MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS
LEFT: Young “Tony” Stadlman stands next to the frame of the pre-WWI, S-1 aircraſt designed at the Santa Barbara, CA, Loughead Aircraſt Manufacturing Company. Stadlman supervised the shop, with John “Jack” Northrop as the company’s draſtsman. Photo: Stadlman
BELOW: By 1929, both “Jack” Northrop and “Tony” Stadlman had struck out on their own to develop a flying wing aircraſt. Northrop and Stadlman had known each other for years and shared ideas. In this photo of Stadlman he is holding a model of his tail-less plane which resembled the future Northrop aircraſt. His passion for the design resulted in his nickname “Tailless Tony.” Northrop’s flying wing success was well deserved but Stadlman oſten mentioned his regret not to have put one in the air. Photo:
www.findagrave.com/memorial/79165200/ anthony-stadlman
of Aviation in 1910. According to his contemporary Early Birds, the school was poorly administered, with frequent accidents and casualties, but Chicago was “air-minded” and drew many hopeful aviators to its new flying fields. Stadlman briefly worked for an automobile dealer, Sam Dixon, who switched to building aircraft. It is thought that while associated with the International Airplane Company of Chicago, Stadlman soloed in a Curtiss biplane during 1912. Oshkosh aviator Harry Powers hired Stadlman as his mechanic when he made exhibition flights in his seaplane off Lake Winnebego, WI, that July. The following year, Stadlman and Ed Jaeger formed the short-lived Esjay Aero Company. His interests soon focused on hydroaeroplanes, which may be why he (and his bride, Gertrude) moved to Michigan where aircraft companies and flying schools nested along its lakeshores. In the summer of 1914, Stadlman hooked up with Larry Howell and built a flying boat to test on Lake Michigan near Clarendon Beach. Howell and Chicago fliers Jaeger, Jack Vilas and C.M. Voight were among the hundreds of spectators who witnessed Stadlman’s crash into the lake, and who immediately flew their own plane to his rescue. Not badly injured, Stadlman soon thereafter took a job as Chief Engineer at the Michigan Aircraft Company in Grand Rapids returning intermittently to the declining Cicero Field where he and Jaeger were hired to build and repair
28
DOMmagazine.com | aug 2019
aircraft and making occasional flights. Lured back to Michigan, Stadlman hooked up with Bertrand F. Kenyon in 1916. Kenyon was skilled in engine design and had built a hydroaeroplane which was hangered on the shore of Muskegon Lake near the “Actors Colony,” famously founded by the family of actor Buster Keaton in 1908.
MEANWHILE. . .
While Stadlman and his associates were in Illinois and Michigan, they no doubt followed the newspaper accounts of fellow aviators and the newest designs in aircraft. By
1913, Allan and Malcolm Loughead had built a three-seat seaplane and launched it in San Francisco. In August of 1913, the Oakland Tribune headlines blared that the wife of John Spreckels (the sugar factory founder) had been a passenger of Allan Loughead in his plane flying over Alcatraz Island at an altitude of 300 feet. Once back on the ground, Mr. Spreckels told her friends that “it was delightful. I felt as if I were part of the machine itself.” The Lougheads were granted a concession to sell rides at the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where
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 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
