News & Comments from our Members
Help Needed
Maxine Dunlap Bennett
I’m currently working on a paper for the AIAA SciTech 2022 meeting with an SDSU student Madison Cicchitto. We’re writing a biography of Maxine Dunlap, an aviatrix of the late 1920s-early 1930s who not only was the first licensed woman power pilot in the San Francisco Bay area but also the first woman to earn a glider license of any kind in the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Dunlap_Bennett
We have a solid draft, but are reaching out to various organizations to see if they might have any additional information in their files.
Would you happen to have any additional info on Maxine or know if anyone has written about her previously in AAHS Journal?
Looking forward to your reply,
Dr. Gary Fogel
gfogel@natural-selection.com
Wilson B-3 Mid-Wing
Member Dan Hagedorn can come up with the most unusual requests. He is looking for a photograph of the Wilson 3B Mid-Wing, NX123W. Aerofiles describes this Los Angeles area product as a three-place, open monoplane powered originally by a 150-hp Axelson B, and later a 220-hp Wright engine. Span 37’0”, Length 27’0” and empty weight of 1600 lbs. Maximum speed was 125 mph, cruise 110 mph and stall a mere 44 mph. The aircraft is reported to have passed all flight tests with no engineering modifications required, but was never put in production. It was designed by E. H. Gustavson, so might also be referenced as a Gustavson Mid-Wing.
The Society has nothing in our files and we have reached out to a couple of members that might likely have a photo, if one exists.
John Underwood responded with, “I have a file card on the Wilson 3B, X124W, which places Dr. Wilson at 4738 Whittier Blvd in 1930 and 4963 Whittier Blvd, when his experimental aircraft was cancelled for reasons unknown on 02/11 1933. Neither Dr. Wilson nor E.H. Gustavson seem to have been certificated aviators. I don’t think a picture of 124W was ever published, because I have tried to document all California aircraft manufacturers, using Western Flying (formerly The Ace and later Western Aviation) and the old Pilot magazine published here in Glendale at Grand Central Air Terminal from 1929 into WW2.
So, check your personal files and see if you might have a photo of this mysterious aircraft. If you do find one, please contact this editor at webmaster@aahs-online.org and we’ll arrange for Dan to get in contact with you.
John Underwood Comments:
I really loved that spread in Vol..65, No. 4, especially of the “Endeavour” on its last flight. I watched it from our upstairs balcony with Dad’s WWI field glasses as it entered Los Angeles County and headed for the Los Angeles Civic Center. We were astonished when it headed our way, passing directly over our house, and seemingly enter the Burbank pattern to land. So close I could almost feel the wake turbulence. And I didn’t have a camera - dang it !!!.
That reminds me when I did have a camera at the right moment and snapped a shot of Art Daegling’s Pitts S-2A, N80011, without knowing what if anything I had for film in my ancient Zeiss Super Ikonta B, which Dad bought in the ‘30s, possibly before I was hatched. Dad, a bacteriologist by trade, was a prize winning amateur photographer. Anyway, the picture I shot of N80011 rolling into a brilliant rainbow from a “Tora-Tora-Tora” AT-6, with Kaneohe NAS in the background, was a winner! I sold it for several magazine covers and a McGraw-Hill dust jacket. Maybe you could use it for an AAHS cover sometime. I still have that Zeiss, but I dropped it off of Art . . .