BENCH MARKS
PEOPLE IN HELICOPTER HISTORY
LEFT: Miller takes off in his autogiro at Cleveland, OH. Note the Bendix sign in the background. Photo courtesy of John Underwood
RIGHT: John Miller and aviation author John Underwood corresponded and in 1989-90 they attended a helicopter show in Anaheim, CA. Miller signed photographs, seen here. Photo courtesy of John Underwood
JOHN MILLER ROTORS ACROSS AMERICA
THE A&P WHO FLEW FOR MORE THAN 80 YEARS
Giacinta Bradley Koontz | Contributing Author
In 1910, Glenn Curtiss landed to refuel his Pusher in a fi eld at Poughkeepsie, NY, next to the Hudson river.
Watching nearby was a fi ve-year-old boy who decided that he wanted to be a fl ier, too. His name was John McDonald Miller [1905-2008]. Late in life, Miller’s story appeared in several articles in which he described the moments that kept him focused on his goal to become an aviator. In 1911 and again in 1913, his young eyes lingered on the static display of a Curtiss aircraft owned by Beckwith Havens. In 1915, he visited Mineola fi eld on Long Island where he met aviatrix Ruth Law, who allowed him to sit at the controls of her parked Wright machine. Miller spent his high school summer vacations working in a factory and learning how to machine tools and studying books on aircraft and fl ying. In 1923, when “Swanee” Taylor landed his WWI surplus JN4 “Jenny” in a nearby fi eld, Miller was soon volunteering to help him change the engine.
“I helped him all that summer working on the airplane, patching the holes, and working on the engine,” Miller recalled, but the aircraft was still decrepit. Taylor bought a newer aircraft and gave the old “Jenny” to Miller. For the next two months, 18-year old Miller hid his aircraft from his parents and taught himself how to fl y. Pretending that he was a barnstormer, Miller accepted pocket change to take up a local farmer. He later confessed, “I carried my fi rst paid passenger on my third solo fl ight.”
The A&P Eventually Miller restored the old “Jenny” and sold it. Instead of fl ying, he was studying at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he graduated in 1927 as a mechanical engineer. Without an airplane, Miller was unable to take the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) newly imposed aviator licensing
14
HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com October | November 2015
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44