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Vance Breese was born in Keystone, WA, April 20, 1904. He
states his education as, "Various engineering extension courses."
With those, he spent his life in aviation.
He landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield four times between
7/10/1928 and 4/21/1932. The first time, in 1928, he was
part of the 1928 National Air Tour, which passed through
Tucson that year. He was flying a Ryan B-1 Brougham, NC5553.
Breese was accompanied during this leg of the Tour by passengers
Larry Gunther and J.T. Hurst. They completed the tour, and
at the finish line they placed 9th.
His second visit was in NC288W,
a Lockheed Vega DL-1B on February 27, 1931. Based in Detroit,
he arrived from El Paso, TX westbound to Los
Angeles, CA. He carried three passengers. One passenger,
Peter Beasley, was president of Detroit Aircraft Co.
This flight correlates nicely with his resume, since between
1927-34 he was president of Breese Aircraft Company (which
went through several iterations of geographic location, name
and organizational structure during those years) and the
Detroit Aircraft Company.
Two of his airplanes were famous. The Breese
named "Aloha" (NX914, didn't land at Tucson) took
2nd place in the 1927 Dole Race from California to Hawaii.
It was painted yellow and red. The "Pabco Pacific Flyer" (NX646;
didn't land at Tucson) was also a participant in the Dole
Race, but crashed upon takeoff. This PDF
download (491KB) provides
information on these two airplanes, as well as a peek into
the Breese dossier at the NASM. Please direct your browser
to this link to learn more about the Dole Race.
His final two visits to Tucson were in an unidentified Lockheed,
and a Lockheed that he identified as NC237. There is no record
that I've found that identifies a Lockheed with that number.
At both times, however, he was based in Detroit, MI, and
was eastbound from Los Angeles, CA to El Paso, TX.
During 1933-34 he moved to California and worked for Northrop
Corporation as test pilot. He demonstrated the Northrop Navy
fighter, and performed test flights for Fokker. In 1937 he
worked for Bennett Aircraft Corp. as VP and test pilot. Aerofiles has
references to the aircraft that Breese test flew during the
30s.
He was the test pilot at North American Aviation when the
P-51 Mustang was developed. He was its first test pilot on
October 26, 1940. Earlier in 1940 Breese interacted with
another Davis-Monthan airplane. See Lockheed NC117W for
that story.
Dossier 2.1.53
UPLOADED: 03/10/06 REVISED: 06/22/06, 07/12/06
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