|
Albert P. “Al” Wilson was a Hollywood movie
stunt pilot (see the bottom of the left sidebar to view a 1928 silent movie of his early work). 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, a sharp photograph of Wilson and his airplane autographed for Register pilot Jim Granger on February 29, 1928. His airplane, N3378, is a Timm-built
replica made in 1927 of a 1911 Curtiss Pusher. Please direct your browser to Granger's page for photo credit.
Al Wilson and N3378, February 29,1928 (Source: Granger)
 |
There is an active airfield below Wilson's autograph. Can anyone RECOGNIZE it? Note the pencil lines inscribed at the edges of this photograph. For framing or cropping?
Below, Al Wilson flew his Pusher 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. The
image below 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. To fly this airplane across the country must have been monumentally exhausting.
Al Wilson, Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 1932 (Source: NASM File)
 |
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(NC10781) 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”. A segment of that movie of the dogfight and crash (1 minute; 35 seconds long) is at the MOTION PICTURES page on dmairfield.org.
---o0o---
Dossier 2.1.168
UPLOADED: 01/29/07 REVISED: 10/31/07, 11/13/07, 03/14/08, 10/18/08, 01/12/10
|
