John Moisant
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John Moisant | |
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Aviator |
John Bevins Moisant (April 25, 1868 – December 31, 1910) was an American
Moisant funded his aviation career with proceeds from business ventures in El Salvador, where he had led two failed revolutions and coup attempts against President Figueroa in 1907 and 1909.[8]
Only months after becoming a pilot, Moisant died after being ejected from his airplane over a field just west of
Early life
He was born in
In 1880, the family was living in Manteno, Illinois and Moisant's father was working as a farmer. In the late 1880s, after the death of Moisant's father, the family moved to Alameda, California.[10]
El Salvador
He and his brothers moved to El Salvador in 1896 and bought sugarcane plantations that generated a substantial sum for the family. In 1909, José Santos Zelaya, president of Nicaragua, asked John to go to France to investigate airplanes.[citation needed]
Aviation career
Early aeronautical engineering
John Moisant entered the aviation field in 1909 as a hobby, after attending the
Moisant's second project, begun in January 1910, resulted in the Moisant Monoplane, alternatively known as "Le Corbeau", which was partially built out of the wreckage of L'Ecrevisse.[15][16] The alternative design had difficulty staying upright on the ground and was never flown.[17][18]
Training in France
In the spring of 1910, Moisant took four flying lessons at the Blériot School, headed by Louis Blériot, in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, beginning his short but distinguished flying career.[19] Later, Moisant was granted a pilot's license from the Aéro-Club de France, which he transferred to the Aero Club of America to become the thirteenth registered pilot in the United States.[20]
Significant flights and aviation records
On August 9, 1910, Moisant flew his third flight as a pilot in his first recently purchased Blériot XI from
On August 17, 1910, he flew the first flight with a passenger across the English Channel. His passengers on the flight were Albert Fileux, his mechanic, and his cat, Mademoiselle Fifi. This feat was accomplished on Moisant's sixth flight as a pilot.[23]
Competitive events
At the International Aviation Meet at Belmont Park, New York, John Moisant flew his Blériot XI around a marker balloon 10 miles (16 kilometers) away, and returned to the racetrack in only 39 minutes, winning an $850 prize. After this initial competition, Moisant collided his brake-less Blériot into another aircraft while both were taxiing, causing it to flip over, but had repairs completed in time for the next event.[24] On October 30, 1910, at the same show, he competed in a race to fly around the Statue of Liberty. He won the race, beating Claude Grahame-White, a British aviator, by 42.75 seconds. However, he was later disqualified because officials ruled that he had started late. The $10,000 prize later went to Count Jacques de Lesseps not Grahame-White, because the latter had fouled during the race.[25]
On December 30, 1910, in
Year | Date | Competition name | Competition type | Location | Placing | Winnings | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1910 | August 9–11 | Le Circuit de l'Est | Time Trial Circuit | Lorraine , France
|
DNC | 0 USD | Moisant's application to the competition was denied, as he had only completed two flights (one of which was in his own aircraft) at the time of the application.[27] |
October 29 | International Aviation Meet at Belmont Park[28] | Time Trial Circuit, Gordon Bennett Cup | Belmont Park, New York | 2nd | 5,800 USD* | Finished with a time of 1 h 57 min 44.85 s | |
October 30 | Air Race | DQ | Initially finished in first with a time of 34 minutes, 38.4 seconds.[29] *However, Moisant was later disqualified due to the failure to meet a rule that required one hour of flight time before the race.[30] | ||||
October 31 | Distance Event | 1st | Completed 56 laps. | ||||
December 31 | Michelin Cup[31] | Endurance Flight | City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana | DNS | 0 USD | Thrown from his plane while flying to the races starting point at Harahan. |
Entrepreneurship: the Moisant International Aviators
With his brother, Alfred Moisant, he formed the Moisant International Aviators, a flying circus which went
Death
Moisant died on the morning of December 31, 1910, in an air crash near
John Moisant was buried at the
Legacy
"Nine-tenths confidence and one-tenth common sense equals [a] successful aviator."
— John B. Moisant, How to Fly: The Flyer's Manual, 1917
John Moisant was one of the first to advocate for monoplanes with one set of fixed wings. Additionally, he believed in the potential of the use of aircraft in armed conflict.
Moisant's touring show was among the first in aviation, and one of the first to introduce Americans to airplanes.
Cessna
Among the people influenced by Moisant's exhibitions was aviation pioneer Clyde Cessna, who saw the Moisant troupe's 1911 performance in Oklahoma City. Cessna helped uncrate and assemble, then disassemble and re-crate, a Blériot XI monoplane used in the show. From his memory of that activity, Cessna built his first airplane—the first airplane built and flown successfully on the Great Plains by a resident... and the first of hundreds of thousands of airplanes, worldwide, that would bear the "Cessna" name. [37][38]
Cessna would become one of the United States' first major advocates of monoplanes, carrying forward Moisant's support of the then-controversial concept.[37][38]
According to some historical accounts (reportedly later disputed by Cessna, himself), Cessna went to the Queen Aeroplane Company in New York, and worked in their factory for a month, learning the art of construction of Bleriot-type monoplanes. According to these accounts, when Moisant was killed, Cessna purchased a Queen/Bleriot fuselage that was being assembled at the Queen factory for Moisant—and that became the basis for Cessna's first airplane.[37][38]
Moisant Field
The international
References
- ^ Stoff, Joshua. 1996. Picture History of Early Aviation 1903–1913. p. 72.
- ^ Mortimer, Gavin. 2010. Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 That Forever Changed American Aviation. p. 58
- ^ McLean, Jacqueline. 2001. Women With Wings. p. 23
- ^ American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Volumes 7–8.
- ^ a b Caire, Vincent P. 2012. Louisiana Aviation: An Extraordinary History in Photographs.
- ^ American Aviation Historical Society Journal. 1984. Volumes 29–30.
- ^ a b Simmons, Thomas E. 2013. A Man Called Brown Condor: The Forgotten History of an African American Fighter Pilot.
- ^ Mortimer, Gavin. 2010. Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 That Forever Changed American Aviation p. 59-62.
- ^ "United States Census, 1880, index and images, FamilySearch (accessed 29 May 2013), John Moisant in entry for Medore Moisant, 1880". FamilySearch.
- ^ Mortimer, Gavin. 2010. Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 That Forever Changed American Aviation P.59.
- ^ "SIRIS – Smithsonian Institution Research Information System". siris-archives.si.edu.
- ^ "Shaw Communications". members.shaw.ca.
- ^ Rich, Doris L. 1998. The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight. P. 37–38.
- ^ Flight. August 27, 1910. P. 692
- ^ Villard, Henry S. 1987. Contact!: The Story of Early Aviators. P. 114–115.
- ^ Rich, Doris L. 1998. The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight. P. 38.
- ^ Villard, Henry S. 1987. Contact!: The Story of Early Aviators. P. 115.
- ^ Rich, Doris L. 1998. The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight. P. 38.
- ^ Multiple sources:
- Rich, Doris L. 1998. The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight. p. 39.
- "SOVA: Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives" (PDF). airandspace.si.edu.
- "Dover History Scrapbook". Archived from the original on November 17, 2013. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
- ^ Rich, Doris. 1998. The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight. P. 40.
- ^ a b c "Hopkins, Jerry. 1960. King of the Aviators. Accessed 30 May 2013".
- ^ Villard, Henry S. 1987. Contact!: The Story of Early Aviators. P.115.
- ^ a b "The Daring Mr. Moisant".
- ^ Joshua Stoff. Long Island aircraft crashes 1909–1959. p. 15.
- ^ The New York Times. March 15, 1911.
- ^ US Naval Institute. 1911. Proceedings. P.204.
- ^ "Accessed 29 May 2013". jarvillehier.free.fr.[permanent dead link]
- ^ The Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1911. P.316.
- ^ Shaw, Albert. 1910. The American Review of Reviews. P.662.
- ^ Aeronautics. 1911. P. 218.
- ^ Widmer, Mary L. 1993. New Orleans in the twenties. P. 110.
- ^ "1910 Daily Journal and Tribune transcriptions". Early Aviators. March 24, 2002. Archived from the original on December 28, 2005. Retrieved January 25, 2022.
- ^ Aeronautics. December 1910.
- ^ a b c d "Moisant, King of Aviators, Killed". The Daily Picayune. New Orleans. January 1, 1911. pp. 1, 3.
- ^ Bilstein, Roger E. 2001. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts.
- ^ "New Airport to be Named in John B. Moisant's Honor". The Times-Picayune. New Orleans. November 18, 1941. p. 7.
- ^ a b c Phillips, Edward H., in "Clyde Cessna and the Birth of a Legend," September 23, 1996, Aviation History / HistoryNet.com, retrieved August 7, 2017
- ^ a b c Harris, Richard, "Cessna Aircraft: History of the Maker of the World's Most Popular Airplanes," Archived December 15, 2015, at the Wayback Machine from the author's articles appearing in InFlightUSA, Sept.-Dec. 2002 and Mar.-Apr. 2003, retrieved August 7, 2017
External links
- Early Aviators: John Moisant
- Moisant Aviation
- Archive Archived December 26, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- Doug McCash, "John Moisant, aviation pioneer, died a century ago in New Orleans", Times-Picayune, December 31, 2010.
- Moisant and Madamoiselle Fifi
- John and Alfred Moisant Early Aviation Archive at The Historic New Orleans Collection
- John Moisant at Find a Grave