Pioneer aviators trained WWI pilots at Rich Field
By Terri Jo Ryan
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Ninety years ago this week, the last civilian instructors for Waco-trained aviators were dismissed from Rich Field, with the thanks of the military and squads of World War I flyboys.
These civilian fliers, known years later as The Early Birds (those who flew solo before Dec. 17, 1916), included such pioneers as Henry C. “Pop” Keller, James P. “Jock” McGrath, A. Walter Claverie and George “Buck” Weaver.
Only 15 years after the Wright brothers’ daring flight over the windswept cliffs of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, N.C., these aviators were taking daring leaps of their own into the skies over Waco.
Rich Field was a military airfield located in a former cotton field on land now occupied by the Heart O’ Texas Fairgrounds. It opened in November 1917 and was named in honor of Lt. C. Perry Rich, a pilot who crashed into Manila Bay in the Philippines, in 1913.
According to various records, from 340 to 410 cadets were trained at Rich Field before the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918. Instructors used an airplane that cost Uncle Sam $5,465 each (more than $83,000 in today’s dollars) — the bi-wing Curtiss JN-4Ds, better known as Jennys.
Rich Field trained men for the 331st Aero Squadron and 374th Aero Squadron, outfits that saw duty in France.
After World War I, aviation activity continued at Rich Field, which was turned into a civilian airport, and flying lessons were available. During the 1920s and ’30s, traveling aerialists put on “flying circuses” for crowds.
Sources: EarlyAviators.com; Mike Cox, TexasEscapes.com; Col. C. R. Glasebrook, American Aviators in the Great War 1914-1918; Handbook of Texas Online; TheAerodrome.com; AeroFiles.com.
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