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User Name	Thread Name	Subject	Posted
GUEST,Phil d'Conch	Origins: Into the Air (Junior Birdmen) (45)	RE: Origins: Into the Air (Junior Birdmen)	03 Feb 18
RE: The AAC, AAF &c history and names. The U.S. military air forces began as a flying circus, well, ballooning circus anywho. It all started when an Illinois Central brakeman named Thomas Scott Baldwin decided to turn circus stuntman. He was the first to descend from a balloon by parachute and wound up managing the U.S. Army's balloon and dirigible programs. Baldwin ordered a custom engine for one early prototype from Glenn H. Curtiss. Within a month Curtiss was all in. In 1910, Chutes Park, Los Angeles, Charles Colby's & Baldwin's home aerodrome founded the first lighter-than-air National Guard unit. Colby was their test pilot. In 1911, Curtiss founded the first fixed wing Air National Guard unit in San Francisco. Billy Mitchell was a T.S. Baldwin student. Henry "Hap" Arnold & Carl "Tooey" Spaatz also came up through the U.S. Signal Corps' Aviation Section, to mention a few.

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