Early Birds of Aviation, Inc.
THE EARLY BIRDS
OF AVIATION, Inc.
An organization of pioneers who flew solo before December 17, 1916
"Justin Gruelle's mural contains not only portraits of many aviation pioneers but also their aircraft, and all are depicted with an eye toward detail and historical accuracy that would be difficult to exceed."
Reproduced from TRACES of Indiana and Midwestern History
Courtesy of Indiana Historical Society
For the complete story, click on Mural
598 ORIGINAL EARLY BIRDS
As a convenience for my regular visitors, I have added a page on which they can find all the new pioneer aviators which I have added to the website, as well as all updates which have been made recently. You can access the page by clicking on the title above.
These are pioneer flyers who were not members of the Early Bird organization. Even those who soloed before the cutoff date, December 17, 1916 and were otherwise eligible, were either overlooked as candidates or didn't bother to apply.
343 FOREIGN EARLY FLYERS
Argentinian (9), Australian (3), Austrian (2), Belgian (22), Brazilian (19), British (39), Canadian (5), Chilean (2), China (2), Cuba (3), Czech (1), Danish (2), Dutch (9), French (86), German (27), Greek (7), Guatemalan (1), Haitian (1), Hungarian (3), Indian (1), Italian (23), Japan (5), Latvia (1), Mexican (9), Paraguayan (1), Peruvian (2), Polish (1),Portuguese (2), Rhodesian (1), Romanian (18), Russian, (15), Scotch, (3), Slovenian, (3), Spanish (7), Swedish (2), Swiss (4), Thai, (3), Trinidad, (1), Turkish, (1), Venezuelan (1), Vietnamese (1)
EARLY AVIATORS
GEORGE FICKE
I would like to thank all of the many visitors to the Website and hope you continue to enjoy Early Aviators for years to come. Earlyaviators.com has been offered a unique opportunity to acquire one of the finest private research libraries in the country, rivaling many of the public archives. Due to the health of the current owner, it is being offered to Early Aviators. All of the files (some one of a kind) will be made available to those of you who wish to visit our new physical library in Ohio and over the course of time our goal will be to scan in the hundreds of thousands of pages to the site so that everyone will have access to them. These documents are being offered to us at a fraction of the cost that private collectors would pay for them if they are broken up. Greatly depriving the public access to such a valuable and rare research tool. So I implore you to give whatever you can to make this a reality for ALL OF US. Click on the link below to make your donation. Every dollar counts.
Thank You
GEORGE FICKE
PIONEER PILOT
WALTER E. LEES
1887 - 1957
(Click On Name For Brief Biographical Sketch)
From his collection of photos, news clippings and his journals
Many from the book
"Pioneer Pilot"
edited by his daughter
Jo Lees Cooper
I invite you visit my companion site which features the career of my father-in-law, Walter E. Lees, 1887-1957. You may access it by clicking on the title above.
I heartily recommend that you visit this other site which features the Early Birds. It was built by Carroll Gray and offers many unique and fascinating stories and photos of the Early Birds and their exploits. It even has two QuickTime film clips of EB Alys McKey Bryant and EB Harry P. Christofferson. You may access it by clicking on the title above.
You should also plan to visit Carroll's comprehensive companion site which is devoted to Pioneer Aviator Lincoln Beachey. You may access it by clicking on:
Carroll has done a remarkable job on these two sites and I am sure you will enjoy your visit.
This really outstanding website has entries for some 97 pioneer aviators, both the famous and the lesser known of them. Most of them are complete with biographies and photographs. In addition, the site provides recommendations for Further Reading : "Project Gutenburg eTexts"and "Website Bibliographies." I am very impressed with the number of entries and the quality of the illustrated biographies. I can recommend it to your attention without any reservations.
Copyright © January 14, 2000, George Ficke
Revised -- July 17, 2020
E-mail to George Ficke
