Albert P. “Al” Wilson was a Hollywood movie stunt pilot.  In fact, we should say more about that.  He learned to fly at Venice Flying Field, CA circa 1914, using the Shiller School Bleriot machines.  He was one of the first to learn the trade of flying stunts.  He is credited with being the first “professional” motion picture stunt pilot, and he was the first member of a group that later became the Associated Motion Picture Pilots (AMPP). A brief bio is available here (scroll down that page a little).

Wilson was born in Kentucky in 1895.  Up to and through WWI Wilson was a civilian flight instructor and movie pilot.  In 1917 he flew a Bleriot for an aviation sequence in Cecil B. DeMille’s “We Can’t Have Everything.”  He and his brother designed wind machines, with an aircraft propeller attached to an automobile engine, which they also rented to movie sets to produce wind, sand and snowstorms.  Interestingly, DeMille wanted to join the military and be a pilot, so he hired Wilson to teach him to fly at Venice.  By the time he learned to fly, however, the war was over.

Not to worry.  DeMille established Mercury Aviation Company during 1919 on 40 acres of leased land.  He appointed Wilson Vice President and General Manager.  Mercury Aviation hired pilots and offered instruction, charter, advertising flights and sight-seeing rides.  “DeMille Field” quickly developed into a center for aviation for the movie industry, too.  An excellent resource for the movie pilot story is in the reference by Wynne cited in the left sidebar.

Although he was a founder of the AMPP, he drifted in and out of favor with the organization.  One particular incident involved disbarment from the organization for abandoning an airplane and leaving a mechanic in it to crash to the ground.  As reported in the New York Times of Sunday May 12, 1929, Wilson departed the airplane via parachute from 6,000 feet while the mechanic, Phil Jones, operating smoke pots for a movie, was left behind, “unaware of the fact that the pilot had jumped.” An image of Wilson during his movie days is here at the Charles Cooper Photograph and Document Collection.

Below, Al Wilson flew this airplane to Tucson from Wilcox, AZ on September 28, 1930. He stayed two days and departed northbound on the 30th for Phoenix. He was on his way from Chicago to Los Angeles.  His airplane, N3378, is a Timm-built replica made in 1927 of a 1911 Curtiss Pusher.  The image is from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 1932, which covered the 1932 National Air Races (see below). Follow this link and this link for more images of Wilson and his airplane on this site.

Al Wilson

Three years later Wilson’s life crossed another of our Register pilots, John Miller.  Al Wilson and John worked together as air show pilots.  They staged mock dogfights between John's autogiro and Al's modified Curtiss Pusher.  At the finish of their show during the 1932 Cleveland Air Races, John landed at the circle in front of the viewing stand and, as the autogiro's blades continued to turn, Al "buzzed" him. The Pusher entered the downdraft of the autogiro blades, struck them, nosed to the ground and crashed (see other photos at Miller’s link).

Wilson died of head injuries two days later. The show and the crash are well documented in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 4 ( "PUSHER PILOT HURT IN SPILL AT RACES: Al Wilson in Hospital; Two in Autogyro [sic] Escape as Craft Mix in Stunt"), and September 6 ("WILSON, HURT IN 1910 PLANE, DIES"). As well, the accident was captured on film and is available on video as “Pylon Dusters: 1932 and 1938 Air Races”.

Dossier 2.1.168

UPLOADED: 01/29/07 REVISED: 10/31/07, 11/13/07, 03/14/08