Charles Edward Taylor (May 24, 1868 - January 30, 1956) was an American inventor, mechanic, and engineer. He built the first aircraft engine used by the Wright brothers and was an important contributor to mechanical skills in building and maintaining the early Wright engines and aircraft.
Video Charlie Taylor (mechanic)
Biography
Born in a log cabin on May 24, 1868, in Cerro Gordo, Illinois for William Stephen Taylor and Mary Jane Germain. Taylor worked as a binder in the Nebraska State Journal at age 12. He became a toolmaker. At 24, he met and married Henrietta Webbert, who came from Dayton, Ohio. They have children and move to Dayton, where the prospect is better. Stoddard Manufacturing Co. hired him to make agricultural machinery and bicycles. But when the Wright Brothers began renting from his wife's uncle, a building for their bike shop, he went to work for them. Initially, Taylor was hired to fix the bike, but increasingly took over running the bike business when the Wright brothers spent more time on their flight chase. In 1902, they simply trusted him to run the store when they went to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to fly the gliders.
When it became clear that off-the-shelf machines with the required power-to-weight ratio were not available in the US for their first Flyer-driven engine, Wrights turned to Taylor for the job. He designed and built aluminum-copper water-cooled machines in just six weeks, partly based on a rough sketch provided by Wright. Aluminum cast and crankcase blocks weighing 152 pounds (69 kg) and produced in Miami Brass Foundry or Buckeye Iron and Brass Works, near Dayton, Ohio. The Wright requires a machine with at least 8 horsepower (6.0 kW). The machine Taylor built produced 12.
In 1908 Taylor helped Orville build and prepare a "military Flyer" for a demonstration to the US Army in Fort Myer, Virginia. On September 17, the plane crashed because of ruined propellers, wounding Orville and killing its passengers, Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. Taylor was among the first to reach the accident. He helped lift Selfridge out of the wreckage, then took off Orville's tie and opened his shirt as the doctors in the crowd pushed their way to the scene. Orville and Selfridge were taken away on a stretcher. After that,
"... Charlie leans against the crushed Flyer wing, buries his face in his arms, and cries.A journalist tries to cheer him up, but he passes consolation until Dr. Watters assures him that the chances for Orville's recovery are Good, then he withdraws and takes over for carrying the crushed Flyer back to the warehouse. "
Both Taylor and Navy Lieutenant George Sweet had been scheduled to make their first flight with Orville that day, but both were hit to accommodate Selfridge who had to leave town for Missouri. Despite this accident, Taylor wanted to be a pilot and look for Wilbur and Orville to teach him. The Wrights, reluctantly losing Taylor's services to the world of flying exhibits, was discouraged by him.
In September, 1909 Taylor accompanied Wilbur, with the new Model A Flyer, to Governor's Island, New York City. Wilbur will make several flights over water at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, demonstrating the plane to millions of New Yorkers and featuring new practical aviation technology. Charlie was able to help Wilbur, even though he did not fly with him. Charlie made sure the machine worked perfectly for the journey on brave and dangerous water. The pair also installed waterproof canoes to the lower wing of the Flyer for buoyancy only in case of an emergency landing on the Hudson River.
Taylor became a prominent mechanic at the Wright Company after it was formed in 1909. When Calbraith Perry Rodgers traveled from Long Island to California in 1911 on a newly purchased Wright plane, he paid Taylor $ 70 a week (big amount in time) to become his mechanic. Taylor followed the flight by train, often arriving at the next meeting before Rodgers, to make necessary repairs and prepare for the next day's flight.
Taylor worked for the Wright-Martin Company in Dayton until 1920. He then moved to California and invested his savings on several hundred acres of real estate near the Salton Sea, but the effort failed. He returned to Dayton in 1936, and he and Orville assisted Henry Ford in the planning, removal and restoration of the Wright family home and one of the Wright Brothers bicycle stores to Ford Dearborn, Michigan, a heritage village of a great American. Orville also gave Taylor an annuity of $ 800 per year.
In 1941, Taylor returned to California, looking for a job in a defense factory. He had a heart attack in 1945 and was no longer able to work. In 1955 his annuity and Social Security income was insufficient and he became a charity case at the Los Angeles County Hospital. When his fate was published, the aviation industry raised funds to move it to private facilities.
He died on January 30, 1956, eight years after Orville, his friend and employer. Taylor is buried in the Portal Shrine of Folded Fold to Aviation in Burbank, California, a temple for aviation history.
Maps Charlie Taylor (mechanic)
Legacy
- The Charles Taylor Mechanical Expert Award from the FAA is named in his honor.
- Department of Flight Maintenance Charles Taylor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University is named for her.
- Day Care Technicians were observed in 45 US States on May 24, Taylor's birthday.
- was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1965
References
Further reading
- AMT (Aircraft Maintenance Technology) "Charles E. Taylor: Who is he and why should we honor him?"
- Howard R. DuFour with Peter J Unitt, The Wright Brother's Mechanician , 1997, ISBN: 0-9669965-0-X. Published by author. (196 pages, hardback.)
- "Charlie's Engine", by Tony French at Pilots celebrating 100 years of flying, page 125, Archant Specialist, 2003.
- Flights Today "My Story: Charles E. Taylor as told to Robert S. Ball"
External links
- Getty Images: Photo: Charlie Taylor, William J. Hammer, Wilbur Wright at Hudson-Fulton Celebration, 1909
- Bust of Charlie at the USAirForce Museum
- Biography of the National Aviation Hall of Fame
- Archived records of We Saw It Happen (1953) with Taylor at age 87.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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