The Early Birds of Aviation is an organization devoted to the history of early pilots. The organization was started in 1928 and accepted a membership of 598 pioneering aviators.
Membership was limited to those who piloted a glider, gas balloon, or airplane, prior to December 17, 1916. The cutoff date was set at December 17 to correspond to the first flights of Wilbur and Orville Wright. 1916 was chosen as a cutoff because a large number of people were trained in 1917 as pilots for World War I.
The original organization dissolved once the last living member had died. This occurred with the death of 99-year-old George Debaun Grundy, Jr. on May 19, 1998. The current organization is devoted to collecting and publishing biographies on those who met the 1916 deadline. There were many pilots who soloed before the 1916 deadline who never applied to the club to be members. Some have been made honorary members.
Read more about Early Birds Of Aviation: Members
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or birds:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)