Eddie August Schneider

Eddie August Schneider

I was broke, hungry, jobless ... yet despite the fact that all three of us are old-time aviators who did our part for the development of the industry, we were left out in the cold in the Administration’s program of job making. Can you blame us for accepting the lucrative Spanish offer?

Eddie August Henry Schneider (October 20, 1911 – December 23, 1940) set three transcontinental airspeed records for pilots under the age of twenty-one in 1930. His plane was a Cessna Model AW with a Warner-Scarab engine, one of only 48 built, that he called "The Kangaroo". He set the east-to-west, then the west-to-east, and the combined round trip record. He was the youngest certificated pilot in the United States, and the youngest certified airplane mechanic. He was a pilot in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Squadron. He died in an airplane crash in 1940 while training another pilot, when a US Navy bomber clipped his plane's tail at Floyd Bennett Field.