Russell Maughan

Russell Maughan

Russell Lowell Maughan was a pioneer aviator and U.S. military pilot. His career spanned a period in which the Air Force, then part of the U.S. Army, was known as the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps; U.S. Air Service; U.S. Army Air Corps; and U.S. Army Air Forces. Maughan was born March 28, 1893 in Logan, Utah, to Peter W. Maughan and Mary Naef Maughan. He graduated from Utah State Agricultural College in June 1917.

The United States had entered World War I and Maughan enlisted as an Army aviation cadet. Commissioned a first lieutenant in the Signal officer Reserve Corps after flight training and rated a Reserve Military Aviator, he served in France with the 139th Aero Squadron, where he flew a Spad XIII. Maughan was credited with four aerial victories and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on October 27, 1918, the citation for which is given below.

He remained in the Air Service following the end of the war and was assigned to its Engineering Division at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, as a test pilot. Besides testing new designs, his responsibilities including public demonstrations of military aircraft and participation in air races. The Engineering Division had drawn the interest of Gen. William Mitchell, Assistant Chief of the Air Service, who saw in it the opportunity for promoting the concept of an Air Force independent of the Army. On July 1, 1920, when the Air Service became a combat arm of the Army, Maughan received a Regular commission as a 1st lieutenant, Air Service.

In 1922 the National Air Races were held at Selfridge Field, Michigan, where the Air Service entered the Pulitzer Trophy Race with ten aircraft it had solicited from various manufacturers for use as possible pursuit planes, with specification that they be capable of reaching a speed of 190 mph (310 km/h) or greater. Flying a Curtiss R-6 racer, a precursor of the PW-8 design, Maughan won the Pulitzer race with an average speed of 205.8 mph (331.2 km/h), on October 14, 1922. On October 16, flying the 1-kilometer course, he averaged 229 mph (369 km/h) for eight circuits, 232.22 mph (373.72 km/h) for four, and reached 248.5 mph (399.9 km/h) on one. This established a new international record, but it was not observed by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) officials and was not officially recognized.

The following year Maughan officially set a new international speed record of 236.5 mph (380.6 km/h). He also made two attempts in July to fly coast-to-coast in a single day, using a new Curtiss aircraft based on the R-6, but mechanical problems thwarted both flights. On June 23, 1924, his third attempt succeeded, the first Dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States.

Maughan served in the Philippines from 1930 to 1935, with duty as Secretary of Aviation and Consultant to the Philippine Cabinet from 1930 to 1932. In 1939 he surveyed and selected airfields in Greenland and Iceland for aircraft ferry routes to Britain.

Maughan, promoted to lieutenant colonel, commanded the 60th Transport Group, Pope Field, North Carolina, from July 28, 1941 to April 15, 1942. Promoted again to colonel, he was advanced to command of the 51st Troop Carrier Wing from June 1, 1942 to October 20, 1942, during its deployment to England to drop airborne forces in the invasion of North Africa.

Colonel Maughan retired in 1946, and died April 21, 1958, at San Antonio, Texas during surgery. He is buried in the Logan City Cemetery near the Utah State University campus in Logan, Utah. He is a member of the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame and is honored with a plaque in the Hill Aerospace Museum, Hill Air Force Base, Utah. A plaque commemorating the first "Dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States was erected on the Utah State University campus in Logan, Utah, on Veteran's Day, 2006.