(This
Page)
Shushan Airport
Death of Jimmie Wedell
Delgado Trade School
Death of Walter Wedell and Harry Williams
(Next Page)
Delta, Eastern, and American in Louisiana
Brigadier General Claire L.Chennault
Transatlantic Helicopter Flight
Patterson Airport
Shushan Airport
Under the direction of
Governor Huey P. Long stalwart Abe Shushan, the Orleans
Levee Board built a state-of-the-art airport at a cost of
$3 million on a filled-in area of Lake Pontchartrain in
New Orleans. The new facility, called Shushan Airport,
hosted the Pan-American Air Races as part of its opening
ceremonies in February 1934. Just before the races
started, officials barred women from competing, a
controversial move. On the first day of contests, a crash
claimed the life of a stunt pilot. A parachute jumper and
a pilot died three days later after the jumper’s
chute caught on the tail of the plane. These races
demonstrated once again the risks of air stunts. Jimmie
Wedell entered the races and flew the "45" to a
new 100-kilometer world speed record of 266 miles per
hour. The "45" was expected to be his most
spectacular speed ship, the basis for his successful bid
to the United States Army for a pursuit-plane design.
On June 24, 1934, aviation
suffered a crushing blow when Jimmie Wedell died in a
plane crash. At the time of his death, Wedell was
recognized as the speed king of the world,
aviation’s most successful designer of racing
planes, and the holder of more records than any other
flyer. Syndicated columnist Will Rogers added, "Who
knows but what aviation might not be permanently set back
100 miles an hour through the loss of this fellow, with
the knowledge that was buried with him?" History has
incorrectly blamed the accident on a student pilot, Frank
Seeringer, of Mobile, Alabama, who supposedly froze at
the controls of the DeHavilland Gypsy Moth. It appears
that Jimmie was at the controls when the crash occurred
in Patterson, probably due to structural failure. Jimmie
was buried in West Columbia, Texas, following services
held in New Orleans.
Jimmie Wedell Crash |
Jimmie Wedell Crash |
Jimmie Wedell Crash |
In New Orleans, the Wedell-Williams Corporation operated out of the same airport as the Delgado Trade School, and Jimmie became close friends with Byron Armstrong, who founded the school’s aviation program in 1931. As such, the efforts of the two groups began to exhibit great similarities. This relationship was most evident in the outward appearance of the Wedell-Williams designs. Beginning with the "45," all Wedell-Williams efforts, including the never-constructed XP-34 and NR67Y, carried the Delgado "look."
Between 1933 and 1938 the Delgado Trade School produced only two racing planes, both of which were modified several times. Although construction began earlier on the Flash , the Maid was the first completed and the first to fly. Painted a bright red and powered with a Curtiss D-12 engine, the Maid was an impressive sight. The racer was shipped to the 1935 National Air Races, where it suffered from poor engine cooling and did not participate. Early in 1936 several new cowls were tried, and a new Curtiss Conquerer engine replaced the D-12. Art Davis was named as pilot for the 1936 races. Davis promptly went to New Orleans to fly the Maid before it was disassembled and shipped to the races. During his trial flight the Maid was unofficially clocked at 375 miles per hour. Just after Davis roared past the field, boundary smoke poured from the engine. Davis, believing the racer was on fire, bailed out and the ship was destroyed. An examination of the engine showed that a connecting rod had broken, tearing a huge hole in the crankcase. This crash forced the cancellation of plans for the Maid . Construction on a smaller wing and droppable landing gear was almost complete, because the plane had been scheduled to attempt the world land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats by dropping the gear and then landing the racer on a belly skid.
The second completed effort, the Flash , was actually started in 1933, one year prior to construction of the Maid , but was not finished until 1937. During the construction stage the racer was equipped with a retractable landing gear, which folded inward. The powerplant was a four-cylinder Menasco. For reasons unknown, students stopped work on this project and went to work on the Maid .
Work on the
Flash
resumed in September 1936, and the plane was completed
the following January. The shortage of time dictated that
a fixed gear be placed on the
Flash
if it were to be completed by the
1937 National Air Races. The little racer was painted
black and white and carried license number NX-68Y and
race number "49." Clarence MacArthur flew the
racer in the 1937 and 1938 races but was forced out early
in each event he entered. The racer was just not quick
enough. Late in 1938 work was begun on a rearward folding
retractable landing gear for the
Flash
, but it was never flown with this
gear installed. During World War II, the army air corps
took over the school’s aviation program. After the
war, Delgado stored the
Flash
in a remote warehouse. The
Flash,
along with all other Delgado fuselage shells, molds, and
drawings, was destroyed when a huge fire engulfed the
warehouse.
 Delgado Flash |
Delgado Maid |
In 1934 Wedell-Williams won the design competition to build a prototype of the next-generation fighter plane for the army. Dubbed the XP-34, it was a direct descendant of the "45," except that it was larger and designed for two machine guns. The project had progressed to the point of final wind tunnel drawings at the time of Jimmie Wedell’s death. The project slowly withered and died after this tragedy, a combination of Harry Williams’s apathy and the reluctance of the army to proceed without the plane’s main designer.
The NR67Y was another
Wedell-Williams effort that came to a halt with the loss
of Jimmie Wedell. Designed for the 1934 MacRobertson
London-to-Melbourne race, this plane was the best example
of the cooperation between Wedell-Williams and the
Delgado group. The Delgado students built the entire
fuselage and tail assembly, while the Wedell-Williams
staff planned to construct the remaining sections. At the
time of Jimmie’s death, only the partially finished
fuselage existed, along with a model. According to
legend, Harry Williams was so upset by the death of
Wedell that he took an ax and smashed the NR67Y’s
wing to bits. In any case, the plane was never built, and
the company did not participate in the race.
Model of NR67Y |
Deaths of Walter Wedell and Harry Williams
Tragedy struck again in July 1935, when Walter Wedell and a passenger were killed in a plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana-Mississippi border under mysterious circumstances. He was piloting a chartered Brewster Aristocrat that crashed into the Mississippi Sound at least twenty miles off course and flying in a direction opposite from that called for in the flight plan. Rescue crews found the passenger in the pilot’s seat at the controls, indicating that Walter Wedell was not at the controls at the time of the crash.
Less than a year later, on May 19, 1936, after a shopping tour with Marguerite Williams, Harry and the company’s chief pilot, John Worthen, flew to Baton Rouge for a conference with Governor Richard Leche. After dinner at the executive mansion, Worthen and Williams took off for Patterson. Immediately after takeoff, the Beech Staggerwing crashed from a cause never determined, killing both men instantly. Harry Williams’s remains were cremated and a portion of his ashes were spread over the Patterson Airport.
In a matter of twenty-three months, the Wedell-Williams Air Service had lost its two founders, Jimmie’s brother Walter Wedell, and chief pilot John Worthen. Less than one year later, Marguerite Williams sold the company's assets, including a stable of transport planes worth about one-half million dollars, to Eastern Air Lines for a paltry $175,000. Eastern's owner, the famous Eddie Rickenbacker, held more than a dozen face-to-face meetings with Marguerite Williams to negotiate the sale. In addition to the planes, what Captain Rickenbacker coveted most was the mail route from New Orleans to Houston, giving Eastern its first presence in Texas. In 1937 Marguerite Williams donated the Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport in Patterson to the state of Louisiana as a tribute to her late husband.
