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Aviation Photography of Bill Larkins During the 1940s
In In Flight USA’s December 2012 issue, the start of Bill Larkins’ eight-decade photography career was illustrated by the 1938 shot of a Grumman F3F US Navy/Marine biplane fighter parked at the Oakland Airport. Bill was about 16-years old when he took the photo.
Bush Pilots: Where did they come from? And, where are they now?
By Alan Smith
A Curtiss JN-3 in military colors. These were among the earliest bush aircraft. (Courtesy of the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archive) When mot people think of “Bush Pilots” most of them think of Alaska and northern Canada. In fact there are bush pilots around the world, carrying things like food, fuel, medical supplies and (courageous) passengers. The term basically means a pilot that may depart from an airport but has no airport, runway, or landing strip at his destination. They fly airplanes equipped with larger tires suitable for landing on rough ground, floats for landing on lakes or rivers and sometimes with amphibious floats that make landing on the ground or on the water possible.
Where did this aviation specialty come from? It is generally thought that this kind of flying began shortly after the end of World War I in South Africa. The African “Bush” simply described any wilderness outside the then growing cities of the region. Some highly valued mining had begun in parts of the African countryside (Diamonds and precious metals) and those operators were in constant need of supplies. Strings of burros proved to be far too slow, and the recently developed airplane was much faster and therefore more attractive (though more expensive) than the plod of hooves through the bush country to various growing industrial projects. Some of the earliest bush planes were Curtiss JN-3 and JN-4 “Jennys.” More than 5,000 of these were built after 1917 for various nations. Most were for the United States military, but many went to nations of the world and to the early bush pilots of South Africa.
World War I Aircraft
By Alan Smith
The Curtiss JN-4 ‘Jenny” that trained U.S. Army pilots prior to their travel to France to fly French fighter aircraft. (Photo byBrian Karli at Amarillo Texas in 1918/Holcomb’s Aerodrome)When gunfire began in the First World War, the airplane was just 11 years old and had been in competition for five years. In America, however, the airplane was still an aerodynamic juvenile. No one had thought about using it to wage war. That would quickly change.
The Europeans had moved far ahead of the U.S. in aircraft design and manufacturing, largely due to the willingness of their governments to invest in aviation. In 1913, for example, the French allocated $7.4 million for aircraft development while the U.S government spent a mere $125,000. As a result, during the opening years of World War I the American aviators were still flying fragile Wright and Curtiss pusher biplanes. While European designers were busy developing relatively high-performance combat aircraft, American exhibition pilot Lincoln Beachey and race car driver Barney Oldfield were amusing spectators by chasing each other around dirt racetracks. It was almost as though Americans had not yet figured out what an airplane could be used for.