Mailbag

The right shot at aviation history

Katherine Yamada's article, "'Suicide Slim' thrilled the crowds," in Friday's Glendale News-Press purports to show the Wilson Bros. aero fleet at the Glendale Airport. That picture has nothing whatever to do with the Glendale Airport. It's L.C. Brand's private airstrip on Grandview Avenue taken April 1, 1921. The Glendale Airport did not exist at that time, although barnstormers were using a strip of ranchland next to the Southern Pacific tracks between the end of Colorado Street and Grandview, which later became part of the Glendale airport.

I have many pictures of the Wilson Bros. operation, which thrived during the 1928-29 period as the leading location for the filming of motion picture aviation potboilers, which were popular at the time. Octave ("Tave") Wilson, the younger partner, was a good friend and mentor. He owned the largest avocado tree I have ever seen. I know because I climbed it many times. His brother, Roy, was killed flying for a Warner Bros. film in 1932.

The Wilsons had one of the busiest flying operations in Southern California at that time, with eight or 10 pilots on the payroll most of the time. One of them was the celebrated Roscoe Turner, who became the holder of many intercity speed records.

George Natsume, who Yamada quotes in her article, may recall when Roscoe crashed the Wilsons' Ryan Monoplane in the Los Angeles River while performing a "Hell's Angels" promotional stunt for Howard Hughes, with actor Ben Lyon in the passenger seat. Neither were hurt and Turner later taught Lyon and his wife, actress Bebe Daniels, to fly.

Slim Cahill was indeed a leading stunt parachutist and I have pictures of him and Ada Lavina Smith, "Miss Glendale," beside the Ryan on the occasion of her first and last parachute jump. I believe she was on the Glendale float in the Rose Parade that year.