Test Pilot is a 1938 film directed by Victor Fleming, starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, and featuring Lionel Barrymore. The Oscar-nominated film tells the story of a daredevil test pilot (Gable), his wife (Loy), and his best friend (Tracy).
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25, he achieved instantaneous world fame by making the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris on May 20–21, 1927. Lindbergh covered the 33+1⁄2-hour, 3,600-statute-mile (5,800 km) flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Though the first non-stop transatlantic flight had been completed eight years earlier, this was the first solo transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight between two major city hubs, and the longest transatlantic flight by almost 2,000 miles. It was one of the most consequential flights in aviation history and ushered in a new era of transportation between parts of the globe.
The Spirit of St. Louis is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1938:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1928:
The Ryan Aeronautical Company was founded by T. Claude Ryan in San Diego, California, in 1934. It became part of Teledyne in 1969, and of Northrop Grumman when the latter company purchased Ryan in 1999. Ryan built several historically and technically significant aircraft, including four innovative V/STOL designs, but its most successful production aircraft was the Ryan Firebee line of unmanned drones used as target drones and unmanned air vehicles.
A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, airships, balloons and other aircraft.
Douglas Corrigan was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Ireland, though his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach.
The Spirit of St. Louis is a 1957 aviation biography film in CinemaScope and Warnercolor from Warner Bros., directed by Billy Wilder, produced by Leland Hayward, and starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder from Lindbergh's 1953 autobiographical account of his historic flight, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field is a public airport five miles (8.0 km) southwest of Erie, in Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Airline service at Erie faces stiff competition from the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto airports, all within three hours of Erie by car. In 2004, Erie was the third-fastest-growing airport in the United States, and the fastest-growing airport in Pennsylvania. It is 128 miles (206 km) from Pittsburgh, 111 miles (179 km) from the Canada–U.S. border, 95 miles (153 km) from Cleveland, Ohio and 105 miles (169 km) from Buffalo, New York.
The Cradle of Aviation Museum is an aerospace museum located in Garden City, New York on Long Island to commemorate Long Island's part in the history of aviation. It is located on land once part of Mitchel Air Force Base which, together with nearby Roosevelt Field and other airfields on the Hempstead Plains, was the site of many historic flights. So many seminal flights had occurred in the area that, by the mid-1920s, the cluster of airfields was already dubbed the "Cradle of Aviation", the origin of the museum's name.
Charles Albert Levine was the first passenger aboard a transatlantic flight. He was ready to cross the Atlantic to claim the Orteig prize but a court battle over who was going to be in the airplane allowed Charles Lindbergh to leave first.
Reaching for the Skies was an aviation documentary TV series made by BBC Pebble Mill in association with CBS Fox. The first episode was transmitted in the United Kingdom on 12 September 1988 and in the US in 1989.
Bergetta "Dorothy" Peterson was an American actress. She began her acting career on Broadway before appearing in more than eighty Hollywood films.
The sole Wright-Bellanca WB-2, named Columbia, Miss Columbia, and later Maple Leaf, was the second in a series of aircraft designed by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, initially for Wright Aeronautical then later Columbia Aircraft Corp.
China Clipper is a 1936 drama film directed by Ray Enright and written by Frank Wead, produced by First National Pictures, distributed by parent company Warner Brothers, and starring Pat O'Brien, Ross Alexander, Humphrey Bogart and, in his last motion picture appearance, the venerable Henry B. Walthall as "Dad." Walthall was gravely ill during production and his illness is incorporated into his character's role; he died during production.
Rudy Arnold (1902–1966) was an American photographer who specialized in aviation photography.
20,000 Men a Year is a 1939 American action film directed by Alfred E. Green and written by Lou Breslow and Owen Francis. The film stars Randolph Scott, Preston Foster, Margaret Lindsay, Mary Healy, Robert Shaw, George Ernest, Jane Darwell, Kane Richmond and Maxie Rosenbloom. It was the fourth and last film produced by Cosmopolitan Pictures in its final year of operation.
Harlan Albert "Bud" Gurney was a pioneer American mail pilot and airline pilot. He is also known as one of Charles Lindbergh's oldest friends.
John Trent was an aviator-turned-actor-turned-aviator, best known as an actor for the "Tailspin Tommy" adventure film series in the 1930s. From 1931 to 1941, under the stage name John Trent, Browne appeared in 16 Hollywood films. While flying was a natural for him, acting was not, and he eventually turned his back on his Hollywood career, resuming his career in aviation, as a test pilot.
