[ He trained under and was a friend of the Wright brothers.]
Barnstorming and other business activities
After his discharge in 1919, Davis purchased a surplus government Jenny, which he named "Glenna Mae" after his future wife, and turned to barnstorming in the southeastern United States. Eventually he sold the Jenny and bought three Wacos.[ He sold and repaired airplanes, acquiring a Waco dealership, before switching to ]Travel Air
The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas, United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.
History
The company initially built a series of sporting and tr ...
.[
He formed the Doug Davis Flying Circus, and through the early 1920s, his ]barnstorming
Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in t ...
outfit competed fiercely with the rival Mabel Cody Flying Circus. Eventually the two merged and formed the Baby Ruth Flying Circus in 1924, sponsored by Otto Schnering. Schnering was the founder of the Curtiss Candy Company
The Curtiss Candy Company was founded in 1916 by Otto Schnering near Chicago, Illinois. Wanting a more "American-sounding" name (due to anti-German sentiment during World War I), Schnering named his company using his mother's maiden name.
Their ...
, which manufactured the Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth is an American candy bar made of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate-flavored nougat, covered in compound chocolate. It is distributed by the Ferrara Candy Company, a subsidiary of Ferrero.
History
In 1920, the Curtiss Candy Comp ...
candy bar.[ Davis had previously worked for Schnering, promoting his product by dropping the candy bars, attached to paper parachutes, from his airplane.][ In 1923, he created a national uproar by flying low between buildings in the business district of ]Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
distributing candy.[ On the ]Fourth of July
Independence Day (colloquially the Fourth of July) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence, which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States ...
weekend in 1926, he did the same promotion over Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...
.[ In Miami in 1927, a candy distributor got Davis to let his 12-year-old son, ]Paul Tibbets
Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. (23 February 1915 – 1 November 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the '' Enola Gay'' (named after his mot ...
, drop the candy bars from Davis's Waco 9
The Waco 9 is an American-built three-seat biplane design that first flew in 1925.
Development
The Waco 9 was the first of the steel-tubed fuselage aircraft designs to be built by the Advance Aircraft Company, which became the Waco Aircraft Com ...
to the crowd at the Hialeah Park Race Track
The Hialeah Park Race Track (also known as the Hialeah Race Track or Hialeah Park) is a historic racetrack in Hialeah, Florida. Its site covers 40 square blocks of central-east side Hialeah from Palm Avenue east to East 4th Avenue, and from East 2 ...
. It made a big impression on the boy; he later said, "From that day on, I knew I had to fly."[ Tibbets would go on to pilot the ]Boeing B-29 Superfortress
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.[
In 1926 or 1927, Davis constructed the first permanent aircraft hangar at Candler Field, a converted auto speedway near Atlanta,][ which eventually became Atlanta Municipal Airfield in 1946.][ (The Doug Davis hangar was recreated in early 2015 at the Candler Field Museum.) He set up an aviation school there, the Douglas Davis Flying Service.][ He also ran a charter service between Atlanta and ]Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
, before selling it to Texas Air Transport in 1929. Both the school and the charter service were firsts for Atlanta.[ In 1930, he joined Eastern Air Transport (the predecessor of ]Eastern Air Lines
Eastern Air Lines, also colloquially known as Eastern, was a major United States airline from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Ea ...
) and piloted the first commercial airline flight from Atlanta to 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 ...
the same year.[
]
Air racing and death
Davis was also an accomplished air racer. In the 1928 Atlanta Air Races, he won or placed second in every race.[ In 1929, Travel Air got him to race its new airplane, the Travel Air Type R, dubbed the "Mystery Ship" by the press because its development had been kept a closely guarded secret.][ On September 2, 1929, he flew it to a win in event 26, a free-for-all speed contest – five laps of a triangular course – at the ]National Air Races
The National Air Races (also known as Pulitzer Trophy Races) are a series of pylon and cross-country races that have taken place in the United States since 1920. The science of aviation, and the speed and reliability of aircraft and engines grew ...
in Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
at a speed of .[ His civilian airplane was the first to defeat military aircraft.][ In 1934, he won the ]Bendix Trophy
The Bendix Trophy is a U.S. air racing, aeronautical racing trophy. The transcontinental, point-to-point race, sponsored by industrialist Vincent Hugo Bendix, Vincent Bendix founder of Bendix Corporation, began in 1931 as part of the National Ai ...
, flying a Wedell-Williams Model 44
The Wedell-Williams Model 44 is a racing aircraft, four examples of which were built in the United States in the early 1930s by the Wedell-Williams Air Service Corporation. It began as a rebuilding of the partnership's successful ''We-Will'' 1929 ...
from Burbank to Cleveland (to compete in the National Air Races) at a speed of in nine hours, 26 minutes and 43 seconds.[ Movie star ]Mary Pickford
Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...
presented him with the trophy, while Vincent Bendix
Vincent Hugo Bendix (August 12, 1881 – March 27, 1945) was an American inventor and industrialist. Vincent Bendix was a pioneer and leader in both the automotive and aviation industries during the 1920s and 1930s.''Vincent Bendix. Enshrine ...
gave him his $5400 prize check.[
At the National Air Races, he complained that the course for the last and biggest competition, the Thompson Trophy Race, held on ]Labor Day
Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United St ...
(September 3 that year), was too short – rather than the more customary to make the race easier for the audience to follow – and that "Someone may get killed this afternoon."[ This proved to be prophetic. Davis was leading on the eighth lap, but missed a pylon. He banked to turn around and try to pass the pylon properly, only to stall and crash into the ground, dying instantly out of sight of the 60,000 spectators.][ He was 35 years old. The announcer lied and told the crowd he had bailed out.][
]
Personal life
Davis married Glenna Mae D'Hollosay on December 25, 1925.[
His son, Doug Davis Jr., was six at the time of his father's death. He would become a successful painter before dying in an Air France Boeing 707 crash on takeoff from ]Orly Field
Orly Air Base was a United States Air Force Facility during the early part of the Cold War, located at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, south of Paris, France. The American Air Base was located on the north side of the airport, in an area east of the ...
, Paris, on June 3, 1962, at about the same age as his father.[
]
Honors
Davis was inducted into the OX5 Club of America Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame
The Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame recognizes aviation pioneers and contributors associated with the state of Georgia. The museum was created in 1989 by Governor Joe Frank Harris signing House Bill 110. The law called for a 15-member board to overse ...
in 1991.[ There is a statue of him beside one of ]Eddie Rickenbacker
Edward Vernon Rickenbacker or Eddie Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973) was an American fighter pilot in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient.[National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...]
in Washington, DC.[
]
References
External links
Article "Commercial Flight Opens Unlimited Opportunities"
at nasa.gov, including a photograph of Candler Field, showing three of Davis's Waco 9
The Waco 9 is an American-built three-seat biplane design that first flew in 1925.
Development
The Waco 9 was the first of the steel-tubed fuselage aircraft designs to be built by the Advance Aircraft Company, which became the Waco Aircraft Com ...
biplanes, all advertising "Baby Ruth", as well as a sign on the hangar in the background for "The Douglas Davis Flying Service ... and School of Aviation"
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Douglas Henry
1898 births
1934 deaths
American aerospace businesspeople
American air racers
Aviators from Georgia (U.S. state)
Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in the United States
Aviation pioneers
Barnstormers
United States Army Air Service pilots of World War I
Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state)
People from Zebulon, Georgia
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1934