Aviation pioneer looks back

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32663, 20 July 1971, Page 14

Aviation pioneer looks back

The man who sold Charles Lindbergh his first aeroplane, formed the company from which grew the Douglas Aircraft Corporation, designed a new aircraft wing which is named after him, and has enjoyed personal friendships with many of the aviation pioneers of the United States is at present visiting Christchurch. He is Mr D. R. Davis, of Los Angeles, whose revolutionary wing design was first used on World War Two Liberator bombers and later on Boeing Superfortresses. On one occasion he sued the United States Government for its use of the Davis wing without his permission. He won the suit in the Court of Claims although it practically ruined him financially. In Los Angeles, Mr Davis

said he got hold of the best known aircraft designer in the United States, Donald Douglas, who was then with the Martin Aircraft Company and had designed the Martin bomber, and together they started the Davis Douglas Aircraft Company. “We designed the Cloudster biplane and set off on the first non-stop cross country flight of the United States. While we had sufficient fuel the engine blew up while we were over Texas. Fortunately we landed 0.K.,” said Mr Davis.

“Then we designed the first torpedo plane in a competition which was open to American and European aircraft builders. We won first prize and got a Government order for nine at $25,000 each. This plane had the Liberty engine which originally blew up on our attempted transcontinental flight,” he said. Later Mr Davis withdrew from the Davis Douglas company because of financial difficulties. His partner managed to obtain further finance and went on to found the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. Mr Davis recently met Mr Douglas after a gap of 25 years.

For a time Mr Davis worked for Bendix Aviation. “Mr Bendix was the Howard Hughes of this per iod and his pilot was Charles We sold him his first aircraft, a biplane, which with the struts taped up we flew from Los Angeles to San Diego.” Howard Hughes’s giant flying boat, with a wing span of 209 ft, also used the Davis wing design- “Howard was refused aluminium by the Government and built the flying boat out of plywood. It was much too heavy yet he did fly it. Now it remains in a hangar at Long Beach, California.”

Until his retirement Mr Davis was with the Aircraft Division of the Hughes Tool Company working on the development of the Falcon missile at the company’s plant at El Segundo. Mr Davis had originally planned to become a lawyer.

“British common law was my favourite and in fact still is. I decided then, back in 1917, that there were too many lawyers in the United States; and I planned to work in Fiji, but then the war interrupted my plans/*