Logan Archbold "Jack" Vilas (May 25, 1891 – May 15, 1976) was an aviation pioneer and a member of the Early Birds of Aviation. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000.

Biography

He was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on May 25, 1891, to Royal Cooper Vilas and Carrie Logan Ward. Moved to Evanston, IL when Jack was about 5 years old. In the spring of 1913, Vilas visited Glenn Curtiss in

Hammondsport, New York Hammondsport is a village at the south end of Keuka Lake, in Steuben County, one of the Finger Lakes of New York, United States. The Village of Hammondsport is in the Town of Urbana and is northeast of Bath. History Lazarus Hammond founded ...

, and made a down payment on his Hydro-Aeroplane and enrolled in the

Curtiss Flying School A Curtiss Jenny on a training flight Curtiss Flying School at North Beach California in 1911 The Curtiss Flying School was started by Glenn Curtiss to compete against the Wright Flying School of the Wright brothers. The first example was locate ...

. He graduated in four weeks becoming a certificated pilot, holding U.S. Hydro-License No. 6 from the Aero Club of America. He became the first person to fly across

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

when he completed a 64 mile over-the-water flight from Silver Beach Amusement Park in

St. Joseph, Michigan St. Joseph, colloquially known as St. Joe, is a city and the county seat of Berrien County, Michigan. It was incorporated as a village in 1834 and as a city in 1891. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 8,365. It lies on the shore o ...

, to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

on July 1, 1913. In 1914, he flew to

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

, with the Wisconsin Aero Club and, in the summer of 1915, he was hired by the Wisconsin Conservation Commission to fly fire patrol over the Northwoods in his

Curtiss Model F The Curtiss Models F made up a family of early flying boats developed in the United States in the years leading up to World War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with the United States Navy under the designations C-2 through C-5, later r ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

. On June 29, 1915, at Trout Lake, Wisconsin, Vilas made what is believed to be the world’s first forest patrol flight. In 1929, he began writing a book “for the purpose of giving to my children some of the happenings in my early life…” The book is “My Life To My Children” by Jack Vilas. Published in 1934. He died on May 15, 1976, in

Bonita Springs, Florida (beautiful), eng, beautiful springs , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = Bonita_Beach.JPG , imagesize = 250x200px , image_caption = Bonita Beach , image_flag ...

Social Security Death Index The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was a database of death records created from the Social Security Administration, United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File until 2014. Since 2014, public access to the updated Death Mas ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vilas, Logan Aviators from Illinois Members of the Early Birds of Aviation People from Chicago 1891 births 1976 deaths