MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS
they made $4,000.00 with which they started the Loughead Aircraft Mfg. Company. Their new company was modestly housed in a garage at Santa Barbara, CA, where in 1916, their first employees became life- long friends. They included manager, Norman S. Hall; superintendent, Anthony Stadlman and mechanic and draftsman, John K. “Jack” Northrop. Their first “everyman’s plane” (Model S-1) failed to sell. Stadlman returned to Michigan in 1917 when the new U.S. Air Mail Service offered funding for aircraft construction and potential delivery routes. Apparently, he and Kenyon did not get far with their plan to fly the mail.
ALLAN, MALCOLM,
JACK AND WHO? You will not find Stadlman’s name mentioned anywhere in “Days of Trial and Triumph – A Pictorial History of Lockheed” published by the company in 1969. But he was there.
The Loughead’s company hung on in Santa Barbara until 1923 when they moved their factory to Santa Monica, CA. Northrop and Stadlman parted with the Lougheads temporarily to work for Donald Douglas where they became intrigued with the design of a “tailless aircraft.” By 1927, the Loughead brothers had changed the name of their company to an easier spelling, becoming Lockheed Aircraft Company. They hired Stadlman as their superintendent of Manufacturing, where old pals including Ben Hunter worked on new designs with Northrop as chief engineer. It was soon all about the Lockheed Vega. Stadlman earned recognition among his peers for contributions to the wooden molded monocoque fuselage process which resulted in the prototype design of the sleek, fast
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DOMmagazine.com | aug 2019
RIGHT: Aviator Wiley Post circumnavigated the globe in 1931 and again in 1933, flying the same Vega, Winnie Mae. Stadlman worked on the Vega prototypes. Drawing by aviation artist, Dan Witkoff.
and sturdy Lockheed Vega. Aviators Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh flew the Vega, as well as Capt. George H. Wilkins who made flights in his Vegas over the Arctic and Antarctic in 1928. Both Northrop and Stadlman left to work on their designs for a flying wing aircraft. Northrop formed the Avion Company and saw his designs realized. The Great Depression of 1929 took its toll on the Lockheed Aircraft Company, and the Lougheads sold out to Robert Gross & Associates in 1932.
Stadlman designed models of tailless aircraft which never flew, while Northrop went on to great success with his “flying wing.” Before he briefly retired, Stadlman joined Allan Loughead for a few years at Loughead’s Alco Hydroaeroplane Company in San Francisco. At the onset of WWI, Stadlman
was 75 years old! And yet he was hired at North American Aviation in Oakland, CA as their Production Chief until he retired in 1945. Anthony and Gertrude Stadlman split their retirement years between homes in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe until Gertrude died in 1972.
A friend of Stadlman’s recalled that when he arrived in the U.S. from Czechoslovakia that he had only a “passable speaking knowledge of the English language,” but he spoke the common knowledge of machinery which led him to construction of aircraft. “For the rest of his life,” his friend noted, “he was committed to aviation in every shape and form.” In 1967, having lived through two
world wars and U.S. involvement in military conflicts, Stadlman viewed progress in aviation philosophically. “We were idealistic. We thought we were going to bind the whole world together. Instead we bomb each other.” There were many aspects to admire in Anthony “Tony” Stadlman but one Early Bird summed it up best. “He was truly a peach.”
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.
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