University Place

cc >> My name is Bob Campbell. I'm the director of the museum. I'm glad that you folks are here for a nice, wonderful evening with Fred Stadler. A little bio. He didn't give me a whole lot to work with. You're a very humble man, Fred. I've got this much on a bio on this gentleman here. Anyway, Fred's been a long-time member of EAA. He is a pilot at our Pioneer Airport and flies all the airplanes out there, both from the Young Eagle standpoint of flying a lot of Young Eagle kids to the aircraft that we have out there. He is also a mechanic. He works on some of the airplanes over at Weeks Hangar. He is an author of various EAA publications in our magazines. I'm going to go a little bit further here for you, Fred, here. His background, a little bit. He's a lifelong member of aviation as a hobby. He's been growing up with aviation all of his life. He's owned a Cessna 310 for the last 40 years. Retired IBM as a senior software development manager. He's moved from Texas to Oshkosh. Why you moved up here, I have no idea. I was talking to Carol. I said it was one of the rough winters that we've had, of course. They might be going back to Texas, I don't know. Anyway, we are glad that you're here. He's also a commercial pilot, CFI, and also an AMP. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Mr. Fred Stadler.

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>> Thank you, Bob. As I look out in the audience, I see a lot of folks who, like me, were familiar with the second half of the 20th century and some of the aviation activities of that. It'll make you feel a little younger to know there was a lot that went on in the first half of the 20th century. We're going to see that through the eyes of a very exceptional pilot, a pilot named Bob Shank. Bob Shank flew before World War I. He was a flight instructor in World War I and in World War II. He was a barnstormer. He was an airmail pilot. He operated airports. He did just about everything that there was in the first half of the 20th century. Before I start about Bob, I want to digress just for a minute to let you know how I came upon this story. As it happens, I'm not really that interested in history, hadn't been. I do love aviation. I love flying. I'm lucky enough to fly at Pioneer Airport, where we have a couple of airplanes. These are our airplanes. The blue one is a 1929 Travel Air. The silver one is a 1927 Swallow. We fly those airplanes basically because they've been designated as not being special. If they were really special, like if Charles Lindbergh had flown in it, we wouldn't dare fly it. These were important types. They were significant kinds of airplanes, but the specific airplanes, we really didn't know much of anything about. The new airplane there, the blue one, the Travel Air, was our favorite. I got curious as to what had this airplane done. I knew that it had been donated to EAA. It came in pieces from Florida. It was put together by the staff here and was rebuilt in the '90s. We've been flying it ever since and loving that airplane. I got curious. What did it do? Where did it come from? I went back in the records and found an early owner, located him, and he pointed me to an even earlier owner. He says, "I think there's this guy in Indiana who might still be alive." I found him, called him up. He was obviously a little elderly, and we were having a little difficulty understanding what was which. I said, "EAA," and "airplane," and getting in, I said, "648 Hotel." He says, "Ah, 648 Hotel. I know that airplane." We were immediately bonded. We talked for some time. It became clear that I needed to go down and visit him, so Carol and I flew down and visited him in Brownsburg, Indiana. A delightful couple, both he and his wife, Virginia, Virginia and Bill Shank. We videotaped them for a Timeless Voices segment, if you're interested in it. It's on EAA's website. They were operators of a airport in Indianapolis for quite some time. Interesting story of their own. Bill told me, "The person you really need to know about is my father, Bob Shank, who was the first owner of the Travel Air." Not only did he tell me a little bit about his father, but he gave me some materials. He gave me a couple of cassette tapes that were audio files of talks that his father had given in the '50s, first-person accounts. Also, an EAA member down there was nice enough to take a whole bunch of pictures, and scan them, and put them on CDs. That was the makings of this talk. I was a little skeptical. You'll notice lots of times, folks have their recollection of what they did way back when, and it gets a little skewed. I started looking things up, and calling libraries, and getting newspaper accounts. Bob Shank was the real deal. He was a very humble guy. What he had done was just amazing and was really an interesting story. Now Bill and Virginia Shank are sadly since deceased. I had gone down and visited them in 2006. Bill just encouraged me, "Tell my father's story, because people will find that fascinating." That's what I intend to do tonight. We're going to talk a little bit about the American history, and then it is going to get into aviation pretty quickly. Bob Shank was probably fairly typical of somebody growing up in rural America in the end of the 19th century. He was born in 1891 in a little town called Hurricane, West Virginia. His family later moved to an even smaller town of Hamlin, West Virginia. Ultimately, they moved to Huntington, West Virginia. Bob was the fourth of five children. It was the habit back then, pretty much, if you were the oldest born, pretty good chance you were going to do whatever your father had done. His father operated a mill, also was a blacksmith, also operated a farm. Bob had two older brothers and an older sister, and so he was on his own to find out what to do. As was the habit back then, he left school after the 3rd grade because he was needed on the farm, and started working, helping out the family, supporting the family farm. Of course, working on the farm wasn't a year-round activity. There weren't a lot of child labor laws back then, so the rest of the year, he got a whole variety of jobs. He started out working in a glass factory, carrying hot glass around where they made bottles and such. Got an upgrade to another company in Huntington, West Virginia, where he became an artist for a picture frame company, where he'd draw in the backgrounds of people. When you had your portrait done, they had the real skilled artists that did the faces, but then they had other people do all the backgrounds. He did that sort of thing. He really hit his stride as a bicycle repairman. He was interested in mechanical things. About this time, when he was 12 years old, he saw his first automobile. It was a steamer, not a Stanley Steemer, but a steam-driven automobile. You have to remember, this is back in the absolute horse-and-buggy days. There was nothing. The most exciting thing that went on in the little town was on Sundays, all the kids in town would go down to see the train come through. The train would come through and wouldn't stop, would roar by and grab a mailbag off a hook, and throw another mailbag off. That was the excitement of seeing mechanized transportation back then. Bob was a bicycle repairman, worked in a bicycle shop. One day, somebody came in who worked for the post office, and was complaining that he'd had this motorcycle and he just couldn't keep it working. That was it, he was disgusted with it. Anybody who would buy the motorcycle from him could have the post office job. Sounded pretty good to Bob. He was ready to step up again, so he bought the motorcycle. He was pretty handy with it. Here we have the first picture of young Bob Shank. Here he was with his motorcycle. He did special deliveries for the post office, but he was always a promoter. He didn't just deliver things. He decided he would increase the business by putting an exhaust whistle on his motorcycle. When he delivered a special-delivery letter in town, everybody in the neighborhood knew it. It actually started increasing business, because the ladies in town would say, "Hey, you know, Mabel down the street got a special delivery envelope from her husband when he was away. How come you don't send me one when you're away?" Pretty soon, the special delivery business increased. He was pretty skillful at that. Before too long, he was making more money than any of the other post office workers. There was a little bit of dissension amongst the post office workers, that this young kid was hauling down more money, because it was a piecework kind of a thing. Right about then, he had his first exposure to aviation. This was 1912. Remember, aviation was an absolutely amazing thing. Of course, they knew about the Wright brothers. They were aware of it from reading the papers. Someone actually came to town with a Curtiss Pusher. A guy named Charles Walsh did a demo flight. This was before the days of barnstorming. This was just somebody took off, got off the air, and flew, and everybody was just astounded and amazed by it. Shank and his brothers went out and watched. You're probably imagining that I'm going to tell you that he was hooked. He just knew that's what he had to do. That wasn't the case at all. Bob found it an interesting curiosity, but he was more interested in playing with his motorcycle and working at that. That was his first exposure. Didn't quite take, but he did get into business. He and his brothers opened a car dealership. Automobiles were definitely a rarity. They sold the very first ones in Huntington. In fact, there they sold REO automobiles. They maintained a local garage. To help you understand how this works a little bit. this was interesting to me to learn out, when people first bought cars, they were such a novelty. It had this thing you had to crank on the front. You had to start it. People had no place to put it, so everybody in town kept their car in the garage. If they wanted to go drive someplace, they called the garage up, the garage drove it out, brought them their car. They dropped somebody off, they'd go out and drive where they wanted, and then bring the car back to the town garage, where their car would sit. It was the opposite of, if you went to a riding stable today, you'd keep your horse in the stable, and you'd have your car at home. Back then, people had their horses at home, and they'd go to the garage if they wanted to ride in their car. That was an interesting business for them. He was still sorting out, what did he really want to do? In 1915, Bob had what I would call a mid-life crisis. He was only 24 years old, but you weren't going to live too long when you were born back then, so if you're going to have a mid-life crisis, you had to have it pretty soon. He decided he just didn't really know what he wanted to do. He hadn't seen much of the country, and he wanted to go find out what was out there, what was on the other side of the Ohio River. Bob and his best friend, Emmett Callahan, decided they would go see the United States. Here's a picture of them. It's a little water-spotted picture of Bob and Emmett in their car, going off to tour the United States. By the way, this also reminds me. People will sometimes ask us at Pioneer Airport, "How come the airplanes were open-cockpit? Why weren't they enclosed?" People forget that back then, most of the cars were open-cockpit. That's just how they were. It was only much later that they really began enclosing everything. Here's Bob and Emmett, off to go see the United States. We really don't know exactly what they did out there. It's probably just as well that we don't know what they did. There were a bunch of stories. They did follow the county fair circuit. We know that they set up a shooting gallery in some of these fairs. Bob also did some motorcycle demonstrations. He basically had a special encounter in a state fair in Wyoming, or maybe it was North Dakota. The accounts vary a little bit. He ran into a guy named Matty Laird. Matty Laird was a designer out of Chicago who had his own airplane and was barnstorming at this point. Later, Matty was going to design a whole bunch of racing airplanes and such. He had an airplane that was called the Boneshaker. It was called that because it had a six-cylinder radial engine, ran very, very rough. Here's a picture of Matty Laird and his Boneshaker. He was having a little trouble with the engine. Bob was really handy with engines. Matty Laird went into town, had the magneto fixed, brought it back, couldn't get it timed quite right, so Bob got involved in helping him time the airplane. In talking about it, he learned something very interesting. He learned that Matty Laird was being paid 2,000 dollars for that week to fly at this state fair. In this time, 1,000 dollars was considered a pretty good annual salary, and Matty Laird was getting 2,000 dollars in a week. Bob Shank had an epiphany. He knew now what he was going to do. He was going to get into aviation, because that's a substantial field. He decided what his new career was. There was only one obstacle, at least one obstacle that he saw. He didn't have an airplane. Actually, there were more obstacles, like he didn't know how to fly an airplane if he had one, but he was only going to discover that a little bit later. Bob figured, what was he going to do? He went back to West Virginia with his buddy Emmett Callahan, sold his car, and starting getting money together for his new career. He called out to Glenn Curtiss in New York. Glenn Curtis said, "Sure, I'll build you an airplane. Eight thousand dollars." Impossible. Wasn't going to be able to do that. Bob rooted around, and he heard that someplace in Chicago, they had airplanes. They were building airplanes, and they were a little bit cheaper. We don't know exactly how Bob made the connection, but we suspect it might have been an ad like this. This was a ad out of Aero Newspaper, Aero Magazine, which was popular back then. I'll blow that ad up a little bit for you. Here's what it says. It says, "Airplanes for sale and built to order, models and model stock, Chicago engine, flying models, Chicago Aero Works, so and so proprietor." Time to go for a visit to Chicago. He shows up to look up the Chicago Aero Works in Chicago and has a rude surprise. He discovers that the Chicago Aero Works really just builds model airplanes. Oh, gee. But, not to worry. They say there actually is a guy in the back, a guy named Max Stupar, who has scaled them up and has built a couple of full-size airplanes. He has a little bit of experience. He's got one there, and he's working on it. Maybe he'll do something for you. Bob talks to him and basically gets an offer from him that he'll build him a flying airplane for 1,950 dollars. Bob didn't know what kind of engine it has, didn't know whatever it was, but he said that's the best deal he saw, so he gave him a 50-dollar deposit and went home to wait for his airplane to be built. That was his first lesson in things about aviation. They always take a little bit longer than you expect. Finally, he got the call. "Come on back to Chicago to pick up your airplane." He went back to Chicago, got another surprise. His airplane wasn't ready. He hung around in Chicago a while, waiting for his airplane to be built. The pieces were there, but they were installing the engine and all that. He spent a few weeks there watching its construction. A couple of weeks later, finally, the airplane is getting close. It's not quite all set. They ask him, "Where should we deliver it?" He actually hadn't thought about that. You've got the airplane, but where should I put it? He said, "Where do people go out here?" They said, "A lot of guys go out to Cicero, but they just closed that down. They built a new field called Ashburn Field southwest of Chicago, and a bunch of guys out there. Why don't you go out there and check it out?" Bob went out to Ashburn Field. He met Elmer Partridge and Henry Keller, who were the proprietors of it. It was sort of an early EAA club, before EAA existed. Hung around there. They wanted to charge him to learn to fly. No way was he going to pay to learn to fly. That just seemed outrageous to him. He asked them where people stayed. They said, "There's a hotel over here. It's called the Aviator's Rest. Go over and see Mrs. Carlson, and Mrs. Carlson will put you up." He said, "Can I find a place?" She said, "Yeah, you can bunk here if you want. You'll have to bunk with somebody else. There's a guy named Sinnie Sinclair. Do you mind sharing a room with somebody else?" No, that'd be okay to him. That's what he did. This wasn't actually that unusual back then. In this day, people did frequently take rooms and hotel rooms with other folks. I guess this wasn't exactly Motel 6. It was probably a little more like a Motel 2. At any rate, he hung out in the Aviator's Rest. Sure enough, they finally got the airplane done. It arrived on a horse-drawn carriage. He had ordered an airplane. What he ended up really receiving was an airplane kit, three boxes dumped off in Ashburn Field. There you go. Fortunately, he'd been hanging around, and he was pretty mechanical. He knew what to do. He knew how the pieces would go together, so he put it together. A couple of people decided that they would charge him to fly the airplane. No, he didn't want to do that. His roommate, Sinnie Sinclair, said, "Look, I've flown a little bit. I'll test fly it for you." Here is a picture of Sinnie Sinclair in Bob Shank's brand-new airplane. You'll notice it says, "Stupar Tractor, Chicago Aero Works." It was a biplane. The engine was called a Maximotor. It was a water-cooled boat engine that had been converted slightly for aircraft use. Obviously, it had never been flown before, but Sinnie Sinclair was ready to give it a try. They tested the engine. They basically put a fish scale on the back of the airplane, ran the engine up, measured how much thrust it had. About 300 pounds. Said, "That's good enough. Ready to go." Sinnie fired it up. He took off. The airplane flew. He circled the field twice, came around, landed, and the airplane went up on its nose, broke the propeller. Oh, gee. Of course, fortunately, this was a home-built airplane, so it wasn't that difficult to repair. It happens, right in the field, there was a guy named Ole Flatorp who knew how to make propellers. He went over to Ole, contracted for a new propeller. Three weeks later and forty dollars, he had a new propeller. Time to test the airplane. Sinnie Sinclair says, "Okay, we're going to try it again. I'll be a little more careful on the landing this time." He took to the air, circled the field, landed just great, and it went up on its nose and broke the propeller. Bob Shank was a little disturbed at this point. He knew that he had to have yet another propeller, but this time, he said, "We need to really redesign something. Something isn't quite right. I think it needs to be fixed." Sure enough, Old Flatorp made him another propeller. Bob went back and talked to Max Stupar, and Max says, "Maybe the landing gear isn't quite in the right spot." They talked about it, and Bob got him to agree to put on two more wheels. The main landing gear was 28-inch motorcycle wheels, so they put on two 20-inch wheels up in front of those so it wouldn't nose over. Now we had a fix. Here are our intrepid aviators standing in front of the fixed airplane. On the left, you see Emmett Callahan, Sinnie Sinclair, the test pilot, in the center, and Bob Shank on the right. Two owners on the outside and the test pilot in the center. Here's another picture of Bob Shank standing in front of this new redesigned airplane. You notice four sets of wheels in the front. That was the quick fix to keep it from going on its nose. Now it's time for a third flight. This time, Bob wasn't going to let somebody else fly the airplane. Bob decided he was going to fly it himself. Never mind that he had never flown an airplane. I could tell you about his first test flight, but I think it would be more interesting for you to hear Bob Shank tell you about his first test flight. What you're going to hear is Bob Shank as he told a group in 1954. This tape hasn't been heard, that I'm aware of, since 1955, in January. He is going to describe to you how he made his first test flight. >> Sinclair did not get in it. I got in it. I was at least going to taxi that airplane across the field and back before anyone cracked it up, or anything else. I had owned it now. I had seen it, I had set in it, but I had never flown it or had a ride of any kind in it. I taxied it across the field. I'd set there in it down in the shop. I knew how the controls worked. I just run across the field, a little faster across the field, a little faster across the field, and getting along fine. I could guide it, steer it, so forth. Emmett Callahan, who was my friend from Huntington, West Virginia, was there. Emmett was just standing on the sideline seeing all of this. I said, "Emmett, don't you want to get in the front seat and ride across the field and back with me?" He didn't know any better. He said, "Sure," so he got in.

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I went across the field with Emmett. I was getting pretty good. I got a little faster, a little faster. Finally, I got up off the ground about 15 or 20 feet. I flew for possibly 3, 400 feet, eased back on the throttle. The airplane settled to the ground on these four wheels. It couldn't nose over. All okay, I'd made a flight, my first flight, and with a passenger. There were no CAAs at that time.

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I was across the field now, on the other side from where they kept the airplane tied down. It was necessary to turn the plane around and come back. I did. Opened the throttle about the same amount. Got off the ground just as high, and flew fine, and let her down again, all okay. Emmett was still in the front seat, and I was in the back. It was on the ground again, was back over to where we belonged. I enjoyed it a lot. I don't think Emmett did, because he said, "I think I'll get out," and he did.

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All of you folks who fly. I didn't know about flying then, know that weight makes a lot of difference in an airplane. I was in it by myself now. I was enthusiastic. I wanted to fly at least once more across the field a few feet off the ground. I turned around, gave it the gun about the same amount, and I got up off the ground. With that, she fell off on one wing, as I know it now. I had heard the boys over at Mrs. Carlson's say, "If you ever get into any trouble, really pour the coal to it or give it the gun, pour the gas in." I opened the throttle wide open and straightened it out. This field was a mile square, and it has trees all around. I was taking off from this southeast corner away from the trees, out toward the field. As it made this turn, I was headed back toward the trees. I wasn't above them. Then I did pour the coal on, and luckily, I cleared the trees. Now I'm headed away from the airport, outside of the airport, up in the air some 75 or 80 feet in my airplane and I don't know how to fly it.

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As I know it now, I know that I made a turn that evidently was at least a half a mile in diameter. Finally, I got it headed back for the field. I had seen my airplane stand on its nose. I didn't want it on its nose anymore. I was afraid to glide it down, so I closed the throttle. When I did that, it settled. I'd give her the throttle, and she'd fly. I'd close it back, and it settled. Finally, I got a happy medium worked out that I found I could make it fly or I could lose a little altitude by closing the throttle, and it just settled. Why, if I had given it any rudder to amount to anything, I would have gone into a spin, of course. I was just lazily coming in and finally got her over the trees, and she came in and kissed the ground, all okay, on a three-point landing. I didn't crack her up, and I had flown. Eddie Stinson saw this. I don't know if you were there that day or not, were you, Slim? He came over and told me that the acrobatics that I had just put on would have made Lincoln Beachey turn over in his grave.

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I'm sure that I didn't want to disturb the peaceful slumbers of Lincoln Beachey, and Eddie Stinson didn't want to have me do it. He offered to teach me to fly, which he did. He taught me to fly in 2 hours and 43 minutes. I had to put a special control. Everybody flew a different control in those days. He flew a Wright wheel control, which he'd been flying out on the old Wright planes. Eddie had a Wright plane there, but he never flew it to my knowledge. I don't blame him, as I recall the way it looked... >> So, Bob had just flown. He had just a little under three hours of flight instruction, and he was ready to go, ready to make the big bucks in aviation. He did. He began selling passenger rides right away, and he became an exhibition pilot. Here's a picture of Bob flying in his Stupar Tractor, still with his four wheels on it, carrying passengers. That was in the spring, and all that summer, he worked the exhibition circuit. Here's a contract of the Lincoln Beachey was deceased, by the way, at this point, but his company still offered services. Just realize this is just a few months after what you just heard about. Here's a contract for Bob Shank to fly in Idaho. The contract stipulates, "Aviator Robert Shank's to perform fancy flying feats in his repertoire with smoke pot fireworks on his plane. September 14, 15, 16, 1916." He was off on the exhibition circuit. He did that through the fall. The days started getting shorter and colder, and the exhibition business dried up. Barnstorming wasn't getting too good, as the snow was flying, so Bob needed to do something else with his airplane. As happens so many times, Eddie Stinson intervened. Eddie Stinson was the guy who he had met in Chicago. Eddie Stinson, by the way, was from the famous Stinson family. Eddie said, "Why don't you come down to San Antonio? We've got a flight school down here. We need a mechanic, and probably you could do a little instruction, too, since you're an experienced pilot now." Eddie invited him to come down to San Antonio and instruct at the Stinson School of Flying. I don't know what image you have in your mind of what the Stinson School of Flying looks like, but it's probably not this. This had to be a little off-putting to people who showed up. That was the facility of the Stinson School. Nevertheless, that was the best there was. The real stars of the Stinson family were Katherine and Marjorie, the two daughters. There were also two brothers. Eddie was one of them. Katherine and Marjorie really did the most of the flying. Mother Stinson, their mother, basically ran the business. She was a little skeptical of Eddie and his buddy Bob Shank. In fact, she felt Eddie was a little too dangerous. Eddie drank a little too much. Basically, she ran them out. Bob and Eddie went down to Houston, took their contracts that they were selling for the Stinson School of Flying, and converted them, and turned them into the National School of Flying. Here's a contract that they had with students. A little hard for you to read, but it says up at the top, "Instructors Edward Stinson and Robert Shank." They taught students. The only airplane that they had, of course, was Bob's Stupar Tractor, but they obviously had a good time in Houston. Here's a picture of the Stupar Tractor with some of the crew there. By the way, if you look back at pictures from 1917, people usually look pretty grim. These people weren't grim. They were having a good old time. In fact, here's another picture. There were a lot of ladies involved there. Here was the Stupar Tractor, still with its four wheels. One of these Texas ladies ended up becoming Mrs. Shank during that period. There was a fundamental flaw in the National School of Flying, and that was that the instructors really only had a few more hours of flying than the students. The result was inevitable. We really don't know exactly what happened, but it must have been fairly disastrous, because this was happened to the Stupar Tractor, Bob's beloved airplane. Smashed entirely to pieces, so they were out of business in the flying school business. Eddie called up Mom, said, "Hey, can we come back to San Antonio?" Mrs. Stinson relented. They came back to San Antonio, but not too surprisingly, after a couple of months, their airplanes were wrecked, as well. They were just about out of business, but something new happened that offered a new opportunity. It was World War I. They were in San Antonio. World War I, the army was looking for flight instructors. Bob Shank was a prime candidate, because he had a lot of experience. He was recruited as a civilian flight instructor. He moved across to Kelly Field in San Antonio, taught a tremendous number of students. As anybody who's done flight instruction knows, that's when you really learn to fly, is when you instruct. He then went up to Love Field. Had very good ratings as a flight instructor. Then yet another opportunity opened up, the airmail. The original airmail in the United States started during World War I. One of the problems was, of course, there weren't a lot of people to staff it during World War I. The army was doing it and really did a rather poor job at the airmail. They did it from May until August 1918. The post office decided they were going to take it over. The army just was having a great deal of trouble, so Postmaster Otto Praeger says, "The post office will hire our own pilots. We'll start our own service." They did a national search. They hired a guy, Captain Benjamin Lipsner, who was going to hire pilots in the employ of the post office. Searched the country to find folks to be in the air service. Here was Captain Benjamin Lipsner, who was in charge of doing that. It was a difficult thing. When you see the candidates, you'll wonder how this was the best that the United States could come up with. The very first pilot that was hired was a guy named Max Miller. The second one was an older fellow named Maurice Newton. This was July of 1918. The third pilot hired was our boy Bob Shank, and the fourth pilot hired was Eddie Gardner. This photograph was taken before any flights had been made. They were an enthusiastic group. They were going to take over from the army. Little could they know when this photograph was taken how perilous a job they were taking on. In fact, within three years, only one of those four pilots would still be alive, Bob Shank. This was a very, very tough business. Very shortly after this photograph was taken, Maurice Newton was involved in a taxiing accident in New York. In New York, they actually operated out of Belmont Park, right on the racetrack. They'd take off and land right on the racetrack where they had horse races. There was a large hole in the racetrack. He fell in it, and he hit his head on the instrument panel. Seemed to be alright, but just really was listless, didn't feel right. Less than a month later, he was dead. His wife tried to get some money out of the Post Office Department as an industrial accident. They said, "Nope, had nothing to do with it." She was not involved. September 25th, 1919, Maurice Newton was killed. Max Miller also had a fairly tragic end, flying the airmail. He's the guy standing right next to Maurice Newton. He took off on a flight to Cleveland carrying a mechanic with him. About a half an hour later, the plane returned where they were taking off, and there were flames in the cockpit. They were seen throwing mailbags out of airplane, trying to lighten it. Before they landed, the gas tank exploded, and they were both killed. That was the end of Max Miller. Eddie Gardner had a lot of accidents flying the airmail. Actually survived the airmail, and shortly after he left in 1921, was killed doing stunt flying at a Kansas county fair. Of these folks, the only person who made it through was Bob Shank. Bob Shank was not without incidents in the airmail, either. He really was out of his element. Here's a picture taken at the inaugural flight of airmail. The very, very first post office flight was made from Washington to, this was August 12th, 1918, Max Miller left Washington flying north. Half an hour later, Bob Shank left New York. They both landed in Bustleton, Pennsylvania, which is near Philadelphia, exchanged mail sacks, and went back. First day, they flew the flight, everything was okay. Certain interesting observation. Bob Shank talked about those early days. By the way, they were flying a whole variety of aircraft. Standards with Hissos was the most popular. He said, "They put this thing called a compass in my airplane." He said, "I had no idea what the purpose of a compass was." That seemed very strange to me, but what Bob described was, he says, "I had over 1,500 hours of flying. I was a flight instructor in World War I. I was a barnstormer. But, we never went anywhere. Even in World War I, we pretty much flew over enemy lines, and came back and observed things. If you're barnstorming, you always took your airplane apart and you shipped in on a train somewhere you went, and then you flew." The whole idea of taking off in one city and flying to another city was a foreign concept. Navigation was something that they really hadn't figured out until the airmail started out. Another thing that hadn't been figured out by the post office was the concept of canceling for weather. The pilots were expected to take off every day. After all, the train left every day. The airplanes are supposed to be better than trains, and so pilots were expected, regardless of weather, to take off. It was considered acceptable not to complete the mission, if there was some problem, but you had to take off in every event. Things weren't always totally grim. There actually were some celebrity flights. Here's a flight that he made with Douglas Fairbanks, Senior. Douglas Fairbanks, Senior, was a famous actor of the time. Just a little sidelight, right around this time, it was during World War I, all the movie theaters were closed, not because of the war but because there was a outbreak of Spanish influenza. The United States was worried that it would be contracted by people going to movie theaters. When the movie theaters were closed, the film companies shut down. They weren't making more movies. A publicity hound like Douglas Fairbanks wanted something to do, so he got on a kick of selling war bonds. He decided, for a publicity stunt, he would mail himself from Washington to New York. He put an airmail stamp on his forehead, and sat on a mailbag, and went to New York. Got contracts for five million dollars' worth of liberty bonds, and climbed back the next day with Bob Shank, climbed in and flew from New York back to Washington. There was a little bit of notoriety that went on at that point. Basically, it was a pretty dangerous occupation. Bob did have a number of accidents. Here's a picture of him bloodied from an accident in Belmont Park. You can see the airplane wrecked right on the track where they landed. As I said, they had to make takeoffs. There were a fair number of off-field landings. In fact, there were a lot of off-field landings. Here's a picture of one of his landings. This was considered fairly successful. There's, actually, Benjamin Lipsner standing, beaming, right next to Bob Shank, because the mail had gone through on that flight. They did manage to get it to the post office and get it. This was considered one of the more successful flights. This was clearly a serious matter. Things came to a head on November 18th, 1918. What happened that day, of course, the weather. You can imagine what the weather was like in the latter part of November in New York City. They were still expected to fly these open-cockpit planes, regardless of the snow, regardless of the fog. That day, there was a very, very heavy fog, nearly zero/zero. As it happened, Bob Shank was to be the backup pilot that day. Eddie Gardner was the main pilot. They were going to have a demonstration plane that was going to be brought over by Allen Adams, who was a test pilot for the LWF Company. He was going to show the post office department how effective this new airplane plane was. It had a Liberty engine. It was going to fly faster than the planes they had with Hissos. Allen Adams came over, got lost in the fog, couldn't find the airport, and crashed just outside of the airport and was killed. That put a bit of a pallor on activities. Nevertheless, the call came out. "Eddie Gardner, you're up. You got to fly the mail to Washington." Gardner and Shank talked a little bit and said, "Look. " Gardner said, "All I'm going to do, I'm just going to take off. I'll get up in the air, and I'll fly around a little bit, and I'll come back and land. We'll say we couldn't do it." Okay. He took off. Of course, the fog was lower than he expected. He got up, and he got lost. Of course, there's no instruments in the airplane. Gardner got lost, made an off-field landing, crashed into a farm. Survived alright. The airplane was wrecked. The order came down, "Bob Shank, you're the reserve pilot. It's your turn." Picture this. This is a November morning, zero/zero fog. One person's just been killed. The second one went up and had an accident. Bob Shank is expected to go out and fly, so he did. His plan was to just do the same thing that Eddie Gardner wanted to. He took off, got up. He also got caught in it, managed to get himself back on the ground, off the airport. They eventually took the mailbags out. There had now been three attempts, and that was it. The mail went by train. Shank and Gardner were rather relieved, but the assistant postmaster, Otto Praeger, was really mad. This looked like an embarrassment for the Post Office Department. They had failed. They were expected to fly every single day. Praeger said, "Call in the pilots." That's what happened. Shank and Gardner were called into Otto Praeger's office in Washington. There were only three people in that meeting. We'll have to have one of those people, Bob Shank, tell you what happened. >> We went in, had a little conference with Mr. Praeger at his request. Old Mr. Praeger, being the second assistant postmaster general, was a pretty high-up man. He let us know, in no uncertain terms, that he meant what he said. When he gave an order, he meant it. We confronted the old judge there, and he said, "Well, Shank, what do you got to say for yourself?" I don't know why he looked at me first. Gardner had made the first flight. He looked at me first, and I said, "Mr. Praeger, I think that you're expecting 100 percent efficiency in carrying the mail when we don't have 100 percent equipment. We don't know that much about it, and so forth." He said, "That's enough out of you, Shank. What do you got to say, Gardner?" Gardner said, "Well," he said, "I feel about the same way Bob does about it." He said, "I guess that's about all. You boys are through." He said, "Anything else you got to say?" I said, "Yes, I would like to say something more, Mr. Praeger." I said, "If we continue to try and fly through this fog like we're doing, but you've never been on the airmail. You don't know what we have to contend with." I said, "We're going to kill some of the pilots." He says, "We expect to kill a few." >> It was a tough business. Shank and Gardner were let go from the business. Not too surprisingly, the other airmail pilots also were concerned. Several of the rest of them left. The post office backpedaled a little bit. They ended up firing Benjamin Lipsner, who was in charge of the operation, hired Shank and Gardner back, but the accidents continued. This was really a tough, tough business. Bob Shank was married. He was wanting to start a family. It was pretty clear what the prospects were if he continued in that position. In fact, out of the 40 pilots who were hired by the post office department, 20 of them did not survive flying the airmail. It was a very, very tough business. Bob did continue to fly a little bit longer. Then once again, Eddie Stinson, who had been his mentor, had another proposal. Eddie said, "You know, I was approached by a hotel down in Atlantic City. They wanted me to come down and fly for them. Why don't you do that?" Bob Shank did. He became the chief pilot for the Traymore Hotel. It was a very luxury hotel in Atlantic City. He bought three Canucks. Those were Canadian versions of the standard, similar to what he'd been flying in the airmail. They basically flew sightseers over Atlantic City for the hotel, did the sightseeing flights down there. At the end of the season, he moved south. He sold two of those Canucks to Commander Richard Byrd, used in the Arctic exploration. Bob Shank kept the third one to barnstorm, then he barnstormed down in that area. For about six years, while his family was growing up, he did a whole variety of stunt flying, he was involved in a number of movies, and he became a Travel Air dealer for West Virginia. Travel Air was an up-and-coming airplane manufacturer right then. Bob had a family. He had his third child, was just born. He really was bothered by the fact that still, the engines weren't all that reliable. There were a number of forced landings. He said, "You know, you just can't make a business in West Virginia flying passengers. It just isn't safe enough." What he decided to do was move his family west, and that's what he did. He packed his family up, they drove west, and when they got to Indiana, he said, "This is the kind of place you can fly." He settled down in Indianapolis. He established what was to become Hoosier Airport, which was just outside of what's currently the Indianapolis Speedway. He operated it as a general aviation airport. He continued to be a Travel Air dealer. As always, he advertised for flight students. Here's an ad for the Hoosier Airport, Bob Shank's business. It says they were looking, "Learn to fly at the crossroads of the nation, with instructors who have had 12 years' experience teaching men to fly. Distributors of Travel Air airplanes. Flying before the war and still at it." That was his business. He did very well. Of course, being a Travel Air dealer, he had to have Travel Air products. In July 30th of 1929, he went to the Travel Air factory in Wichita, Kansas, bought a brand-new Travel Air. The Travel Air airplane that's right over here at Pioneer Airport. This is his logbook of flying it up to Indianapolis, and put it into immediate service. The primary use they made of it here they are standing in front of 648 Hotel, Bob Shank and his crew, primarily, they carried passengers to the city. We have the logbooks. They flew it every month of the year. I can't imagine what those January flights were like, two people sitting up in front in an open-cockpit airplane. The alternative was driving on bad roads, so I guess it wasn't that bad. Here's a picture of their flight students in 1930, standing in front of his fleet. Of course, 648 Hotel is hiding right over there on the right. It was later to become our airplane right here. Hoosier Airport was very much a going fare. Here's an aerial photograph of it taken in 1941. If you look very carefully at the photograph, you can see there actually is an airplane flying there. We'd like to think that's our Travel Air. Of course, we have no idea what airplane that really is. Characteristic of airport development, this was in prime real estate. Residential encroachment ultimately took over the Hoosier Airport. After World War II, here's what that same airport looked like. That was something to become replicated many times in the United States. He moved a little bit farther out of town, opened up another airport. Another intervening event came along, World War II. Once again, Bob Shank trained American students. Now he was flying Mustangs. He taught students at Butler University in Indianapolis. He really spanned quite a range of history. After World War II, he opened up a new airport called Bob Shank Airport. Characteristically, this was not named after himself. Bob Shank Airport was actually named after his oldest son. Bob Shank's oldest son tragically had been killed in an accident at Hoosier Airport. Bob Shank's son Bill Shank, who was telling me this in his 80s, teared up telling me about it, saying, "I don't know how my father carried on. This was his business. Aviation was his business, and his own son was killed at his own airport, flying. I just don't know how my father could deal with it." Then he reflected on the fact that it was characteristic in this era that almost every family in America had had some tragedy. Children were stillborn. People had terrible diseases that weren't cured. This was just the kind of difficulty that people had to endure. Bob Shank Airport was named in memory of his older son, and it was an award-winning airport. Bob Shank got the Haire Publishing Company trophy for the most outstanding airport development in the country in 1946. You see here a lot of airplanes. That was race day. When the Indianapolis 500 was going on in Indianapolis, Bob Shank Airport became the place to fly. Again, this was a grass airport, but tremendous amount of airplanes would fly in for that event. He was a very successful airport developer. After that, Bob Shank retired in 1957. After doing all kinds of really dangerous things in aviation, he survived. He passed the airport on to his younger son, William, whom I had met. Then he went on and toured Central America in a camper, went to look at Mayan ruins, and really had the rest of quite a successful life. He lived to the age of 76, loved to go fishing, and died in 1968 in Indiana. Bob Shank left us quite a legacy. That was a very fast overview at a very remarkable life that he had. He had participated, really, in all the major developments of aviation in America. He wasn't there when the Wright brothers lifted off the sands of Kitty Hawk, but he was the first person on the scene for just about all the other aviation developments in the country. There are a lot more details to his story. These tapes have been transcribed. They are going to be in a series of issues of Vintage Magazine in 2015, so it's a good reason to be an EAA member and Vintage member, because all those details, a lot more photographs, are going to be in Vintage next year. We'll probably get some of these tapes transcribed and available. He has a lot of other great stories. Of course, there's one other legacy that Bob Shank left us, and that's his wonderful airplane. This is the airplane that we thought was not special. Of course, if it was special, we wouldn't fly it. We've decided, "Well, not special isn't quite right." I think we're going to designate it as being "sort of special," because Bob Shank, a famous American, first flew it. You can come out this summer. It'll be flying all summer at Pioneer Airport, right behind here on the grass strip. I encourage you to come out and, if you like, have a flight in Bob Shank's airplane, our Travel Air.

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