Earl R. Southee (1892,

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

– 1967,

Athens, Pennsylvania Athens is a borough in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania and is located south of the New York (state), New York state line on the Susquehanna River, Susquehanna and Chemung River, Chemung river ...

) was an early American aviator.

Biography

As a young man curious about this new field of aviation, he was employed at the Curtiss Flying School at Newport News in or around 1917 as a young mechanic. Curtiss had won a contract from a group in Princeton, New Jersey to start a flying school for young men in college, but they were short an instructor. Capt. Thomas Baldwin, at Newport News, called a meeting with the pilots/instructors, and asked them for suggestions on getting another instructor for Princeton. One of them mentioned that Earl Southee went up with them after he had worked on their planes, had taken the controls and fared well. The manager said to give him some lessons and see how he does. Earl did fine. After he soloed, they sent him to Princeton as chief mechanic and #4 instructor. One of the students he taught there was Elliot White Springs, who became a World War I flying ace in France. They kept in touch for decades. Southee went to Dayton after the Princeton Flying School folded in 1917. Later, he was at

Kelly Field Kelly Field (formerly Kelly Air Force Base) is a Joint-Use facility located in San Antonio, Texas. It was originally named after George E. M. Kelly, the first member of the U.S. military killed in the crash of an airplane he was piloting. In ...

in San Antonio, Texas as an instructor, where he became a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

. He survived a terrible crash there in which the student he was instructing froze on the stick in a nose dive, and was killed. Southee survived, but he was left with serious facial scars the rest of his life, as surgeons substituted a perpetual mustache for his left eyebrow. Southee attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1920s. To put himself through school, he barnstormed and ferried aircraft. After college, he became an airport and flying-school manager for Curtiss. His love for aviation turned to

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is al ...

in the early 1930s. He was a founder of the Soaring Society of America (1931) and managed 'Glider Meets' (National Gliding and Soaring Championships), at Elmira, New York, during the mid to late 1930s. In 1940, Southee became an inspector for what was then called the CAA (Civilian Aeronautical Authority), the predecessor of the FAA. During World War II, he was one of the leaders of the highly successful CPT (Civilian Pilot Training) program. Earl Southee died in 1967 in

Honors

He was inducted into the Soaring Hall of Fame in 1982.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Southee, Earl Aviators from New York (state) 1892 births 1967 deaths People from Binghamton, New York Glider pilots