Aviation in Florida
A V I AT I O N / F L O R I D A
DH-4 Army biplane down Jacksonville
Beach, he hit some soft sand. The plane
somersaulted into the ocean, dumping
Doolittle into the water. For several
minutes he thrashed about in the waves
F the jumbo jets and space shuttles of today, author Kevin McCarthy covers all
until he realized the water was only
knee-deep. The thousand spectators
aspects of Florida’s varied and colorful flying history. Paintings by famed artist
William Trotter capture its most spectacular moments.
who turned out for what they thought
would be a record-breaking trip burst
out laughing. It took a month for
Doolittle’s plane—and his ego—to
recover.
In 1933, Eastern Airlines inaugu-
rated one-day service between New
York and Miami, allowing passengers to
fly “From Frost to Flowers in Just 8
Hours,” as the company’s slogan prom-
ised. Eastern was also one of the first air-
lines to employ female cabin attendants,
called “hostesses.”
The strangest incident in Florida’s
aviation history was the disappearance
of fourteen airmen from Flight 19. On
December 5, 1945, five Avenger torpe-
do bombers took off from the Fort
Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a rou-
tine training exercise. Suddenly, flight
instructor Lt. Charles Taylor’s compass
seemed to malfunction. All of the men
and their planes vanished. A Martin
Mariner flying boat with thirteen men
aboard was launched to find the avia-
tors, but the boat and its crew also dis-
appeared without a trace.
Pineapple Press, Inc.
Sarasota, Florida
Cover paintings by William L. Trotter
Jacket design by Shé Heaton
ISBN 1-56164-281-9 $18.95
rom the open-cockpit bi-wing planes used by the barnstormers of the 1920s to
lorida—land of perpetual sunshine,
F open spaces, and endless blue skies
perfect for flying. Blimps, hot air bal-
loons, bi-wings, jets, space shuttles—you
name it: if you can fly it, you can fly it
• Floridian Jackie Cochran, born in poverty but born to fly, became the first
here, and many aviators have. There’s
woman to pilot a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean (1941) and to break the even a university here, called the
sound barrier (1953). At her death she held more aviation records for speed, “Harvard of the Sky,” that will teach you
how to fly the plane of your choice.
altitude, and distance than any other pilot—male or female—in history.
Florida’s colorful aviation history
unfolds in this book.
• The world’s first scheduled airplane flight took place in 1914 as Tony Jannus In 1909, after the Wright Brothers
turned down a request from Miami’s
flew across the bay from St. Petersburg to Tampa.
mayor to set up a school of aeronautics
there, Glenn Hammond Curtiss
• Amelia Earhart took off from Curtiss Field in Miami for her fatal round-the- stepped in and established America’s
world flight in 1937. The field was later renamed in her honor. fourth landing field and the first in the
South.
New Year’s Day in 1914 was a day
• Navy blimps searched the Florida coasts for German U-boats during World
of firsts in more ways than one: Tony
War II. Jannus guided his two-seater Benoist
seaplane from St. Petersburg to Tampa
on the world’s first scheduled airplane
flight. His passenger that day, former St.
Kevin M. McCarthy is a professor of English at the University Petersburg mayor Abe Pheil, had won
of Florida. He and William L. Trotter have collaborated on a his seat by bidding $400 in an auction
number of Pineapple Press books, including Lighthouses of for the honor.
Ireland, Georgia’s Lighthouses and Historic Coastal Sites, Established in 1919, Chalk’s Flying
McCarthy
Thirty Florida Shipwrecks, and Twenty Florida Pirates. Service adapted well to the changing
times of the early twentieth century,
carrying bootleggers, their customers,
and even customs agents during
Aviation in Florida
Prohibition.
Aviator Jimmy Doolittle wanted to
be the first to fly a plane from coast to
Pineapple Press, Inc.
coast, but his first attempt on August 6,
Sarasota, Florida
Kevin M. McCarthy 1922, was slightly off the mark. As
Doolittle raced his modified DeHaviland
Illustrations by William L. Trotter
Aviation in Florida
Aviation in Florida

Kevin M. McCarthy

Illustrations by
William L. Trotter

Pineapple Press, Inc.

Sarasota, Florida
Copyright © 2003 by Kevin M. McCarthy
Illustrations copyright © 2003 by William L. Trotter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any infor-
mation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Inquiries should be addressed to:

Pineapple Press, Inc.

P.O. Box 3889
Sarasota, Florida 34230

www.pineapplepress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCarthy, Kevin.
Aviation in Florida / Kevin M. McCarthy ; illustrations by William L. Trotter.—
1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-56164-281-9 (alk. paper)
1. Aeronautics—Florida—History. I. Title.
TL522.F6 M38 2003
629.13’009759—dc21
2003006310

First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Design by Shé Heaton

Printed in the United States of America
 Acknowledgments
I particularly want to thank Douglas Baker II, Warren Brown, Carolyn
Fennell, Steve Glassman, Tom Hambright, James Hawkins, Kirk Howard,
David Nolan, Anthony Restaino, Ralph Savarese, and Gerry Witoshynsky for
their help with this book.
 Contents

Introduction ix

Airlines
1. Eastern Airlines 3
2. National Airlines 7
3. Pan American World Airways 13
4. Small Commercial Airlines 19

Operations
5. Air Force Bases in Florida 27
6. Air Shows and Airpark Communities 32
7. Aviation Companies 35
8. Dirigibles 40
9. Disasters 46
10. Embry-Riddle University 51
11. The Civil Air Patrol and the Air National Guard 56
12. Hot-air Ballooning 62
13. Hurricane Hunters 67
14. NASA 71

People
15. Jacqueline Cochran 79
16. Other Female Aviators 84
17. Jimmy Doolittle 92
18. Other Male Aviators 97

Cities
19. Central Florida 105
20. Daytona Beach 113
 21. Fort Lauderdale 118
22. Jacksonville 122
23. Key West 129
24. Miami 135
25. Palm Beaches 143
26. Pensacola 146
27. St. Augustine 153
28. St. Petersburg 159
29. Southwest Florida 165
30. Tampa 169

Index 177
 Introduction

Florida has long been known for its beautiful beaches and sparkling
waters, whether Gulf, sea, rivers, lakes, or springs. But it also has blue
skies above it most of the year, skies that have seen many aviation firsts,
from a Jules Verne novel set here to a shuttle launch at Cape Kennedy.
It was in Florida where a radio was first used on an aircraft, where a
record-setting transcontinental flight began, and where the first com-
mercial airline flight took place—all within two decades of the first
powered flights by the Wright Brothers.
“Wright Brothers Launch First Plane from Pine Island, Florida” the
headlines could have read if the Wrights had taken the advice of engi-
neer and glider expert Octave Chanute. Chanute considered Pine Island
to be a good place from which the Wrights could launch a glider, a nec-
essary step before they moved to a manned plane.
Florida is a big state that stretches from Pensacola in the northwest
to Miami in the southeast. Its airport facilities have had a major impact
on its development. For most of the twentieth century, Florida’s airport
system developed to connect all parts of the state. Today, half of the sev-
enty-five million annual visitors to Florida come by plane. Thousands of
aircraft use the airspace over Florida every day, including small private
planes, jets bringing in passengers and cargo, and the space shuttle.
Florida has offered aviation many advantages: a flat terrain, water
on three sides for seaplanes and rocket discards, a mild climate all year
long, and a geographical location that appeals to millions of people.
Because of those advantages, many aviation firsts took place here. For
example, on December 17, 1913, ten years to the day after the Wrights’
first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, officials in St. Petersburg

ix
signed a contract to establish the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line,
the world’s first scheduled, commercial, heavier-than-air flight to trans-
port passengers.
Many important aviators have had links to Florida, including
Jacqueline Cochran, Jimmy Doolittle, Amelia Earhart, Chappie James,
and Tony Jannus. This, then, is also the story of some of the people who
made lasting contributions to aviation. While their stories could fill sev-
eral volumes, this book touches on only a few highlights and points to
further reading in the bibliography at the end of each chapter.
On a personal level, aviation has been an important part of my own
life. I have traveled on most of the airlines that service Florida. I helped
pilot a small plane during a storm over Cedar Key; parachuted out of an
airplane over Palatka; flew in a hot-air balloon near Archer; and pilot-
ed a glider near Clermont.
This book is dedicated to the members of the Florida Aviation
Historical Society, who are keeping alive the traditions and history of a
fascinating part of our state’s heritage. Members of this society, which
was established in 1978, have built and flown a replica of the plane that
made the world’s first scheduled flight (see Chapter 28), as well as a
reproduction of the 1928 Ford Flivver plane (see Chapter 9); helped
research and write Florida’s Aviation History: The First 100 Years; and
raised more than $80,000 for the aviation wing of the St. Petersburg
Museum of History. They also produce a regular newsletter about the
state’s aviation history. (For more information, write to P.O. Box 127,
Indian Rocks Beach, FL 33785-0127.)

x
Airlines
 1
Eastern Airlines
“Aviation is proof that, given the will, we have the
capacity to achieve the impossible.”
—Captain Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker

From its early days under Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, through the
administration of astronaut Frank Borman, to labor-management strife
under Frank Lorenzo, Eastern went from success to bankruptcy, from
being an important link in Florida’s aviation history to sliding into
oblivion.
As so often happened in the early history of aviation in America,
Eastern began under a different name in the business of carrying mail.
Its origin was Pitcairn Aviation, a company that used a tiny biplane in
1928 to carry the mail from Miami to Jacksonville.
Young Harold Pitcairn had soloed in his first airplane in 1916, just
two years after Tony Jannus had begun the St. Petersburg–Tampa sched-
uled service (see Chapter 28). Pitcairn soon joined forces with aeronau-
tical engineer Agnew Larson to found Pitcairn Aviation and build a
biplane, which the men successfully raced against other aircraft. They
then toured European aviation centers and found that Europeans were
far ahead of Americans in developing commercial air service.
When the Contract Air Mail Act, or Kelly Act, became law in 1925,
federal officials entrusted to private contractors the job of flying the
mail. Pitcairn Aviation won some of the bids put up for contract and
within three years was flying almost one-third of the nation’s airmail
mileage. But in 1928, Pitcairn, reluctant to transport passengers as well
as mail, sold the airline to Clement Keys, former editor of The Wall
Street Journal and organizer of another airline, National Air Transport.

3
 Keys changed the name of the airline to Eastern Air Transport in
1930, moved its headquarters to Brooklyn, and began carrying passen-
gers. In 1933, the airline inaugurated one-day service between New
York and Miami, allowing passengers to fly between the two cities with-
out spending the night in Jacksonville. One of Eastern’s effective mot-
toes then was “From Frost to Flowers in Just 8 Hours.” Keys was also
one of the first airline owners to employ female cabin attendants, called
“hostesses.” A hostess was an unmarried woman under the age of twen-
ty-eight who was five feet four inches tall or shorter, weighed less than
123 pounds, and was either a registered nurse or a college graduate.
The Great Depression took its financial toll on the airline, and Keys
was forced to resign. In 1935, Captain Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker
became general manager of what was then called Eastern Air Lines.
Rickenbacker turned Eastern into one of the first profitable carriers in
the industry and the first airline to operate without a federal subsidy,
something other airlines would not be able to do for many more years.
The former World War I flying ace ran the company for the next
twenty-five years, earning good profits every year and extending service
to many parts of the East Coast. In 1935, Rickenbacker relocated
Eastern’s operating headquarters to Miami, a move that greatly benefit-
ed Dade County as Eastern became the area’s largest private-sector
employer.
Right after World War II, Rickenbacker and Eastern joined Miami
hotels in promoting summer travel to the Sunshine State. Rickenbacker
convinced hotel owners to keep their hotels open during the usually slow
summer season in return for increased advertising by the airline, which
helped Miami and Miami Beach become year-round tourist attractions.
New Yorkers looking across the Jersey Palisades on cold, wintry days
could see a large Eastern Airlines sign flashing the temperature in Miami
Beach each day. Tourists received off-season discounts, Eastern carried
more passengers, and Dade County prospered. Today, Miami’s
Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne commemorates the man who

4 Aviation in Florida
greatly helped the economy of the region in the 1940s and ’50s.
Executives of Eastern and other airlines thought the postwar era
would be a boom time for them, especially if returning soldiers who had
experienced the speed and comfort of planes chose air travel once
wartime travel restrictions were lifted. The airlines ordered larger planes
and hired many more employees, but the boom did not occur for anoth-
er decade. Many Americans were reluctant to give up the comfort and
punctuality of travel by train and ship for the uncertainty of air travel,
especially as deadly air crashes were well publicized.
Eastern Airlines was one of the few companies to make a profit in
the postwar years, primarily because of Rickenbacker’s tight manage-
ment. Yet when it came time to acquire jet planes, Rickenbacker hesi-
tated. He forecast the crash of the English jet Comet. But his hesitation
put Eastern at a disadvantage in its competition with other airlines eager
to use the new jets.
Rickenbacker was succeeded in 1959 by Malcolm MacIntyre, who
introduced the highly successful shuttle service between New York,
Washington, and Boston. Other administrators helped Eastern prosper
by making it the official airline of Disney World and the first airline to
use Spanish-speaking agents in its Miami reservations center as it tapped
into the rich Latin American market. Many hijackings to Cuba in the
late 1960s hurt Eastern, however.
The airline limped along in the late 1960s and early ’70s until former
astronaut Frank Borman became president and chief executive officer in
1975, raising hopes that the high-profile pilot would return Eastern to its
former prominence. But labor strikes and a huge debt from buying new
airplanes brought the company to the edge of bankruptcy.
In 1986, when Eastern was America’s third-largest airline, Frank
Lorenzo, head of the Texas Air Corporation (TAC), bought the airline,
thus ending its fifty-eight-year run as an independent company.
Lorenzo, whose TAC also owned Continental Airlines, People’s Express,
and New York Air, battled with Eastern’s unions until 1989. After the

Airlines 5
airline’s machinists called a strike, Eastern filed for bankruptcy. At a
time when airline deregulation was lowering prices and increasing the
number of passengers to almost half a billion, the interminable squab-
bling between Lorenzo and the unions hurt Eastern’s competitive edge.
The following year, a bankruptcy court judge ruled that Lorenzo was
unfit to run the company after determining that, in just four years, Eastern
had gone from being the number three airline in the nation to number
nine. An interim trustee failed to halt the company’s slide, and on January
18, 1991, Eastern closed for good. Adding to Eastern’s problem were a
deep, country-wide recession, high fuel costs, negative publicity, and the
fear of many Americans to fly during Desert Storm in Kuwait.
The cost of ridding the airline industry of Frank Lorenzo was very
high: some forty-two thousand Eastern employees lost their jobs when
the airline folded. One can only wonder how a kinder, more
people-oriented manager might have been able to save Eastern. Despite
its tragic, unnecessary demise, Eastern carried thousands of people to
and from Florida and thus deserves a prominent place in the state’s
development in the twentieth century.

Further Reading
Bernstein, Aaron. Grounded: Frank Lorenzo and the Destruction of
Eastern Airlines. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Richards, Rose Connett. “Coffee, Tea or Milk—The Early Years.”
Update: The Historical Association of Southern Florida, vol. 15,
no. 4 (November 1988): 9–12. (This article is about stewardesses.)
Rickenbacker, Edward V. Rickenbacker. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett
Publications, Inc., 1967.
Saunders, Martha Dunagin. Eastern’s Armageddon: Labor Conflict and
the Destruction of Eastern Airlines. Westport, CT: Greenwood

6 Aviation in Florida
 Press, 1992.
Scammell, Henry. “Life After Eastern.” Air & Space, vol. 8, no. 5
(January 1994): 28–39.
Serling, Robert J. From the Captain to the Colonel: An Informal History
of Eastern Airlines. New York: The Dial Press, 1980.
Smith, Frank Kingston. Legacy of Wings: The Story of Harold F.
Pitcairn. New York: Jason Aronson, 1981.
Solberg, Carl. Conquest of the Skies: A History of Commercial Aviation
in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.
Thomas, Don. “The Rise and Fall of Eastern Airlines.” Newsletter of
the Florida Aviation Historical Society, vol. 21, no. 4, ed. 152 (July
2000): 3, 10.

2
National Airlines
Aviation cliché: “It’s easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You
start with a large fortune.”

As so often happened in the early days of aviation, securing a mail con-

tract was the real start of an airline. In 1934, when the U.S. Postal
Service solicited bids to carry the mail for the St. Petersburg–Daytona
Beach route, the winner of the bid was a new company, National
Airlines, which bid seventeen cents a mile for the 146-mile route. The
company’s name reflected the aspirations of its owner, G. T. “Ted”
Baker: to become a significant airline that served the whole country.
If Eastern Airlines, which was growing bigger by the year at that

Airlines 7
 Aviation in Florida
by
Kevin M. McCarthy

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