Orville Wright Assists the National Aeronautic Association in Certifying a New Altitude Record

The flight was at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, and Orville Wright was involved

The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) is the oldest national aviation organization in the United States, and is “dedicated to the advancement of the art, sport and science of aviation.” It represents all segments of American aviation, from skydiving and models to commercial airlines, military aircraft, and spaceflight. It is also the official record-keeper for United States aviation, and no record can be accepted without its approval. It was founded as the Aero Club of America in 1905, with the goal of promoting aviation, and was incorporated in 1922 and the name changed to the present one. As the nation’s first national aviation group, many famous fliers had a hand in its development, including the Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, Wiley Post, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

Carl F. Schory of the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company was for some years Secretary of the NAA. He was involved in many achievements in aviation, mostly working on the ground and out of the public eye. A year after he wrote this letter, Shory installed the barograph on Lindbergh’s ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ just before the epochal flight. As the gatekeeper to the official U.S. records, fliers who sought altitude and endurance records had to obtain his approval before their feats were recognized.

John A. Macready was an army lieutenant in World War I who, in 1921, set an altitude record of 34,509 feet for which he was awarded the first of three consecutive Mackay trophies. In May 1923, with two others, he made the first non-stop coast-to-coast flight, from Roosevelt Field, New York to Rockwell Field, California. Macready made additional high altitude flights in a special plane. Some of these flights unofficially exceeded 40,000 feet, and on January 29th, 1926, at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, Macready set an official altitude record of 38,704 feet. Orville Wright was present to see the record set.

Certification of the record was the final, official result. However, initially there was confusion on the exact altitude achieved, with Macready’s readings being less than the Bureau of Standards reading. Orville Wright worked with Schory and the NAA to determine the facts, and in this letter provides the details on the altitude discrepancies that would need to be taken into account. Ultimately the Bureau of Standards reading was accepted as correct, apparently, as Wright mentions here, because it was done under conditions experienced in the actual flight.

Typed letter signed, on his personal letterhead, Dayton, Ohio, March 11, 1926, to Schory. “Your letter of March 8 enclosing correspondence with the Air Service Engineering Division is received. I do not know why the telegram was sent to you unless some new man, unfamiliar with the work, has come into the Engineering Division. I had already been notified by Macready, and all arrangements were made for his flight. We went to the field Tuesday, but the sky clouded before the machine was ready, so that the test had to be postponed. We have had an overcast sky since that time.

“I am very much puzzled over the barograph calculations of these altitude tests. In the test on January 29th, Lieut. Mcready reported on landing that his altimeter indicated an altitude of 36,200 feet (F.A.I.). We tested under a bell jar at ordinary room temperature an unsealed barograph which had been carried on the flight. This indicated a little less than 35,900 feet altitude. The official barograph was sent to the Bureau of Standards for test with the result of 38,704 feet. I presume the test at the Bureau of Standards was made under conditions of low temperature as obtained in the flight, and this might account for some of the difference in the calibrations of the two barographs. On the other hand, the altimeter and barograph tested here agreed quite closely, as we have found they have always done in the many tests heretofore.”

In the wake of this flight, Macready made additional flights, again with Wright’s assistance. Wright refers to these in the first paragraph.