BENCH MARKS


PEOPLE IN HELICOPTER HISTORY


LEFT: Amelia Earhart is greeted at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, CA, en route across the US in her Beechnut Chewing gum autogiro during 1931. Photo courtesy of John Underwood


RIGHT: In 1923, barnstormer “Swanee” Taylor gave John Miller his WWI surplus JN4 “Jenny.” Miller restored the aircraſt and taught himself how to fly. Image: www.acepilots.com


learn that Miller had already made the fi rst transcontinental autogiro fl ight. Two non-injury accidents prevented her attempt at a round-trip record. Beechnut hired Earhart for two more cross-country tours. At the time, she was the only female autogiro pilot in the U.S. Miller dismissed Earhart’s altitude record in the autogiro as a stunt without merit. Nevertheless, in the early 1930s he became a professional aerobatic exhibition fl ier, stunting his autogiro. Despite Pitcairn’s safety concerns, Miller looped his autogiro at the National Air Races in Ohio. He also feigned


dogfi ghts with aviator Al Wilson who fl ew a vintage Curtiss Pusher. When Wilson fl ew into the wash of Miller’s rotors at ground level, they collided and Wilson was killed. Miller continued making exhibition fl ights until he found


more stability fl ying for United Airlines in 1936. In 1939, Kellett Air Company hired him to test its autogiro. Miller then became well known for carrying mail in his autogiro, taking off from the top of a building in Philadelphia, PA. Following 25 years as a captain for Eastern Airlines, Miller retired at age 60 and purchased a Bell 47G helicopter. He worked in law enforcement and for search and rescue, fl ying various helicopters in New York. Flying his Beechcraft Baron on his 100th


and yet managed to raise a family. He died at age 102 in Poughkeepsie, NY. It was the only town he called home his entire life.


“John’s life in aviation [was] truly not so much a career as a way of life.”


Gary Hyatt, 2008 Aviation Historian


More about Miller: Watch a video interview made by


John M. Miller for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s “Timeless Voices of Aviation” at http://eaavideo.org/video. aspx?v=1519675124


ABOVE: Kellett KD-1, owned by Eastern Air Lines, Inc. was flown by Miller while delivering mail during 1939. Image: Helicopters and Other Rotocraſt Since 1907; Munson.


Giacinta Bradley Koontz is an aviation historian, magazine columnist and author who has received the DAR History Medal and honorable mention from the New York Book Festival. She has appeared on the History Channel and in PBS documentaries. For more information, visit www.GiaBKoontz.com.


*AUTOGIRO: Trademark name by inventor, Juan de la Cierva and used by the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company and Kellett Autogiro Company. AUTOGYRO: All other 16 HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com October | November 2015


birthday, Miller attended the Centennial of Flight


events at Kitty Hawk, NC. Through eight decades of fl ying, Miller traveled extensively


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