Brookins
at Belmont Park, 1910
Image from a contemporary newspaper
Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Lauwers |
PRESIDENT
WALTER BROOKINS, 1910
from CHIRP - June, 1937 |
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Successful Flights At
Montreal Meet
Daily Journal and Tribune,
Knoxville, Tennessee: June 29, 1910
Transcribed by Bob Davis - 9-23-03
Montreal, Que., June 28, 1910 - "The aviation meet was delayed
by a heavy wind until 5:30 this evening. Walter
Brookins, of the Wright team, started before the heavy
wind had gone down, remaining up nine minutes, 50 seconds. In a
second ascent he mounted to an altitude of approximately 4,000
feet and was in the air twenty minutes and thirty seconds.
Count
DeLesseps made two exhibition ascensions. On his second
flight he ascended higher than he has yet done in Canada and in
both descended in his usual graceful way.
Lachappelle, a member of the Wright team, made good time in
speed circles, doing the first lap in two minutes, two seconds.
Frank
Coffyn, another Wright man, and Walter
Brookins, went for a trip together, stayed up for fifteen
minutes, twenty-five seconds. This was the first double ascent
of the meet."
Bob Davis |
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BROOKINS FLIGHT
Daily Journal and Tribune,
Knoxville, Tennessee: June 30, 1910
Transcribed by Bob Davis - 9-23-03
Montreal, June 30. - "Walter Brookins in a Wright machine,
accompanied by Bertrand De Lesseps, brother of the count, made a
flight lasting twenty-three and one-half minutes and rose to a
height of 1,140 feet at the aviation meet here today."
Bob Davis |
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20,000 SPECTATORS AT
AVIATION FLIGHTS
Daily Journal and Tribune,
Knoxville, Tennessee: July 1, 1910
Transcribed by Bob Davis - 9-23-03
Montreal, July 2. - "The holiday crowd of 20,000 people which
attended the aviation meet at Lakeside today saw eleven flights.
One made by Walter Brookins, in his Wright biplane, lasted
forty-five minutes. He attained an officially certified height
of 3,150 feet.
Ralph
Johnstone, one of the Wright aviators, smashed his machine
beyond repair while making a landing."
Bob Davis |
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Harvard-Boston's
Great Aero Meet - Boston, Mass. Aug 19.
Daily Journal and Tribune, Knoxville, Tennessee:
August 19, 1910,
Via email from Bob Davis - 9-2-03
"No aviation meet held in this country and probably none
yet held in the world has had such a representative list of
aviators as is assured in the Harvard-Boston aero meet,
September 3 to September 13, according to the list of entrants
to date announced tonight. The entry list is truly international
and includes seventeen individual aviators and eleven types of
air navigating machines. There is certain to be keen competition
for the $40,000 hung up as prizes in a dozen events. The
entrants follow:
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"BROOKINS FLIES "BABY
GRAND" The flier entrusted by the Wrights
with this potential paragon of speed was their senior pilot,
twenty-two-year-old Walter Richard Brookins. Brookins, a native
of Dayton who since the age of four had been a particular pet of
Orville's. Slight, dark- eyed "Brookie" had been taught at
achool by the Wright's sister Katherine and had been promised a
plane of his own when he was old enough. He was one of the elite
group whom the Wrights had trained to be exhibition fliers and
had the distinction of being the first to whom Orville gave
lessons. In the winter of 1910 Brookins accompanied Orville to a
field near Montgomery, Alabama (now Maxwell Field), where the
climate was more conducive to flying than at the Wright's
Huffman Prairie, outside of Dayton. He was an apt pupil, soloing
after two and a half hours of instruction and becoming an
instructor himself when Orville went home. That summer Brookins
took part in exhibitions at Indianapolis and Chicago, making a
speciality of high flying; at the former city on 14 June he set
a world altitude mark of 4,380 feet. Brookins had a few other
tricks up his sleeve. On 7 July Wilbur Wright wrote to Charlie
Rolls about Brookin's record of a complete circle in 6 2/3
seconds...I do not expect to be beaten soon. It was the most
hairlifting performance I have ever seen. The circle was not
over a hundred feet in diameter, measured at the middle of the
machine, and about eighty-five at the inside edge. The
centrifugal force was nearly double the weight of the machine,
and the strain of the machine was about two and a half times the
normal strain. It was a beautifully executed feat, but the
strains were too great to make such things safe for everyday
work.
To be Continued
From Blue Ribbon of the Air
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FAIRGROUND AND
KINLOCH, 1911 Encouraged by the success of
its previous ventures particularly those of 1910, the Aero Club
of St. Louis decided to stage two air meets in 1911. Although
the city's aviation fame came from free ballooning, both
tournaments would concentrate on heavier-than-air craft, in
keeping with the latest developlments in aviation. St. Louis had
put in its bid for the annual Gordon BGennett Race, but it lost
out to kansas City. Pilots from the Aero Club of St. Louis,
however, swept the first three places in the National
Elimination Race, also held in Kansas City, on July 10:
Frank P. Lahm
in the St. Louis IV, John Beery in the Million
Population Club, and William Assmann in the Miss Sophia.
All three thereby earned places on the American team for the
international race, in which they figured second, fourth and
fifth, respectively.
The star of the Fariground meet was to be Walter Brookins,
the sole survivor of the celebrated "Big Three" of American
aviation who had been the mainstays of the powerful Wright team.
When the Wright brothers learned of their pilot's negotiations
with the Pioneer Aeroplane and Exhibition Company of St. Louis,
they made their position clear: |
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We call your
attention to the fact that Mr. Brookins is bound to fly
for The Wright Company if he flies at all, and that if he
attempts
to fly for others, without first obtaining our consent, we will
have
him enjoined.
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Perhaps disgruntled over shabby treatment by
the brothers, Brookins broke with them and launched out on his
own. |
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Missouri
Historical Society |
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Walter Brookins straps two 50-pound
sacks of mail to his biplane,
then took off on the first airmail flight in the city.
The date: October 2, 1911
He established a world's record...in carrying 5,000 pieces
of mail by "Aerial Post" from Kinloch Aviation Field to
Fairground, a distance of twelve miles, in ten minutes and
fifteen seconds.
From City of Flight:
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Early Aerial
Photography Here we have Walter
Brookins, surrounded by a maze of flight and engine instruments,
at the controls of W. E. Scripps 1912 Burgess-Curtiss flying
boat, with William Kuenzel, Detroit News photographer, at his
side. This team made the first aerial photos of Detroit--in
1912. Kuenzel is still with The News.
from CHIRP - SATURDAY AUGUST 17, 1935 - DETROIT MICH.
courtesy of Steve Remington -
CollectAir |
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ONLINE RESOURCES
If you search for "Walter Brookins" using the Google search
engine, (9-17-03), you will find about 343 links.
If you search for "Walter R. Brookins" using the Google
search engine, (9-17-03), you will find about 39 links.
An especially exciting new addition to the online
resources, is the following. |
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THE FRANK COFFYN COLLECTION "What was
it really like to be a pioneer aviator? The Frank Coffyn
Collection of the Empire State Aerosciences Museum tells the
real life story of the people who helped introduce the airplane
to America. Once an abandoned scrapbook, the collection is now
available to the public for the first time. Learn about the
project, explore the collection, and see Coffyn's flying machine
come back to life."
You will want to visit each of the following sections.
About the Project
You will want to visit each of the categories; The Project,
Who was Frank T. Coffyn and the Wright Exhibition Team.
The Collection: Introduction
The Frank Coffyn Collection is part of the Research Library
collection at the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Glenville,
New York. It is actually the contents of a scrapbook kept by
Coffyn of his early days as an aviator. When it was discovered,
most of the images had come away from their original paste
mounts and were in no recognizable order. With the images now
identified, the collection has been sorted into the main
categories below. As study of the collection continues, further
identifications will be added and published in this system. We
welcome information from the public that may help in this
effort.
This section is divided into several categories:
Highlights, Stories, Aircraft, People, Locations, Photographers,
Images types and "View all Images."
Coffyn's Flying Machine
The Wright Model B aircraft was designed, built, and flown
during Frank Coffyn's time with the Wright Company. It was the
first airplane to go into mass production, and was the most
successful of the Wright company's machines. The Wright
Experience has been building authentic static reproductions of
the Model B since 1994, and in 2003, completed a flyable
version. This airplane used the same engine Frank Coffyn used on
a Model B in 1912. Join the Wright Experience as they rediscover
this airplane, and meet the challenge of learning to fly
Coffyn's flying machine.
This section is divided into four categories:
Rediscovering, Building, Testing and Flying.
Click on the title above to begin your visit! |
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The Collection: Stories : Atlantic City
."The Wright exhibition team, represented by Frank
Coffyn and Walter Brookins, performed with the Curtiss team at
Atlantic City, New Jersey, July 8-13, 1910. Brookins, specified
by the contract as the only Wright pilot at the exhibition, is
featured in many of the images. Probably the most daring and
skilled of the Wright pilots, there are several dramatic images
of him in flight." To access this page, click on the title
above. |
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CARRUTHERS SPECIAL COLLECTION
Sprague Library
Harvey Mudd College. "This web site is designed
to show what the contents of Sprague Library has to offer in
Carruthers Special Collection on aviation history. Specifically,
this site deals with the portion of the collection devoted to
photographs, posters, artists drawings and media publications.
The approximately 4800 books in the Carruthers aviation
collection are already in the on-line library catalog. The
topics mentioned in this site are limited to the subjects
available in this particular collection of approximately 445
Photos; 400 documents, 115 posters, lithographs/engravings; .
They represent several periods of aviation history of ballooning
since 1783, and heavier-than-air vehicles since 1900 and the
people and events which made that history."
To visit the page which shows Walter Brookins, along with a
number of other pioneers, click on the title above. You will
find him pictured in the fourth picture down the page.
While on the site, I heartily recommend that you plan some
time to enjoy the whole collection of really unique and precious
photographs. To access the homepage, click on;
Aviation Special Collections |
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BROOKINS DEDICATION
A new picture comes to light, taken at the plaque
dedication at the San Fernando Valley Airport, Van Nuys,
California, in honor of Walter Brookins. The unveiling took
place on May 17, 1953. Shown at the dedication are (left to
right) George Noville, Garland Lincoln, Mary Brookins--widow of
Walter, Tiny
Broadwick, Ruth Elder, and
C.N. "Jimmie"
James. |
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From www.FirstFlight.org
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Walter R. Brookins
1888 - 1953
The First Civilian Pilot, 1910
Inducted in 1986
The
Wright brothers realized that if the science of aviation
were to develop, it would first be necessary to win
public acceptance of flight throughout the United
States. This required that a demonstration team be
assembled to fly exhibitions. The first pilot hired for
the team was Walter Richard Brookins, a Dayton native
and long-time student and friend of the Wrights.
Brookins learned to fly in 1909 at the Wrights’ flight
school near Montgomery, Alabama, on what is now a
portion of Maxwell Air Force Base. He made his first
solo flight after only two and one-half hours of
instructional flying. This qualified Brookins to be
appointed the Wrights' first instructor to train pilots
for the new Wright Exhibition Team.
Brookins soon became one of the most legendary
exhibition flyers in America, setting world records for
altitude, cross-country flight and endurance. In 1910 in
New Jersey, he flew to an altitude of 6,175 feet in a
Wright biplane, becoming the first to fly a mile high.
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