr. Carpenter went aloft to secure footage of the coastline. But certainly one of the most eloquent passengers turned out to be the Loughead Company’s own secretary, William Leon Dawson. Dawson’s flight took him at a low altitude, east along the coast over Bonnymede, the estate of the Gardiner Hammond family; and the Miramar Hotel and then on down to meet a rowboat off Carpinteria. The plane landed there and Dawson came ashore to enthuse about the flight: It simply exceeds my fondest expectations.

The chief sensation is that of power [and] mastery. So far from inspiring fear, the elevated station fills one with boundless confidence.

It is only the earth which is unreal. We are placid meteors moving with the calmness and precision of the heavenly bodies. Such power!

149 Such majesty! Such steadiness! Such an even flow in inexorable progression! I never could have dreamed it. Flying is indescribable. It has to be experienced, and the experience lifts one not alone into space, but up to a higher level of being. Life has entered its fourth dimension.138 The Liberty Loan parade of April 6 offered another opportunity for the Lougheads to involve the F-1 in patriotism and to be seen by the numerous military authorities present and by the governor of California, W.D. Stephens. Allan and Malcolm flew over the parade accompanied

by Winston Hutchinson, son of the president of the American Film Company, and Mary Miles Minter, who tossed 16,000 handbills from the cockpit urging support for the war bond effort.

But Is It Really Airworthy?

Proving the capabilities of the plane to the government was still an issue, however, so the Lougheads planned a flight to the government military station in San Diego.

Bad weather postponed the first attempt to San Diego, but finally on April 13 the flight to San Diego’s Rockwell Field was successfully completed. The trip of slightly over two hundred miles took only one hundred eighty-one minutes, staying below the fog so the coastline would remain visible, and was remarkably uneventful.

That time aloft earned them the American seaplane record for duration of flight for a pilot and three passengers. The crew consisted of Allan and Malcolm manning the dual controls, Carl E. Christofferson as aeronautical engineer, and Alfred Holt, the mechanic.139 Christofferson prepared and served sandwiches during the flight.

Years later Allan told Christofferson that “I checked all the records of early-day aviation, and I believe you were the first person to ever serve a meal on a plane!”140 During April, Lieutenant Earl Spencer, Jr.

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150 spent several hours putting the plane through its paces. The military was conducting a thorough examination of the plane and its flight characteristics. In a telegram to Navy Operations in Washington, D.C., Spencer noted that the plane operated fine when either motor was idled, that it took off and landed easily, had “perfectly balanced in air controls,” and that construction was “first order.” Perhaps the only negative in the specific flying assessment was that there was “slight skidding tendency” during left turns.141 But the positive assessments were balanced against some negative design issues; it was bigger, heavier, and slower than the current planes and it didn’t use standardized components. Spencer’s determinations, nevertheless, must have been a huge encouragement to the Lougheads. Charles L. Taylor, a significant stockholder in the Loughead Company and also the treasurer of Carnegie Steel, was in Washington, D.C., to help promote the F-1 and convince government authorities to place orders for the plane. Taylor told the government that the Lougheads could produce one hundred of the planes in six months.

A Government Contract Allan Loughead warned business partners that going to Washington to secure military contracts might be an iffy proposition because scandal allegations were percolating through the industry and the press.142 Washington was embroiled in accusations of military airplane procurement improprieties by early 1918. Senators gave varying estimates of the government having spent between $640,000,000 and nearly $1,000,000,000 while alleging that not a single combat plane had been built for the front. It was alleged that the Curtiss plants in the east were in disarray, western spruce producers were producing far less wood than needed, motors were not yet reliable, and massive graft may have been

occurring. An associate of Victor wrote him that one example of the corruption in the government’s process was how the Packard Company had just received a $750,000 grant for aeronautical research work, but the money was allegedly diverted to work on their automobile engine.143 President Wilson appointed the controversial sculptor of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, to investigate the procurement scandal.144 Borglum himself, however, became the focus of charges when it was alleged that he tried to used his government connections to support his own secretly created aircraft manufacturing interests.

Despite the contentious atmosphere in Washington in 1918, July yielded great news for the Lougheads; the efforts of Taylor and Allan Loughead in Washington paid off, despite the chilly reception they initially received. Taylor and Allan met with Rear Admiral David W. Taylor, who was a member of the Aircraft Production Board and the Navy’s chief of construction and repair who greeted Allan with the comment that he was “being pestered by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who ever built a coffin, a toilet seat, or a chicken coop.”145 The government awarded Loughead a contract to build fifty “scout seaplanes” according to some sources146 but others indicated that the contract was for a smaller number of planes. Technically designated the HS-2L, these planes were a Curtiss design and were slightly smaller than the Lougheads’ own plane, with a wingspan of seventy-four feet and length of thirty-nine feet. So while the contract was not to buy the Lougheads’ F1, it would insure the financial viability of the company.

While in Washington Allan learned that Northrop had been drafted and was at a military camp receiving rifle training. Loughead convinced the military that Northrop was more valuable to the country if he was allowed to return to the newly recognized defense contractor and

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The garage of William Rust, 101 State Street, served as the primary factory for the Loughead Bros. Tony Stadlman, second from right, became the manager of airplane construction for Loughead. Here the crew works on a plane designed by famed aviator, Glenn Curtiss. Conway Collection.

airplane builder in Santa Barbara as the head draftsman. The military agreed and Northrop’s annual income soared from his Army stipend of $252 to $1,800 when he returned to Loughead.147 Equally important was a chance encounter on the Washington trip; Allan ran into Tony Stadlman who was trying to secure contracts for another military contractor. Since their meeting in Chicago in 1911 Stadlman had quit flying. He’d built several planes in the Midwest and survived a series of crashes, including three in 1916 alone. One crash into Lake Michigan was three miles offshore and the quick intervention of another flying boat pilot landing at his wreck was likely what saved him. After that he promised his wife he would not fly again.148 Stadlman told the other flyers, “I prefer to be a live coward than a dead hero. I’ll build the planes – you crash ‘em.”149 Allan offered Stadlman work in Santa Barbara to manage airplane

construction. Stadlman moved to Santa Barbara and for a time lived on the same block as Northrop. The two families were very close, sharing many meals together.

Stadlman’s and Allan’s children were the “best of playmates” growing up.150 Plans progressed to expand the manufacturing plant and to encourage the building of an airport in Santa Barbara.

Despite public statements that Santa Barbara was a near perfect place to build airplanes, the Lougheads also quietly looked elsewhere. Not content to rely on current Santa Barbara financing or manufacturing plans, A. W. Belmont approached the people of Oxnard with an offer; if you build a suitable manufacturing factory which the Lougheads would rent, and if you can raise a $100,000 investment, the Lougheads will employ fifty people year ‘round.151 Shortly following the offer in Oxnard Allan was lauding Santa Barbara’s efforts to facilitate airport building as “one of the most

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The metal shop for the Loughead factory housed in the Western Machine and Foundry Co. at 422–424 State Street. Conway Collection.

progressive moves that has been advocated here in months and those responsible for the spirit of co-operation and initiative that is being shown at this time are entitled to a great deal of credit.”152 Then, unexpectedly, there was competition for the Lougheads’ hold on the public’s imagination and flying dollars. F. Pealatrieu, formerly of Santa Barbara, but now living in San Francisco, announced that he would build a flight school in Santa Barbara with his own Curtiss plane, offer passenger service, and build his own manufacturing plant.153 It is ironic that while the Lougheads were quietly exploring shifting their focus to Oxnard, or perhaps other sites as well, a competitor was swooping in to suck the air out their self-promotion.

World War I ended with the armistice of November 11, 1918. The Lougheads knew that continued Navy purchases would now be very unlikely. Their contract to build the Curtiss-designed seaplanes ended with the Lougheads having built only two planes.

To make matters worse, they incurred a significant financial loss on the planes as they had devoted considerable man-hours to engineering improvements. The patriotic incentive for public investment was over, and now the aviation business became almost exclusively an effort to sell planes for peace-time use. With an eye to rebuilding their investor base, the Lougheads converted the F-1 from a seaplane to a land plane by removing the pontoons and adding landing gear. Northrop was in charge of designing parts for the conversion and developed a

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS technique of placing prospective parts in a glass tube and blowing cigar smoke through the tube to study airflow.154 It is believed that this rudimentary wind tunnel testing added ten miles per hour to the speed of the plane.155 The newly modified aircraft was designated the F-1A. Yet something flashy was needed to recapture the public’s eye. That new promotion became a quickly hatched plan to fly to Washington, D.C. The Great Transcontinental Trip: “Well, Let’s Go!” During the fall of 1918 the Lougheads were absorbed with plans for the transcontinental flight of their F-1A, the largest twin-engine biplane flying. The Lougheads wanted to demonstrate that the West Coast could build airplanes equal to those made anywhere else, that transcontinental flight was not just possible, but safe and practical, and that they were the ones to build those planes. Although the war had just ended some flight restrictions were still in force.

In a telegram to the Joint Army and Navy Board on Aeronautic Cognizance, Harvey T. Nielson, the mayor of Santa Barbara, requested immediate permission for the Lougheads to fly to Washington, D.C., “Machine now completed and weather conditions ideal but subject to adverse change due approach winter season. . . .

Flight if consummated will make world record.” Nielson added, “Industry must be encouraged on coast.”156 The F-1A would fly via Deming, New Mexico; Amarillo, Texas; Cairo, Illinois; and then on to Washington, where they hoped to land on the lawn of the White House. (In 1911 Harry Atwood had been the first to land on the White House lawn.) They spent months in planning with the intent of establishing a record time of a thirty-hour coast-to-coast dash.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the trip was charting a course. There were no

153 navigational charts, airport complexes, radios, or interstate highway systems to aid in this process. There were railway lines to follow, but they did not always run in a straight line between destinations -- the preferred method for flying. There was some discussion of having railway employees light flares along the route so they could fly in semi-darkness. The federal government was in the midst of creating a set of charts based upon stereopticon images so a pilot could use various landmarks such as mountains, rivers, prominent buildings, etc., as navigational aids. The Lougheads decided for the F-1A to follow the Southern Pacific Railroad route.

Some of the stops were scheduled to take on fuel. The maximum flight distance without refueling was estimated at about 1,200 miles, but that would be with ideal conditions. As enthusiasm built for the trip, Victor wrote his mother from San Francisco that he wanted her to, “Let me know by wire, collect when the aeroplane starts.”157 On the Saturday morning of the launch, November 23, a crowd of about fifty gathered in the early morning to see the flyers depart. The well-wishers included the Lougheads’ mother, Flora; Allan, Malcolm, and their wives; John Northrop; Tony Stadlman; Mayor Nielson, and Mary Miles Minter. To prove the viability of fast postal delivery the plane was loaded with mail including letters from film star Douglas Fairbanks, California governor William Stephens, Mrs. Gardiner Hammond (letters to Theodore Roosevelt and other friends and relatives), Ms. Minter, and others.

The crew fired up the engines on a wet field on Gould Ranch, a site which would later become the home of Goleta’s Delco plant. The crew consisted of Orvar Sigurd T. Meyerhoffer, chief pilot; A.R. Ferneau, assistant pilot; and Leo G. Flint, “mechanician.” At 5:05 am, Meyerhoffer climbed into the cockpit and exclaimed, “Well, let’s go!”158 They roared off without

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The F-1A. The Lougheads pinned their hopes on this plane making a transcontinental trip. Conway Collection.

the customary circle around the field, climbed to 2,000 feet, and headed southeast.

They passed over Fillmore at 5:50 am.

Telegraph reports said they passed over Niland, California, (two miles southeast of the Salton Sea) at 9:35 am on their way to their first scheduled landing in Deming, New Mexico. The F-1A encountered its first difficulties at San Gorgornio Pass with strong headwinds, and flight speed dropped from ninety down to seventy miles per hour.fc Meanwhile, up ahead, Deming was experiencing snow flurries and twentymile-per-hour headwinds.

The situation quickly deteriorated.

They had to land before reaching their first scheduled destination, and a couple of days of mechanical failures and bad terrain culminated in a serious crash on Tuesday, November 26. While attempting to take off from Gila Bend, Arizona, the plane crashed

nose first into the sand. The entire front of the plane was smashed and the left propeller was destroyed. The plane remained stuck in its vertical position while gasoline rained down on Meyerhoffer and Flint, who were strapped in the front. There are differing accounts of what happened next. Some reports indicate that the plane’s fuel did not ignite.160 The Los Angeles Times reported, however, that, “Before spectators could render aid, Flint was badly burned about the head.”161 It seems likely that Flint’s “burns” were actually gasoline-caused irritation of the skin as photographs of the wreck show no evidence of fire. Meyerhoffer suffered some broken bones and Flint also sustained head contusions. With the plane severely damaged and the crew injured the effort was abandoned. It took Malcolm three days driving a Hupmobile to reach the crash site.

He soon disassembled the parts, salvaging

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS what he could, loaded the remnants onto a horse-drawn wagon, and delivered them to a train depot to be shipped back to Santa Barbara.162 Why did the Lougheads choose to make a transcontinental trip at the end of November, a time when the Midwest and East Coast could easily be suffering inclement weather? In addition to the stated purpose that they were trying to prove the viability of the Pacific Coast aviation industry, there are probably a couple of additional factors that weighed in the decision. The Lougheads were always looking for publicity and recognition, understanding that financing might follow public acclaim. Secondly, the Lougheads were not the only ones trying to establish aviation bragging rights on the coast. They undoubtedly were aware that others were trying to bring attention to their own efforts to build airplanes or enter some aspect of the new industry. The end of the Great War meant that lucrative government contracts would dry up for a few years.

One of the supreme ironies of the Lougheads’ struggle to build a reputation for their plane was that the F-1, in its flying-boat configuration, was starting to gain notice. An aviation magazine’s news brief touting the reliability of new airplane engines noted that because of the “perfection in design of aeroplanes, such as attained already in such flyers as the Loughead flying boat, which is powered with two A-5 Hall-Scott aeroplane engines, little difficulty in control is experienced in case of one only being used.”163 The remains of the wrecked F-1A returned to Santa Barbara to be stored adjacent to Stadlman’s house. It must have been a grim reminder for him of the money he’d invested in the Loughead Company with so little in return. The F-1A would eventually be repaired and retrofitted back to its F-1 hydro-biplane configuration and returned to service, primarily to raise

155 money from tourist jaunts to support the Loughead’s continuing aviation plans.

A Harsh New Reality Sets In Just before Christmas, pilot Lt. Eddie Wales followed up the Lougheads’ failure with “spectacular stunts over the city,” flew up State Street at a low altitude, and landed at the Hammond Estate. Perhaps most threatening to the Lougheads’ sensibilities was that he claimed he had already completed a transcontinental flight, having begun on November 12, 1918, in Washington, D.C., and flown to the Pacific Coast. He also reported that he had experienced little difficulty in his adventure.

Wales made no claim of speed records, but instead pointed to the fact that he had stopped at various “aviation camps” along the way to learn how other pilots were handling the new business of flying. Wales also was spent time with William Russell, a famous Flying A film director, for whom he had worked before going into the flying business.164 The Lougheads must certainly have been aware of Wales’ flight and felt the need to push their record-setting effort ahead to regain momentum in publicity and fundraising.

Additional insult was added when two Curtiss military biplanes also landed at the Hammond Estate. That brought to three the number of planes that had successfully flown into Santa Barbara and parked on the small airstrip at Mrs. Hammond’s Montecito home.165 The successful flying machines were quite a remarkable sight – and no doubt painful to the Lougheads as their vaunted F-1A had just so recently publically crashed.

January brought more news of potential competition. Lloyd M. Williams, of the Williams Brothers Aircraft Corporation, based in San Francisco, landed in Santa Barbara at the Hammond place. Like the Lougheads, Williams stated that

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The U.S. military takes delivery of an aircraft built by the Lougheads from a design by Glenn Curtiss, 1918. Conway Collection.

his company was preparing to build seaplanes and initiate air service between San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles.166 He stopped in Santa Barbara to find a suitable landing site. With their recent transcontinental effort a failure and their pride and joy smashed and the remains in crates, the Loughead brothers, the company board, and their investors had to have been questioning their business and engineering plans.

Adapting to a New World The world was now at peace. Pilots were mustering out of the military and looking for new business ventures for themselves, many hoping to stay in the flying business. The government was selling off thousands of Curtiss Jennys and other military craft from the war. No one was interested in buying the F-1A, tainted

with a history of mechanical failures and personal injury. In addition, the abundance of surplus planes with landing gear, and the short runways that were now starting to appear in many locations, made flying more appealing if one could take off and land from anywhere, not just on the water. There was no longer any hope for ramping up for wartime production and producing hundreds of planes per year for the government. Like dancers changing steps when the music changes style, the Lougheads unveiled a new plan, an entirely new product, and some ground-breaking construction technology.

The new product, designated the S1, would be a “sport biplane� that would fly at sixty-five to seventy miles per hour, get thirty-five miles to the gallon, and weigh only three hundred pounds. Just nineteen feet long, and with collapsing wings, it could be folded up and wheeled

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS into a typical automobile garage in just five minutes. Landing speed was a mere twenty-eight miles per hour and it needed only a one hundred-foot-long runway. It was promised that this new plane, “will mean that dad or the hired man can land in their own back yard in time for dinner and need not worry about regularly appointed fields upon which to alight…”167 Equally amazing was that the Lougheads thought that they could begin delivering the planes

by June 1 at the rate of one per day.

Allan Loughead commented to a newspaper reporter that the “cockpit will be nicely upholstered, and special arrangements will be made for the comfort of the pilot.”

Airplanes in this era were usually coarsely made with few creature comforts. The new plane would have a fuselage made of seven layers of laminated wood that would have a “stream line effect, without a corner or unsightly angle in the whole outline.”168 This new monocoque fuselage and its construction technique was the truly revolutionizing part of the proposal. The new fuselage would be molded inside giant concrete forms.

The traditional way of making a curved plywood shape involved layering individually glued strips of wood into a concave form or over a convex form.

The Lougheads and Northrop chose to soak individual strips of wood in casein glue (made from dried curds of milk, lime, and other ingredients) and lay them inside their concave concrete forms and place a rubber bladder over the entire interior compartment. Then a lid was bolted over the top and the rubber bladder was inflated to fifteen or twenty pounds of pressure per square inch to compress the layers firmly against the cavity form until dry.

When the halves of the fuselage were dry they were glued together around wooden bulkheads forming a cigar shape, fuller in the middle and tapering to a point at both ends. With the structure of the plane made

157 in this fashion it was strong enough to handle the various strains of flight without the need for heavy internal bracing and it also freed up internal space for the single pilot and controls.

On July 28, 1919, the Loughead brothers, Northrop, and Stadlman entered into a unique agreement: “That whereas, the said parties are each and all interested in the development, construction, and use of aircraft and aeronautical appliance of all kinds; are engaged in the business of developing, constructing, and using the same…” that each party must now share any ideas they have regarding the design and construction of airplanes. If at least two members of the agreement like the idea it is incorporated into a design. If an idea did not find another supporter that idea remained the sole property of the person with whom it originated.169 This “all-for-one” approach was likely extraordinarily productive for getting ideas onto the drawing board and into production. But it also caused some resentment in future years over who properly should have received public credit for a particular concept or design.170 An additional novel feature of the new design was that the lower wings could be rotated on a pivot bolt next to the body.

This idea is attributed to Northrop and was a result of his early years of observing gulls diving to retrieve bread pieces he threw into the water.171 What Northrop had observed was that the gulls effectively used the rotation of their wing feathers to brake. Allowing the lower wings to rotate replaced traditional ailerons, the hinged long pieces on the trailing edge of a wing used to control lateral movement and lift. This pivoting lower wing also enabled the S-1 to land on a very short landing strip. While Northrop is credited with the concept, Allan is thought to have embraced the idea to avoid paying royalties on existing patents for similar ideas.172 No matter how inspired the new plane

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158 was, however, times remained tough. Early 1919 saw the shop with limited work and money; only a small skeletal crew remained turning out the jigs and forms for the designs engineered by Northrop for the new S-1. Malcolm’s interest in aviation was waning as he devoted additional time to the development of his hydraulic brake system.

Loughead airplane work actually receded to a rear part of the garage while the front of the garage once again serviced and repaired automobiles.173 Malcolm’s work, in fact, took over a corner of the Loughead garage where he refined his hydraulic brake designs while experimenting on his own 1914 Paige automobile. This car had been bullet-riddled

by Pancho Villa’s fighters during the Mexican Revolution, but was now taking part in an engineering revolution.

During 1919 Malcolm was experiencing

increasing success in racing the old Paige automobile because of the superior control his “secret” hydraulic braking system gave him. He could stop on a dime and had better control going into corners, and the auto racing world was all abuzz about the “voodoo” Malcolm was creating for his car. His system was almost too efficient for the era, in fact, as one witness to an early race recollected that there was concern that Malcolm’s car was able to slow down so suddenly that it might have been a hazard to slower braking cars on the track.174 Malcolm had discovered, in short, that hydraulic brakes were much more efficient than braking done with cables or steel rods.

It was not long before auto racing champion and legend Earl Cooper brought his world famous Stutz Bearcat No. 8 into a corner of the Rust machine shop for conversion

The fuselage of the S-1 in the making. The use of a concrete mold in constructing the fuselage was ground-breaking. Heath Collection

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS to four-wheel hydraulic brakes. Victor also was encouraging of Malcolm’s automobile braking system and would send details about devices of interest to Malcolm.

Royalty Takes a Ride Throughout the summer of 1919 the rebuilt F-1 raked in money for the company by flying hundreds of tourists on brief fivedollar sight seeing jaunts from the seaplane ramp at the beach. But it wasn’t until October that the Lougheads flew their most famous personalities, the king and queen of Belgium.

The United States government, perhaps relying upon the stable flight characteristics of the plane they had tested in San Diego and discounting the failed cross-country attempt, contracted with the Lougheads to fly the Belgian monarchs out on a sightseeing trip. The Lougheads were “gladly availing themselves of the opportunity to join in the program of entertainment for the royal visitors.”175 King Albert and Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by their son, Prince Leopold,176 and an entourage of fifty-eight various attaches, newspaper men, and American officials,177 were on a tour of the United States and visited Santa Barbara. The royal family maintained a hectic pace during their few days here.

The king and queen were swimming in the Pacific within two hours of their arrival.178 The royal couple and their respective parties took separate tramps though local gardens and along local trails. The king rode a horse in a park and drove an automobile along the foothills and around the city, finally stopping for an ice cream soda at a State Street drug store. The queen engaged in socializing and the king met with reporters. Both interacted with local citizens. The most public event was a flight in the F-1 that had been contracted by the State Department. This was a tremendous promotional coup for the Lougheads.

The king and queen were both

159 experienced flyers before arriving in Santa Barbara. Elizabeth had made a notable flight in August of 1917 when she went up in a French combat plane out of Bergues, France. On June 10, 1918, the couple made a “hurried and informal” flight across the English Channel in two Belgian seaplanes to attend the silver anniversary of Britain’s King George and Queen Mary.179 King Albert had a long fascination with flying. In 1907, while still a prince, he successfully conspired with some of his countrymen and took a secret flight in a hydrogen balloon – something his father would almost certainly have forbidden. A couple of years later King Albert unexpectedly entered the hanger of a Belgian flyer who was studying his damaged plane, and asked the pilot what was required to become a pilot. The pilot responded that one would need, “Plenty of courage, your Majesty, plenty of patience,” and while pointing at his damaged plane added, “and plenty of money…”180 At the time of his coronation the knowledge of his fascination with flying was so widespread that his carriage procession was bombarded with dozens of paper airplanes.

In July of 1917 the king had taken one of the more celebrated flights in aviation history. He flew over the front lines as a military observer in a Sopwith Strutter. The tall and lanky king sat behind the machine gun and appeared unnaturally lofty in his open air seat. This was an extraordinarily dangerous action as many of these missions were shot down or crashed because of routine frame or mechanical failure. King Albert was the only chief-of-state to have flown over a frontline during World War I.181 After the armistice both the king and queen flew over the Belgian battlefields.

Despite his passion for flying, and being dubbed the “Flying Monarch,” the Belgian Parliament never allowed the king to become a pilot.182,183 The couple arrived at the beach in Santa

160

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King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium walk down the launch ramp to take their ride in the Lougheads’ F-1, 1919. Heath Collection.

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King Albert of Belgium just before takeoff. Heath Collection.

Barbara for their flight with their own flying attire. The New York Times reported that this was the queen’s first flight in America,184 but obviously they had planned on flying as they arrived with their own flight garb. The petite queen arrived in a simple white dress and was already wearing her own leather flying helmet. She donned her long and heavy leather flight coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and proclaimed that, “It is much too warm.”185 The queen was given the front seat with J.M. Nye, Chief Special Agent of the Department of State.

King Albert; Major W.W. Hoffman of the American Flying Corps and the attaché at the American Embassy in Brussels; Count Guy d’Oultremont; Lieutenant Colonel Nolf, the royal family’s physician; and Allan Loughead at the controls rounded out the rest of the flying party.

A large throng gathered at the beach to watch the takeoff. “The plane taxied at high speed across the calm water for two or three minutes and rose gracefully for a long spin to Santa Cruz Island,”186 then over Pelican Bay and the island’s mountains, and back across the Channel to the Rincon area and back up to Santa Barbara to conclude the forty-fiveminute flight. The undersides of the wings were painted with the words “Welcome to Santa Barbara.” Following the flight King Albert awarded the Lougheads the Belgian Order of the Golden Crown.187

Despite the plethora of photographs documenting the flight of the Belgian monarchs, and photos of them posing with the plane, the flight did not seem to bring the wave of fame and fortune that the Lougheads had desired. The daily records in the Archive of the Royal Palace note their activities while they were in Santa Barbara, including the King’s ocean swim and horseback riding in the mountains, but, oddly, no mention is made of their flight.188 Perhaps Albert did not want to publicize his flight on an American plane while Belgium’s own nascent aircraft industry was struggling to get started. Lack of their own planes during the war had forced the Belgians to use an unreliable mix of foreign airplanes, including ones captured from the Germans. Albert was supportive of the

162 creation of an aircraft industry in Belgium – one that could sustain both military and civil needs. It was not until 1924 that Belgium was able to fly aircraft of its own design and construction.

New Challenges and New Solutions In 1919 it was announced in San Francisco that the city would be the site of an International Aircraft Exhibition in April of 1920. This would be a golden opportunity for the Lougheads to exhibit their new S-1. Besides the daring visual design and styling, relatively low price, and economy to operate, this plane would come equipped with a lightweight ninety-pound engine producing twenty-five horsepower and be able to cruise over sixty miles per hour. Yet no manufacturer in the United States made such an engine, and almost no one was interested in the expense of developing such an engine in the current economy where used aircraft engines were in abundant supply and most new designs called for larger horsepower. The only exception was the Universal Engineering Company, Maywood, Illinois, which was building a small engine for its own small monoplane. An official of the company wrote Victor that, “Allan wrote Ray [Acre] about building a duplicate of this engine at the same time for him. Ray thought that by building two engines at the same time that cost could be reduced to $1500.00 apiece, and so advised Allan, but as he has not heard from Allan since, he has been wondering if the price scared Allan off.

You might suggest to Allan that he would have a hard time building one as cheap as that.”189 The Lougheads eventually located the exact engine they wanted, one presumably cheaper than the one Universal developed, in a catalogue of the Greene Motor Company in England. The Lougheads sent the deposit for the first engine and waited.

NOTICIAS Months passed. They eventually sent a cable to Greene asking the whereabouts of their engine and received a message from a local postmaster that the company had gone bankrupt and been liquidated. This information came a scant six weeks190 before the late April San Francisco show.

Mere mortals might have caved under this sort of setback and deadline, but not the Lougheads and their staff. Undaunted, Allan later noted, “We had to build our own engine.”191 Jack Northrop began creating drawings of Allan’s inventive ideas for drive shafts, cylinders, rocker arms, crankshafts, water jackets, connecting rods, pistons and piston rings, and other engine parts. The workforce had recently been reduced from eightyfive to only a dozen, so the whirlwind of producing the engine fell to this skeletal crew. Financial pressure to cut the work force had also come from the drying up of another unique source of investment capital. With the end of the war those who had invested to try to protect their sons from the military draft felt free to stop supporting the Loughead Company.192 Tony Stadlman was in charge of construction of what became the twenty-five-horsepower Loughead-Stadlman two-cylinder XL-1 liquid-cooled engine. While some parts could be purchased, most were crafted out of existing raw materials scavenged from the rear corner of Rust’s garage where the slimmer Loughead operation was now confined.

Victor was aware that his brothers were developing a new airplane and was aware of their engineering plans. Correspondence between Flora and Victor discusses certain German wing designs and Victor’s own aeronautical engineering plans and patent applications. Victor expressed his vexation with Allan’s rejection of his ideas in a June 12, 1920, letter to Flora, “[T]hese important European developments are convincing to the effect that I have been right on things

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163

The S-1 sport biplane was a hit up and down the coast in 1920, yet proved to be a financial failure. Heath Collection.

that Allan was not interested enough to get active on while the only sponsor for these ideas was myself.”193 Despite his frustration with Allan, he added, “Incidentally, Allan is wrecking his health like a fool with his excessive smoking, and if he had any willpower and self restraint he would cut it out. You may use your own judgment about telling him this as harshly as I am conveying it to you, but I frankly think that the effect of reading it to him right out of this letter might be salutary.”194 In the meantime there were extraordinary new developments occurring in Santa Barbara aviation. The Navy wanted to visit with a squadron of planes, but Arthur P. Church, the president of the Loughead Company at the time, had to inform the Navy that there was no suitable field for their planes.195 There was a flying field at the old racetrack on Santa Barbara’s lower Eastside, but it was often too soggy, or actually underwater, to be a reliable field.

Then a confluence of events occurred

that dislodged the Lougheads as the sole aero-players in town; a new Aero Club formed that wanted a landing strip and new flyers arrived. Newcomers Lieutenant Frank Croxford and Dick Poppic flew into Santa Barbara with two war surplus Curtiss Jennys, formed Zenith Aviation and Flying School, and tried to develop a landing field in the Samarkand Hills, approximately where the eleventh fairway of the Municipal Golf Course is presently situated.196 That location, however, was not suitable and Croxford and Poppic secured a land lease and an agreement with the city to develop an airstrip parallel to Cabrillo Boulevard behind the present-day location of the Hyatt Hotel.197 This new airstrip was named “Corona del Mar Air Field”198 and was located where Orilla del Mar Road parallels Cabrillo Boulevard. 199 Zenith even managed to build a crude hanger for its two planes, attached a windsock on the home of C.L. Ross at 433 Orilla del Mar, and the airfield became a hangout for aviation

164 enthusiasts.200 Despite the refocusing of flying on land-based planes, Zenith was also talking about bringing in a seaplane that threatened to go head-to-head against the Loughead’s F-1. Zenith managed to hold on for only a short time, however, because a windstorm destroyed one of their planes and the other was lost in an accident that was close to the shore and stunned the community with the gory death of a female student flyer. Yet new local aviation developments continued and remained focused on the business side of transporting passengers whether for business, pleasure, or lessons and were in contrast to Allan’s and Malcolm’s primary interest in aviation engineering, design, and manufacturing.

In early 1920 the Lougheads continued to exude confidence that despite their own business problems the “gentleman’s sport” of flying was still exciting and fun.

Seaplane fishing trips were touted as being a popular pastime among “quite a number of Montecito people.”201 Anglers were loaded into the F-1 and low elevation flights were made until a school of fish was spotted. At that point the plane would drop into the ocean and everyone on board would cast out their fishing lines. These trips were often very successful in catching mackerel, seabass, barracuda, and other fish. With bluster the Lougheads indicated that they had received multiple orders of seaplanes from Montecito families who wanted the freedom to fly whenever “the spirit moves them” and that there were plans afoot to “secure landing places on all the Channel Islands.”202 There was never any evidence of these orders,

NOTICIAS however, and no additional seaplanes were built by the Lougheads.

The United States military maintained interest in the Loughead plane through late 1920. A flotilla of Navy ships including the USS Minneapolis, USS Baltimore, USS Lapwing, USS Ludlow, and USS Seagull came to Santa Barbara and one of their official drills was seeing how fast a skydiver could be rescued after dropping from an airplane. Sergeant Edward W. Saurin, an experienced skydiver attached to the Arcadia Balloon School, jumped from the plane at an altitude of 850 feet.

Saurin had made his first parachute jump

The Lougheads attempted to stay financially afloat in Santa Barbara with a number of promotions in 1920, ultimately to no avail. Collection of the author.

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS at the age of eight and had previously made record jumps of various kinds. Allan and Malcolm were the pilots with the rest of the party composed of Major J. M. Harris and Lieutenant B. B. Cassidy. As the desired altitude was reached at four o’clock in the afternoon Harris gave the sharp command to “jump” and Saurin dutifully complied.

Saurin’s twenty-two pound chute quickly shed its paper wrappings and the chute deployed properly softly dropping him into the Santa Barbara Channel. The F-1 then swooped down to the ocean to retrieve Saurin. A newspaper reported that “The Navy officers were enthusiastic over the demonstration, and stated that it set a new record [elapsed time] for rescue work by a hydroplane [seaplane].”203 Local pride in the Loughead operations continued. “Our seaplane…” wrote Marda Mackendrick, “is not a mere future probability for us ordinary, groundanchored mortals; it is a very present and happy fact. All we have to do is to go down to the beach and climb in. The timid may rest assured that they will be subjected to no breath snatching somersaults…”

Mackendrick continued to write about how calm the flights were, but then as if to disabuse the reader of thinking the flights were boring wrote, “I do not mean to infer by dwelling thus on the safety of the proceeding that the Loughead Brothers are stodgy bus drivers – far from it. They are, on the contrary, the only men in the aeronautic industry who are designing, building and doing exhibition flying all at once.”204 Declining revenue put pressure on the Loughead Company even as it prepared for the rollout of the S-1 at San Francisco’s International Aircraft Exhibition. In a desperate attempt to raise revenue Allan and Malcolm announced in a legal advertisement that the company was levying a one dollar assessment against every share of stock, that the levy could only be paid in gold

165 coin, and that shareholders who did not pay the fee would have their shares sold at auction.205 The day before this demand, the company performed test flights of the S-1 in Oxnard. The Santa Barbara press described the Oxnard event as a clandestine operation shrouded in mystery.206 Despite publically announcing that the plane had been shipped to the San Francisco Exhibition, the plane had been secretly shipped to Oxnard. In an article on the front page of The Oxnard Daily Courier, it was dryly noted, “By the way, this is the company that less than a year ago tried to locate in Oxnard, if sufficient financial inducements were held out to them.”207 There was never an answer as to why the Lougheads performed this deception, but it certainly appeared that the company was considering fleeing Santa Barbara and threatening to act on an ongoing behind-the-scenes flirtation with potential Oxnard investors.

When officially unveiled at the San Francisco show, the S-1 turned out to be one sweet little cupcake of a flyer. It was parked near the entrance gate and was quickly dubbed “the baby” by the crowds.208 It could land at under twentyfive miles per hour. It looked modern, streamlined and exciting. Performance and reliability were top-notch. Everyone loved it. Young Lieutenant Henry “Hap” Arnold, who would later serve as five- star General of the Army (1944) and General of the Air Force (1949),209 persistently brought people over to the view the plane while he extolled its merits. The S-1 was a hit at the San Francisco show.210 There was now no doubt that aircraft designers and makers on the Pacific Coast could build a high-quality product. Yet there were still no buyers.

Allan, Tony Stadlman, and pilot Gilbert Budwig made a final fruitless S-1 tour across northern California in an effort to find buyers. They then brought the plane home where it was left in a storage shed.

The single S-1 prototype was built at a

166 cost of $30,000 but not a single model was sold. Anyone who wanted a little onepassenger personal flyer could buy a brand new military surplus Curtiss Jenny – still in its original factory crates – for a little more than ten percent of the price of a new S-1.211 Even some of the slightly larger military surplus planes were being gobbled up by private flyers setting up air-mail routes and private delivery services.

The Final Decline of the Loughead Presence in Santa Barbara The months following the San Francisco show were filled with both real and symbolic problems for the Loughead operation. In May an aerial acrobatics show took place that did not involve the Lougheads. Cards offering free flights were dropped from the plane as it flew over Boyland.212 Competitive downward pricing pressure from Zenith and others had forced the Lougheads to drop fares for sight-seeing flights to $2.50 per passenger while struggling to continue employing mechanics working on the S-1 project.

Even marriages performed aloft on the Lougheads’ plane were now unraveling. Just months after Marie Van de Berg had married Lieutenant Frank Croxford, he of the defunct Zenith Aviation and Flying School, the recent bride sued for divorce. Despite the excitement which had accompanied this airborne wedding, a pall was cast over the ceremony by the uncontrollable vomiting of the airsick best man.213 The presiding reverend proclaimed that the marriage “would result in extreme happiness because it started so near heaven.”214 Alas, it was not to be.

Even old Loughead company treasurer and inspirational promoter W. Leon Dawson had some negative words for aviation. When dozens of birds were minced in the propeller and cables of a plane landing at the race track field, Dawson joined the

NOTICIAS chorus of protests that were made to the city.215 The lack of buyers for the S-1, the evaporation of operating capital, and the Lougheads’ growing sense of stagnation, caused the company to slide into semidormancy. There was reduced hope of significant airplane construction in the west when the federal government decided to concentrate government airplane manufacturing further east with the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia and the Army Air Corps’ Aircraft Development Center in Dayton, Ohio.216 In 1921 Allan veered away from his aviation focus to develop, in cooperation with Jack Northrop and Tony Stadlman, the “Motor Glazier,” a bizarre contraption with the body of a large six-passenger touring car mounted on Navy surplus pontoons. It was propelled across the water with a noisy 150-horsepower HallScott airplane engine that Allan tweaked to obtain between 170 and 190 horsepower (possibly one of the engines from the F-1) and propeller mounted at the rear.217 Allan designed his own muffler to try to reduce noise.218 Control was maintained via a large airplane tail mounted in the air at the back of the machine. Cruising speed was fortyfive miles per hour but it could reach sixty miles per hour.

Loughead hoped to build at least seven more of the boats, had patented their design, and anticipated selling them to interests in Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit.219 The speedy invention was taken out to Catalina Island as “The Thrill of Avalon.” It also carried a host of nicknames including the “Flying Autocar,” the “hydroglycier,” and the “Hydroscooter.” Ownership was shared by Allan with financial investors, movie director Cecil B. DeMille and Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s halfbrother. DeMille and Chaplin were already aviation veterans; De Mille owned Mercury Aviation and its airfield at the intersection

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167

Allan Loughead, at left, aboard the “Thrill of Avalon,” 1921. Heath Collection.

of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. Across the street was an airfield operated by Chaplin, who had made some of his own history with his company’s 1919 San Pedro-to-Catalina Island air passenger service and record-setting roundtrip flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco.220 A brief ride on “The Thrill of Avalon” cost one dollar for adults and fifty cents for a child. The cash flow was not what the owners had projected; DeMille and Chaplin pulled out after one season and the enterprise closed.

In 1921 Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company ceased operations. By midsummer the F-1 had not flown for a year.221 By late July 1921 the physical remnants of the Loughead Company’s activities were regarded as eyesores that local citizens

wanted removed. Frank H. Doan, a local contractor, began tearing apart the seaplane ramp to salvage the wood. The plane was moved back from the shore while awaiting dismantling or sale. An indication of how badly the marriage had soured between the Loughead aviation business and the citizens of Santa Barbara is that a local newspaper stated, “The clearing away of the dock will give considerable additional bathing space, as well as improve the beach view.”222 While lack of sufficient business acumen by the Lougheads might have been a contributing factor to the decline of the company it was certainly not the sole factor leading to its demise.

Thomas M. Storke, publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press wrote, “The Lougheads were geniuses when it came

168

NOTICIAS

As their Santa Barbara operation shut down, the brothers attempted to sell off their stock, made more difficult due to the glut of planes after the end of World War I. Heath Collection.

to aviation matters, but they knew little about finances. Al Oviatt attempted to teach them elementary business accounting, but finally gave it up as a lost cause.�223 Numerous aviation companies collapsed due to the same confluence of factors following World War I: Curtiss Jennys and other military surplus planes flooding the market and curtailing the ability of private companies to design, build and compete against cheap surplus planes, lack of federal government capital supporting new military purchases, and the concentration of federal money into a very limited number of aviation companies near the East Coast.

The Model G, the companion Models F-1 and F-1A, and the S-1 disappeared into the aviation heavens never to fly or

be seen again. There was an unsuccessful attempt to sell the F-1 to an amusement company that would have used the plane to fly tourists to Catalina Island.224 The Lougheads’ planes were variously picked apart for salvageable parts, vandalized, left to rot to pieces on the beach,225 and sometimes their remnants were burned near Cabrillo Boulevard.226 Santa Barbara would not become a manufacturer of commercial, military, or private airplanes, or become a waystation on a gigantic network of seaplanes coursing up and down the Pacific Coast. So much money, time, and dreaming had been expended with so few tangible results to show for the effort. Aviation history had graced Santa Barbara with a few important events and then moved on.

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169

Later Years Flora Haines Lou

ea

utierre

Flora lived intermittently in Santa Barbara into the 1920s and traveled around California and western Nevada before moving to the Los Angeles area. She continued to write into her seventies, and wrote the popular, A Crown of Thorns (1922), initially published as a serial available for twenty-five cents per month, and a serial that was compiled into The Abandoned Claim for which she won a McClure Prize for best juvenile serial. In the early 1930s Flora published Dictionary of Given Names, a reference book for children’s names. The book was a product of eighteen years of research and unique in that it included names

from North American Indian, Russian, Chinese, Persian and Egyptian cultures.227 Despite her long publishing success poverty always loomed. “I myself know so well how to live on a very little money and to live well,” she wrote to Malcolm and Tilda in 1937.228 Just a few months later she lamented that she wanted to get started on the opal mining season but, “I’m now undergoing the humiliating experience of trying to raise exactly $100 more than I have in hand.”229 In letters she wrote during the 1930s she repeatedly stressed her concerns for the health of both Malcolm and Allan and the stress they were undergoing.230 She continued prospecting into her eighties for opals in mines near the California/ Nevada border despite her family’s desires that she relinquish the activity. She seemed

Flora Loughead in Nevada’s Virgin Valley during one of her opal mining trips, 1919.

Heath Collection.

170

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Flora, late 1930s, holding one of her opals. She passed away at the home of her eldest child, Mary Hope, in 1943, Heath Collection.

to relish the punishing work of digging in hard clay and sometimes would walk over twenty miles per day to work various opal sites.231 During the spring of 1920 both Victor and Hope wrote that they wanted their mother to quit the mining business.

In response to a letter from Hope implying that Flora might not go to the opal claims, Victor wrote Flora that, “Life is too short for you to monkey with those damned opal mines personally.”

He added that he would drive her up for a visit but “I won’t be a party to taking you there to stay.”232 Apparently after telling Victor she would stop going to her mines he wrote, “I am exceedingly pleased to know that you have put the stupid idea out of your head that Northern Nevada cannot function without your presence.

Stay in Santa Barbara where the climate is genial and conditions more pleasant.”233 But either she had deceived Victor or changed her mind because she continued going to the mines. John Church, an opal miner, wrote that “She had a habit of running away to

Virgin Valley,” and that she seemed to be something of an “opalholic.”234 Later miners would always know if Flora had worked in a mine because of her distinctive habit of leaving newspapers deep underground.235 Her opal mining business, however, had suffered a series of setbacks and had never become much of a financial success. Her prospecting excursions sometimes lasted several months during which she often camped. She would seal the opals in threeinch-wide glass paperweights that were sold in stores for about five dollars. Allan Ledford, her grandson, remembers an incident when he was a young boy accompanying Flora on a prospecting trip into Virgin Valley,

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS Nevada; A fireball coursed across the sky and Flora worried that the Loughead plane had burned up while one of the boys was trying to fly to visit her. It turned out that it was only a meteorite lighting up the daytime sky.236 Flora’s opals were sold at the Rainbow Ridge Mining Company Tea Room and Opal Shop in Santa Barbara until it closed in 1929.

Sometime around 1940 Flora fell, broke her hip, and never walked again. She continued living at home until failing health forced her to move into Hope’s home in San Francisco. She died January 27, 1943, shortly after moving in with Hope. o n Hurst Lou

ea

Little is known of John after his return to Berkeley. He remarried after returning, but the union may have been short-lived.237 John continued to operate a hardware store and did his oil painting in a studio above the store. Allan and Malcolm and their families continued to have contact with John, sometimes driving to San Francisco to visit.238 A newspaper report at the time of John’s death noted that he had spent his last years as an amateur artist of “marked ability,” and that Allan was with him at the time of his death. The newspaper article noted that Malcolm was traveling to be with Allan but makes no mention of John’s step-children Hope or Victor.239 ictor Lou

ee

Victor never pursued the creation of an aviation company, but collaborated with many others in a variety of fields and consulted with both Allan and Victor on their engineering projects. Victor expressed himself bluntly with family members, once writing his mother that, “The only wrong thing you ever did training us children was to minimize the value of money.”240 In the 1920s Victor had a serious legal scrape

171 involving morals charges leveled against him by a twenty-one-year-old female newspaper solicitor. Victor was convicted and likely headed for prison until his lawyer got the sentence overturned. Business and pleasure travel interests allowed Victor to visit France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Russia in just a few years span. There was lessened contact between Victor and his brothers during the last half of his life. Decades later Allan’s son John commented that “We have never known much about Victor or what happened to his side of the family.”241 In the early 1940s Victor headed the Magmatic Minerals Corporation, a company seeking to produce synthetic industrial diamonds. His wife Mary served as secretary. This company was apparently the evolution of Victor’s teenage concept of manufacturing industrial diamonds from a carbon substitute. One investor in Magmatic Minerals was the industrialist and financier F. LeRoy Hill, someone who had worked at Hall-Scott Engine during the teens and who carried on a life-long correspondence with all of the Loughead brothers.242 Victor, living his latter years on the East Coast, died of a heart attack while driving alone in his Lincoln Zephyr in New York City, identified only by the papers in his pocket. An undated version of his will stipulated that his wife Mary would be his sole heir save for one dollar (“and no more”) given to each of his closest relatives, and to “Any woman who has been or claim [sic] to be married to me… having particularly in mind Kate Calhoun and Mabel Carlson.”243 Malcolm Lou

ea

Near the end of the Lougheads’ Santa Barbara company operations, Malcolm and his wife Eunice moved to Detroit, then the automotive manufacturing center of the world, in association with Malcolm’s brake invention. Malcolm had ultimately

NOTICIAS

172 secured over fifty patents on various aspects of his braking system and over thirty automobile makers would use his system. Walter Chrysler investigated the system with an eye towards building his own, but Malcolm’s web of patents tied up his invention so securely that Chrylser ultimately had to buy the use of Malcolm’s invention. In 1932 Malcolm sold his patents to Vincent Bendix, of South Bend, Indiana, and his system became a financial mainstay of the Bendix Corporation.

In early 1926 Eunice returned to Santa Barbara to “aid relatives that were victims” of the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake. This appeared to be a ruse to get away from Malcolm. While she was in Santa Barbara Malcolm had her served with divorce papers charging mental cruelty. Eunice filed a cross-complaint against Malcolm. At issue was Eunice’s share of the “millions” Malcolm would make from his automobile brake patents,244 but later reports indicated that Malcolm had sold out for much less.

He married his second wife, Tilda Plumb, who was fourteen years his junior, in 1930.

In the late 1930s Malcolm again became involved in gold exploration and had some success with the Whiskey Slide Mine near San Andreas, California.245 Mining was hard work and Flora wrote to her daughter Hope in 1937 that Malcolm was “Neither built physically for hard labor, nor particularly trained to it…”246 Tilda eventually worked with him as a mine shaft hoist engineer.

Malcolm was preternaturally optimistic about his chances in mining. In 1934 he wrote Allan that, “There is no other form of business today that has anywhere near the potential possibilities and the return for a given investment.”247 But just six months later, and sounding like a Las Vegas gambler, he was hoping thin veins would eventually play into something richer; “I think I am due for a big one.”248 Yet hardships continued, his health deteriorated, and in January of 1937 all of Malcolm’s teeth had

to be pulled due to lack of care.249 The mines yielded so little money that by 1945, in a measure of desperation, he was trying to figure out how to get tourists to buy small pieces of ore samples attached to cards for between one and five dollars.250 Malcolm died with little money, spent some of the last years of his life driving “logging trucks to make ends meet,”251 and ultimately became a welfare recipient.252 He spent his last twenty-nine years living in Mokelumne Hill, California, dying there in August, 1958.253 Malcolm likely died suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.254 Tilda continued to live in Mokelumne Hill for many more years. Malcolm is buried there with no other family members. llan Lou

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Allan had two children with Dorothy Watts (1889–1922), Flora Elizabeth and John. In 1924 Allan married Evelyn Starr Lesslie (1892–1984) who brought a daughter, also named Evelyn, to the marriage.

A subsequent divorce from Evelyn was described by Allan, Jr., as “public, messy, and scandalous.”255 Allan married Helen Marcella Kundert (1912–1971) in 1938. He worked for a time as an agent for Malcolm’s hydraulic brake business. The early 1920s were so tough on Allan that he sold real estate. Allan was a natural salesman and promoter and did well selling new real estate tracts developed on former barley fields near La Brea and Melrose avenues in West Hollywood.

In December of 1926 Allan again collaborated with John Northrop and Tony Stadlman, and again tapping into investors’ money, created Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Hollywood. Allan was always a financial dealmaker and schmoozer for his companies. Northrop would later note that “If there was any socializing, Allan Loughead did it…He was the hail-fellow-well-met.”256 The premier

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS

Allan Lockheed holds a model of a Lockheed Vega aircraft, 1961. Collection of Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

173

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174 creation of this company was the Vega, whose fuselage was based on the same engineering and construction methods that the Lougheads, Northrop, and Stadlman had created in Santa Barbara for the S-1.

The Vega had a very public humiliation the first year with a plane and pilot lost at sea while participating in a race to Hawaii. Despite that ignominy Arctic and Antarctic explorers found that the Vega and its derivative models were able polar region flyers. Sir Hubert Wilkins flew a Vega over the North Pole. Vegas were also flown by Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, Charles A. Lindbergh, and a host of other famous flyers.257 In 1929 Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was acquired by a Detroit company, but subsequent to the stock market crash of October, it began a long slide culminating in bankruptcy in 1932. Allan, who was sometimes regarded as something less than an astute businessman, certainly made a good financial move in the sale of his stock in the Detroit company. In June of 1929 he sold his interest for about $23 per share. The subsequent market crash, however, caused the share price to plummet to a mere 12.5 cents per share before finally evaporating. Allan took another shot at business, incorporating the Lockheed Brothers Aircraft Corporation in 1930 but did not remain with the company.

During World War II Allan was general manager of a company making fighter aircraft parts. Following the war he again worked as a real estate salesman in California. Throughout the rest of his post-Santa Barbara years Allan occasionally “consulted” in aviation design. Allan spent time during his final years restoring old Packard cars, trout fishing (sometimes with Bob Ferneau, one of the pilots of the ill-fated F-1A crosscountry attempt),258 hunting, and with his love of flying not abating, taking gliding

lessons.259 After World War II Allan never formally rejoined the aviation industry until the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation “acknowledged its roots” by bringing him aboard as a part-time consultant shortly before his death.260 He moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1961, and lived in semiretirement until his death.

Towards the end of his life Allan was sometimes asked, “What did you do in the early years of aviation?” His answer was always, “I survived.”261 o n

nu sen

ort ro

Northrop would later joke that he’d shoved his way into the Loughead operation to “become their one and only draftsman and, we’ll say, engineer, although I was not licensed and not fully competent.”262 Time, of course, revealed Northrop to be most competent.

Northrop left Santa Barbara shortly after the collapse of the Loughead Company. Tony Stadlman credited Northrop with being, “the glue that held the company together… He was a remarkable young man.”263 Northrop settled in Burbank, California, ultimately founding a total of three aeronautical engineering businesses. He designed numerous planes and his ideas for a flying wing plane264 were eventually incorporated into the B-2 Stealth bomber. Northrop’s wide-ranging interests led to numerous diverse patents, including one for a tabletop magnetic car racing game. In 1942 he opened Northrop Aeronautical Institute.

Eventually renamed Northrop University and located in Inglewood, California, the school suffered a series of problems, closing for good in 2003. In 1946, Northrop, as a guest of the government, and in his capacity as the president of Northrop Aircraft Corporation, was a witness to the atomic bomb testing at Bikini Lagoon, Marshall Islands.265

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175

Billboard near Summerland, just down the coast from Santa Barbara, advertises passenger rides, 1918. Heath Collection.

Northrop had three children by his first wife Ynez (1894–1981). In 1950 he married Margaret C. Bateman (1890–1977), a highly capable executive secretary who worked in both the business and engineering aspects of his company. Northrop returned with Margaret in 1956 to Santa Barbara to live at 4410 Via Esperanza in Hope Ranch.

In retirement he continued to be active supporting the Boy Scouts. In an ironic footnote to a man who was one of the founding pioneers of the aviation industry, Northrop did not get his pilot’s license until the age of sixty-two.266

on

Sta lman 1

1

2

After the closure of the Loughead Company, Stadlman continued to be involved in aviation, working for the Douglas Aircraft Company in the 1920s, at Lockheed supervising the construction of the Vega, and eventually at North American Aviation during World War II. He retired to San Francisco sometime after the war. Allan and Tony maintained a long and close personal association throughout their lives as was typified by a joint trip they made to the 1968

NOTICIAS

176 Reno Air Races.267 For fifty-seven years Stadlman stuck to his promise not to fly until 1972 when Lockheed officials coaxed him aloft in their new Tristar 1011. When Lockheed’s team shared with Stadlman their enthusiasm over the speed and altitude at which they were flying in the new jet he was unimpressed, “When I could go sixty miles an hour and twelve feet high, now that was exciting,” he responded. “This is boring.”268 Stadlman lived to age ninety-six and once credited his longevity to the fact that in 1916, after crashing three planes, he had sworn off flying.269 Epilogue Victor, Allan, and Malcolm all seemed to have stoically accepted the fact that grand business success seemed always to just elude them. Perhaps that resignation was a result of their mother’s upbringing.

In her 1898 novel, The Black Curtain, Flora described a cruel destiny suffered by a one of her lead characters, “Thus wantonly does Fate weave her web, only to cut the threads at the moment when the design is well-nigh perfected, and the stirrings of a lifetime near their fruition.”270 The Rust Garage at 101 State Street eventually became Santa Barbara ChryslerPlymouth. Subsequent to the Loughead aircraft plant closure no other major aircraft builder anchored in Santa Barbara.

Numerous aviation and aerospace related parts makers and contractors, however, continue to operate in Santa Barbara.

Little physical evidence remains of the Lougheads’ time in Santa Barbara. There are no historical markers commemorating the production sites or accomplishments of Allan and Malcolm Loughead, John Northrop, or Tony Stadlman, some of the true pioneers of American aviation and aeronautical engineering.

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177 NOTES

1 McGee wrote these lines in a 1941 poem titled “High Flight” while training for combat in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Shortly thereafter he died in a mid-air collision over England.

2 Armor Journal, August, 2007, “Loughead Model G”.

3 David H. Onkst, The Centennial of Flight Commission, Early Exhibition Aviators, http://www.centennialofflight. gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_ and_Daredevils/early_exhibition/EX7.htm 4 David T. Courtwright, Sky As Frontier; Adventure, Aviation, and Empire, (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2005), 27.

5 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 4 July 1911.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 The New York Times, 9 May 1913.

9 David H. Grover, Pioneering AirSea Engagement, http://earlyaviators.com/ egrovmas.htm 10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Didier_Masson.

11 Marshall Bond, Jr., “Around the Upper East,” in Steven Gilbar and Dean Stewart, eds., Tales of Santa Barbara; From Native Storytellers to Sue Grafton (Santa Barbara: John Daniel and Company, 1994), 59-65.

12 The Californian, January 1892, 113.

13 There remains some uncertainty as to whether or not Flora had an earlier marriage at around age 19 to John Ketzler and, if so, was Ketzler actually the father of Victor. Some genealogical research supports this idea: http://trees.ancestry. com/tree/35494/person/-2142395382?ssrc.

Also see note 47. Numerous biographers over the years have noted that the Loughead family was very tight-lipped about numerous personal issues. Questions relating to Victor’s parentage go beyond the scope of this paper.

14 Richard Heath Collection, SBHC – Mss 76 in Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California Santa Barbara. Account pieced together from several items in the collection.

15 Flora Haines Loughead, “My Children’s Book; In which Mamma is trying to garner up the treasured recollections of their childhood and especially our darling Nello,” a hand-assembled scrapbook copy in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

16 Richard Heath, undated notes, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

17 “Text of Document Presented to Ben James.” This is from the Flora’s plea for divorce from Charles Apponyi. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

18 A.J. McGlumphy, D.D., President, Lincoln University, Department of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Lincoln, Illinois, 4 July, 1879. This letter has been published in several publications. The author viewed a complete copy in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

19 Flora Haines Apponyi, The Libraries of California; Containing Descriptions of the Principal Private and Public Libraries Throughout the State (San Francisco: A.L. Bancroft and Company, 1878).

20 Flora Haines Loughead, The Man Who Was Guilty (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886), 153.

21 This book was initially published as

178 a serial. “The story follows the adventures and struggles of three children in working a homestead claim. . . . Utterly ignorant of farming or fruit raising they pluckily set to work, leading a sort of Robinson Crusoe life at first.” Promotional material in Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

22 Flora Haines Loughead, The Abandoned Claim (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1891) 323.

23 Out West, December 1898, 39.

24 Ibid.

25 Ella Sterling Cummins, The Story of the Files; A Review of Californian Writers and Literature (San Francisco: World’s Fair Commission of California, Columbian Exposition, 1893) 231.

26 The New York Times, 1 September 1902.

27 Flora Haines Loughead, ed., Life, Diary and Letters of Oscar Lovell Shafter; Associate Justice Supreme Court of California, January 1, 1863, December 31, 1868 (San Francisco: Blair-Murdock, 1915).

28 Land of Sunshine, August 1896, 109.

29 Allan Ledford to Frederick Bock, 23 November 1997, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

30 Photographs of The San Francisco Quake of 1906, Heath Video Production, 1998. Initial draft of storyboard book for a video project recounting the story and photographs of Flora’s work following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

31 Flora Haines Loughead, The Man Who Was Guilty (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1886), 308. Flora dedicated the book to “My Little Nello, in the hope that his pure eyes, from another world, may look with approval upon his mother’s work.”

NOTICIAS 32 Unsourced newspaper account includes an interview with Flora. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

33 Email, Victor Lougheed to John Fritsche, 2 January, 2008.

34 Mining was not, however, a new venture for Flora. In 1913 she traded a lapidarist wheel to a miner for his gold desert property, probably near Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Letter, Allan Ledford (Flora’s grandson) letter to Frederick Bock, 23 November 1997, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

35 Allan W. Eckert, The World of Opals (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997), 90.

36 “The Black Opal Saga,” notes attributed to Allan Ledford, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

37 Email, John Church to author, 15 March 2010. Church is a Virgin Valley opal miner who has claimed one of Flora’s old mines.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Letter, Richard Heath to Jeri McFarland, undated, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

41 The Californian, January 1892, 113.

42 Letter, Allan Lockheed, Jr. to Richard Heath, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara. This story appears in very similar fashion in other recollections attributed to Allan. In one, Allan recounts throwing himself down at the base of a tree (rather than at a stump) and crying the “remainder of the day, until my mother called me into the house for my dinner.”

43 Letter, John Loughead to Flora Haines Loughead, 9 February 1899, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

44 Ibid.

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS 45 Email, Victor Lougheed to John Fritsche, 2 January, 2008. Victor believed that John actually left Flora in 1893, the same year they arrived in Santa Barbara, and returned to Berkeley, CA. 46 Letter, Allan Ledford to Frederick Bock 23 November 1997, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

47 1900 United States Federal Census.

Roll T623_898, Page 10B, Enumeration District 316. www.ancestry.com.

48 Decatur Semi-Weekly Herald 19 August 1902, 7.

49 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 9 April 9 1916. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

50 Allan Ledford, “The Black Opal Saga.”

51 1910 United States Federal Census, Roll T624_247, page 16A, Enumeration District 411, Image 1062, www.ancestry. com.

52 Emails, Ralph Lougheed to Brian Burd, June 2009.

53 h t t p : / / w w w . n a s m . s i . e d u / collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19600151000.

54 Victor Lougheed, handwritten note, 28 October 1915. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

55 Allan Lockheed, notes from interviews conducted with him, 7 September 1956 and 8 October 1956. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

56 Popular Mechanics, January, 1912, 65.

57 Don Dwiggins, The Barnstormers: Flying Daredevils of the Roaring Twenties (Blue Ridge Summit, PA.: TAB Books, Modern Aviation Series, 1981), 98.

58 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story, Designing the S-1,” Southern California Industrial News, 11 December 1967, 94.

179 59 Santa Barbara News-Press, 18 September, 1980.

60 C.W. Northrop was a successful Santa Barbara builder involved in many projects. One example of his company’s work was the $22,000 remodel of 630 State Street to create the Argus Theater.

61 Scott, 94.

62 Santa Barbara News-Press, 12 September 1975.

63 Wayne Biddle, Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare: The Story of the American Aerospace Industry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2001), 108.

64 Ibid.

65 The Californian, January 1892, 113.

66 Allan Lockheed, interview notes, 7 September 1956 and 8 October 1956.

67 The 1897 Santa Barbara City Directory show only one Loughead, Victor, and records him living in Mission Canyon.

It is unknown if the family moved from Laurel Canyon to Mission Canyon, or if Victor was living separately from the rest of the family.

68 Walker A. Tompkins, Santa Barbara History Makers (Santa Barbara: McNally & Loftin, 1983), 333.

69 Victor Lougheed, Vehicles Of The Air; A Popular Exposition of Modern Aeronautics, With Working Drawings, (Chicago: Reilly and Britton Co, 1909), 159.

70 Los Angeles Times, 25 February 1895.

71 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 4 April 1943.

72 John Lockheed, eulogy for Allan H. Lockheed, 7 June 1969. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

73 Ibid.

180 74 Some of these letters may be found in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

75 Transcript of speech given by Allan H. Lockheed at a luncheon for Continental Airlines in Tucson, Arizona, 14 July 1964.

Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

76 “Of Men and Stars; A History of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation,” April 1957, 5. Part of a series published by the Lockheed Corporation.

77 George Vecsey and George C. Dade, Getting Off the Ground; The Pioneers of Aviation Speak for Themselves (New York: Dutton, 1979),17.

78 Lockheed Life, November 1980, 4.

79 Aero, publication of the Aero Club of Illinois, 12 August 1911, 7. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

80 Ibid.

81 The New York Times, 28 May 1969.

82 Howard Mansfield, Skylark; the Life, Lies, and Inventions of Harry Atwood, (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1999), 13. Mansfield tells the story of how, in 1910, the Burgess Company’s first couple of planes crashed or were not air worthy, and how, in an attempt to inspire investors’ confidence advertised that, “Our Aeroplanes Are Safe, They fly well, too. Our Model A flew successfully but our Model B beats it. Our new Model C is even better.” So the Lougheads were not the first flyers to hit upon the idea of trying to sell later models, with letter designations, as superior to previous ones.

83 Allan Lockheed, interview notes, 7 September 1956, and 8 October 1956.

Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

84 Aircraft, March 1913, 185.

85 San Francisco Call, 13 August 1913.

NOTICIAS 86 Ibid.

87 San Francisco Call, “Clubman to Visit Festival Via Air,” undated clipping.

Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

88 Letter, Malcolm Loughead to Allan Loughead, 3 December 1914. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

89 Speech transcript, Allan H. Lockheed, 14 July 1964.

90 In an ironic twist, Smith, who had survived years of stunt flying, was to later die flying a routine mail route.

91 The New York Times, 15 March 1915.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid.

94 Photographs of oil wells in Texas and racing and passing a train were his early subjects.

95 Fowler, however, survived the crash and lived to age eighty-one, eventually dying of a heart attack at home.

96 Transcript of speech given by Allan H. Lockheed to the LMSC Management Club at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds, 22 July 1961. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

97 In his “Brief Autobiography of Allan H. Lockheed,” Allan recounted the story slightly differently, “Henry Ford … stated, ‘I would not take even a straightaway flight four feet above the Bay in anybody’s aeroplane for all the money in California.’”

Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

98 Speech transcript, Allan H. Lockheed, 14 July 1964.

99 Ibid. During all those flights the only mishap was a slightly flattened wingtip float with a total repair cost of only $2.75.

100 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 17 May 1916.

101 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 13

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS May 1916.

102 Ibid.

103 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 14 May 1916.

104 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 21 May 1916.

105 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 23 May 1916.

106 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 25 May 1916.

107 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 30 May 1916.

108 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 31 May 1916.

109 Ibid.

110 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 6 June 1916.

111 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 18 June 1916.

112 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 9 July 1916.

113 Ibid.

114 Los Angeles Examiner, “Up In the Air Goes Society at Santa Barbara,” Cholly Angleno, 23 July 1916. The article is illustrated with two photographs; one is an image of Ms. Angleno with Allan as she boarded the Model G. 115 Ronald R. Koegler, MD, “Prynce Hopkins: A Renaissance Prince,” Noticias 52, No. 4, 145-146.

116 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 29 August 1916.

117 The Flying A had used Beachey’s plane for aerial filming in 1914.

118 Morning Press (Santa Barbara) 10 October 1916.

119 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 18 January 1917. From May of 1916 through January, 1917, the Lougheads racked up over four hundred flights and some four thousand miles of travel without mishap.

120 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 10

181 October 1916.

121 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 31 October 1916.

122 http://www.xphomestation.com/ vbrown.html.

123 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 26 January 1917.

124 Ibid.

125 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 8 July 1917.

126 Ibid.

127 The Daily News and The Independent (Santa Barbara), 13 February 1917.

128 Over the next several years additional individuals would serve as directors or officers, including M. A. Oviatt.

Major stockholders by 1918 included the directors and Earl Van Orman Armstrong, B.F. Hammond, M. P. Hammond, Mrs. Ina Campbell, Dr. C. S. Stevens, Salisbury Field, Dr. Frederick S. Gould, Miss Caroline Hazard, Charles L. Taylor, and others.

Victor Lougheed was sometimes listed as a consulting engineer.

129 Thomas M. Storke, California Editor (Los Angeles, Westernlore, 1958), 230.

130 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story: The Will and the Way,” Southern California Industrial News, 4 December 1967.

131 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 21 August 1917.

132 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 21 February 1918.

133 The Daily News and The Independent (Santa Barbara), 27 March 1918.

134 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 29 March 1918. Inspiring speech might have been expected from Dawson, a graduate of Oberlin Theological Seminary (1899) and

182 former Congregationalist preacher.

135 The Daily News and The Independent (Santa Barbara), 28 March 1918, reported that Miss Minter christened the ship with “California grape juice,” while the Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 29 March 1918, reported that upon orders from Washington, D.C., a dry christening took place and that water was used.

136 Letter, Marshall Bond to Mr. Gage, 27 July 1972. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

137 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 31 March 1918.

138 Ibid.

139 There is some confusion over whether or not Holt was on this flight.

Christofferson later stated that Holt did not take part. Notes in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

140 Ibid.

141 Telegram, E.W. Spencer, Jr., to Operations, Navy Department, 18 April 1918. Collection of John Fritsche.

142 Telephone interview, Allan Lockheed, Jr. with John Fritsche, 6 May 2007. Lougheed spoke about his father.

143 Letter, Ray Acre to Victor Lougheed, 3 May 3 1918, on letterhead from the Universal Engineering Company, Maywood, Illinois. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

144 Borglum, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was the combative first designer of the monument to the Confederacy at Stone Mountain, Tennessee. After the failure of his efforts there he went on to be the designer and partial builder of Mount Rushmore.

145 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 108.

146 Los Angeles Times, 16 July 1918.

147 Walter J. Boyne, “The LowDrag World of Jack Northrop,” Air Force

NOTICIAS Magazine Online; Journal of the Air Force Association, October 2005, 3.

148 Vecsey and Dade, Getting Off The Ground, 18.

149 Ibid.

150 Ibid.

151 Oxnard Courier, 24 October 1919.

152 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 3 November 1918.

153 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 7 November 1918.

154 Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Horizon: The Lockheed Story (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 15.

155 Richard Sanders Allen, Revolution In The Sky: Those Fabulous Lockheeds, the Pilots Who Flew Them (Brattleboro, VT.: The Stephen Greene Press, 1964), 8.

156 Western Union Telegram, 14 November 1918. Collection of C. Seybert Kinsell, M.D., Santa Barbara.

157 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 20 October 1918. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

158 Ibid.

159 Los Angeles Times, 24 November 1918.

160 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 27 November 1918.

161 Los Angeles Times, 27 November 1918.

162 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 111.

163 Aerial Age Weekly, 21 October 1918, 301.

164 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 22 December 1918.

165 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 24 December 1918.

166 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 14 January 1919.

167 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 15 January 1919.

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS 168 Ibid.

169 This agreement is in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

170 After the collapse of the Loughead Company, a patent was awarded on August 8, 1922, for the shared design of the S-1 fuselage construction technique.

Technically the patent was awarded to Malcolm with one-quarter interest being specifically awarded each to Malcolm, Allan, Northrop, and Stadlman. Their patent number 1425113 was good for seventeen years. A copy is in the Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

171 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story: Designing the S-1,” Southern California Industrial News, 11 December 1967, 94.

172 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 127.

173 Denham Scott, “Bill Rust’s Garage, 1919,” Southern California Industrial News, 6 November 1967, 4.

174 Letter, Reed Scott to Dick Heath, 21 September 2000. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

175 Santa Barbara Daily News, 11 October 1919.

176 Some references state that Prince Leopold was a student at St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara. In September 2009, however, Brother Timothy Arthur, OFM, Franciscan Archivist at Mission Santa Barbara, pulled the enrollment records for the seminary and determined that Prince Leopold had not been a student there.

177 The Daily News and The Independent (Santa Barbara), 11 October 1919.

178 The New York Times, 12 October 1919.

179 The New York Times, 11 July 1918.

180 Neville Birch and Allan Bramson, Captains and Kings (London: Pitman

183 Publishing, 1972), 51.

181 The Belgian Air Force During WWI, http://www.baha.be/Webpages/ Navigator/Belgian_Aviation_History/ ww_i/WW1.htm.

182 Birch and Bramson, Captains and Kings, 52.

183 The first American President to fly, while in office, was Franklin Roosevelt.

Teddy Roosevelt, after leaving office, had flown with one of the Wright brothers in 1910.

184 The New York Times, 12 October 1919.

185 Ibid.

186 Ibid.

187 Beyond The Horizons: The Lockheed Story. http://www.sbrcm.org/ BIO.htm.

188 Email, Elke Wauters to author, 6 October 2009. Wauters was the Assistant to the Consul General, Consulate General of Belgium in Los Angeles. Wauters forwarded this information in response to questions regarding the Belgian monarch’s visit.

189 Letter, Ed F. Andriwz (handwriting is unclear) to Victor Lougheed, 30 January 1919, from the Universal Engineering Company, Maywood, Illinois. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

190 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story: Good Brakes, Bad Break,” Southern California Industrial News, 27 November 1967, 4.

191 Speech transcript, Allan H. Lockheed, 14 July 1964.

192 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story: The Will, and the Way,” Southern California Industrial News, 4 December 1967, 4.

193 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 12 June 1920. Heath

184 Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

194 Ibid.

195 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 23 January 1920.

196 Santa Barbara News-Press, 30 May 1971.

197 Walker A. Tompkins, “Flying; The Early Days of Aviation in Santa Barbara,” Santa Barbara Magazine, Fall 1978, 57. The Zenith operation, however, was short-lived. Instructor George McGowan was giving a lesson to Mrs. James Douglas when they crashed into the ocean near what is now the Biltmore Pier. Mrs. Douglas died, becoming Santa Barbara’s first air fatality. “(T)he resulting bad publicity, plus the loss of their Jenny trainer,” put the fledgling company and their aviation field out of business.

198 Sometimes referred to as Eastside Landing Field. Robert Allbright, “Early Flying Fields; Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria,” unpublished manuscript.

199 Ibid.

200 Santa Barbara News-Press, 30 May 1971.

201 The Daily News and The Independent (Santa Barbara), 13 February 1920.

202 Ibid.

203 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), incomplete date, 8. The confirmation of ships that were in the fleet was from a Santa Barbara Harbor timeline developed

by John Fritsche.

204 Marda Mackendrick [Michael Forbes], “The Town That Looks Up,” unsourced publication. Other details in the article touch on the Lougheads currently making their own engine for the S-1 so that dates this piece to the spring of 1920. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

205 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 14

NOTICIAS April 1920.

206 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 15 April 1920.

207 Oxnard Daily Courier, 13 April 1920.

208 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story; San Francisco Fiasco,” Southern California Industrial News, 18 December 1967, 94.

209 http://www.centennialofflight. gov/essay/Air_Power/Hap_Arnold/AP16. htm 210 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 27 April 1920.

211 Morning Press, (Santa Barbara), 10 July 1920. “Mr. A. H. Haynes has brought to Santa Barbara his Curtiss Jenny to Santa Barbara for his pleasure flying.”

212 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 23 May 1920.

213 Wayne Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 125.

214 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 26 November 1920.

215 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 31 December 1920.

216 Denham Scott, “The Lockheed Story; An Intermission,” Southern California Industrial News, 25 December 1967, 96.

217 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 20 April 1921.

218 “’Motor Glazier,’ A New Type For Speed Boating,” Pacific Motor Boat, August 1921, 16.

219 Ibid.

220 William A. Schoneberger and Paul Sonnenburg, California Wings: A History of Aviation in the Golden State (Woodland Hills, CA.: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1984), 133.

221 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 27 July 1921.

222 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 30

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS July 1921.

223 Storke, California Editor, 230.

224 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 126.

225 Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Horizon: The Lockheed Story (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

226 Owen H. O’Neill, History of Santa Barbara County State of California, Its People and Resources (Santa Barbara: Harold McLean Meier, 1939), 308. O’Neill writes that the F-1 ended “Its colorful career by burning on the beach.” Both Boyne and O’Neill could be correct regarding the ultimate fate of the F-1 if it was picked over by scavengers, battered by the elements, and the remains eventually burned.

227 The New York Times, 11 February 1934.

228 Letter, Flora Haines Loughead to Malcolm and Tilda Lockheed, 20 May 1937. Date difficult to read, perhaps May 30. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

229 Letter, Flora Haines Loughead to Burton (no surname), 8 June 8 1937. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

230 Various letters in Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

231 Email, John Church to author, 15 March 2010. Church is a Virgin Valley opal miner who has claimed one of Flora’s old mines.

232 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 30 May 1920. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

233 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 12 June 1920. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

234 Church email.

235 www.bonanzaopals.com 236 Letter, Allan Ledford to Richard Heath, 25 March 1998. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

237 Letter, Richard Heath to Jeri

185 McFarland, undated. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

238 Richard Heath, Typescript. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

239 Morning Press, 30 April 1921.

240 Letter, Victor Lougheed to Flora Haines Loughead, 9 April 1916. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

241 John Lockheed, transcript of eulogy for Allan H. Lockheed, 7 June 1969.

Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

242 As evidenced by numerous letters in http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/ collections/ms/95-03/95-3-A.HTML, the F. LeRoy Hill Papers at Wichita State University.

243 Victor Lougheed, Last Will and Testament, Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

244 Los Angeles Times, 4 April 1926.

245 Los Angeles Times, 8 June 1931.

246 Letter, Flora Haines Loughead to Hope Ledford, 1 June 1937. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

247 Letter, Malcolm Lockheed to Allan Lockheed, 30 July 1934. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

248 Letter, Malcolm Lockheed to Allan Lockheed, 14 December 1934. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

249 Letter, Malcolm Lockheed to Allan Lockheed, 26 January 1937. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

250 Letter, Malcolm Lockheed to Allan Lockheed, 28 November 1945. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

251 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 328.

252 Boyne, Beyond the Horizon, 4.

253 Ibid.

254 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 328.

255 Email, Allan Lockheed, Jr. to author, 12 August 2009.

256 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 150.

186 257 The New York Times, 28 May 1969.

258 John Lockheed, eulogy for Allan H. Lockheed. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

259 Ibid.

260 Biddle, Barons of the Sky, 328.

261 Allan H. Lockheed, Transcript of speech, 14 July 1964. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

262 Santa Barbara News-Press, “Introducing John K. Northrop and his flights of inventiveness,” Verne Linderman, clipping dated May 1975. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

263 Vecsey and Dade, Getting Off the Ground, 20.

264 Allan Lockheed, Jr., telephone interview with John Fritsche, 6 May 2007.

Allan, Jr., related his belief that Tony Stadlman “as early as 1908 had made drawings of a flying wing aircraft and felt that John Northrop stole his concept.” The three Loughead boys and their friends no doubt kicked around numerous ideas and the evolution of any particular concept may

NOTICIAS sometimes be difficult to trace. Tail-less planes were around, however, as early as 1907, with the experimental English flying wing biplane Dunne D.1. In 1910 Hugo Junkers, the brilliant German aeronautical engineer, patented a flying wing design for a transport plane.

265 Information from the Overseas Manifest, US Citizens, Port of San Francisco, Aug 1, 1946. This may be viewed at www.ancestry.com.

266 Vecsey and Dade, Getting Off The Ground, 22.

267 John Lockheed, eulogy for Allan H. Lockheed. Heath Collection, UC Santa Barbara.

268 Vecsey and Dade, Getting Off The Ground, 22.

269 Star, in-house publication of Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc., 24 September 1982, 1.

270 Flora Haines Loughead, The Black Curtain (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1898), 4.

THE LOUGHEAD YEARS

Allan and Malcom in the cockpit of the F-1.

Collection of Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

The Model G on the launching ramp in Santa Barbara.

Collection of Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

187

NOTICIAS

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