Thomas Scott Baldwin

Thomas Scott Baldwin was one of the more significant aviation figures of the pioneer era, even though his name is relatively unknown today. Few men in the aeronautical community enjoyed a greater popularity than Thomas Scott Baldwin. Affectionately known as "Captain Tom" to the countless friends he had made in aeronautics. His earliest connection with aeronautics dates back to the early years of his life. 

Thomas Scott Baldwin was born in Marion, Missouri, on June 30, 1854, the son of Samuel and Jane Baldwin, and was orphaned at the age of 13.  He married the former miss Cary Poole in 1878. Having first found work on the Illinois railroad as a brakeman, Baldwin at the age of fourteen joined a traveling circus as a balloon acrobat. Baldwin was the star attraction at county fairs all over the country, making his first balloon ascent in 1875. After ten years and thousands of shows the novelty began to fade. Searching for a new exhibition specialty, he rediscovered the rigid parachute invented a century before. He redesigned it and made it flexible so it could be packed.  He then began to offer to parachute from a balloon, at the rate of a dollar a foot. His services were eagerly bought, a thousand feet worth, at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The date was January 30, 1885, one of the first times in history that man had descended from a balloon in a parachute.  Baldwin made several thousand ascents and countless parachute drops in the U.S., Canada and Far East.

As the light weight gasoline engine was beginning to emerge from the experimental stage, Baldwin was quick to see the promise it held for solving the dirigibility of balloons. Intrigued by the work of others, he began to investigate motor driven balloons. After struggling over four years, he found a lightweight engine to power his elongated airship. By this action he set in motion one of the greatest forces aviation was ever to know, Glenn Hammond Curtiss. For it was Curtiss' motorcycle engine that powered his first dirigible, the "California Arrow" on August 3, 1904 in the first circuitous flight in America.

From 1900 to 1908 he built a great number of small non-rigid airships of cigar shape which were driven by small gasoline engines and these he exhibited. But the most famous was the "California Arrow," powered by a small Curtiss engine and piloted by Roy Knabenshue at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. In 1905, the Baldwin Airship Company was incorporated, and Captain Baldwin soon became a major name in the early American aviation circles.

In 1907, the U.S. Army became impressed with the military possibilities of the airship and the Signal Corps ordered from Baldwin a non-rigid of 20,000 cu.ft. capacity.  He was appointed by the United States Government to superintend the building of all spherical, dirigible and kite balloons.  He built the first Government airship in 1908 (U.S. Signal Corps Dirigible Number One).

"Father of the Modern Parachute and American Dirigible."

[An Adaptation from Biography provided by the National Aviation Hall of Fame]

This craft, the SC-1, was delivered the following summer, when it was successfully flight tested for the Signal Corps by Baldwin himself. The ship was 96 ft. long and 19-1/2 feet in diameter, with a cigar shaped envelope of rubberized fabric surrounded by a network, from which a long rectangular trellis girder was suspended by steel cables. This girder, or car, carried a 20 h.p. Curtiss water-cooled engine which actuated through a shaft transmission a tractor propeller, and gave the ship a speed of 20 m.p.h. The pilot sat behind the engine, and in front there was mounted a biplane stabilizing and trimming plane, while on the stern of the girder a cruciform tail insured vertical and directional control. The total weight of the SC-1 was 1,360 lbs., 500 lbs. of which sas available as disposable lift.  It was on this, the first American Army airship, that the early military aeronauts of the U.S. Army were trained. By 1910, another craft had claimed the promise for the future and interest faded in all but the airplane. For the next few years, Baldwin turned his attention towards the airplane which was then bursting in upon the world with leaps and bounds and which had begun to overshadow the airship.

During late 1909 and early 1910, Curtiss has built an airplane of his design for Baldwin. It was a tractor biplane with a biplane tail similar to the well-known Farman design, and it had a large vertical surface mounted above the top wing for lateral steering. The original 25 horsepower, four-cylinder Curtiss engine was quickly replaced by a Curtiss V-8. By the summer of 1910, Baldwin was testing a second airplane at Mineola, Long Island. This aircraft was also similar to the Curtiss biplanes of the day, featuring a centrally-mounted pusher engine and a forward elevator supported by booms ahead of the wings.  Again, following the design similar to that of Glenn Curtis, in 1911, Baldwin built the first plane with a steel framework and called it the "Red Devil."

Again the showman that he was, he convinced Curtiss to form a troupe of aerial exhibitionists, among them one Eugene B. Ely, to promote his planes.  Two years later, Baldwin formed his own troupe of aerial performers with J.C. "Bud" Mars and Tod Shriver and began a tour of the Pacific.  He began the tour in Hawaii, then it was onto the Philippines, Japan, and China, the first time in most cases where an airplane had ever flown. 

In 1914, just before the United States entered the First Great War, his interest again turned to the dirigible. As small orders for airplanes were let by the Army and the Navy, the Navy decided also to acquire its first airship. This ship, the DN-1, was built by the Connecticut Aircraft Corp. largely to the designs of Baldwin whose unique experience in lighter-than-air craft particularly qualified him for this work. But training fliers was now the need and Glenn Curtiss offered him a job.  Baldwin became manager of the Curtiss Flying Station at Newport News, VA., where students were trained in land and water flying. One of his students was to later become the unsung champion of the air, General "Billy" Mitchell.

When the U.S. entered the war against Germany, Baldwin, who was then 62 years old, immediately volunteered for active service, and was commissioned a Captain in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, on April 25, 1917. He was assigned as the Chief of Army Balloon Inspection and Production, which post he held until October, 1919, when he was honorably discharged from active service. During his war time service Captain Baldwin, who was promoted to Major on June 18, 1918, not only personally inspected every type of balloon and airship produced for the U.S. Army, but also contributed much valuable knowledge with respect to construction and maintenance of balloons and airships.

His final employment was with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, continuing the design and manufacture of airships.  He died at the age of sixty-eight in the Deaconness's Hospital at Buffalo, New York, on May 17, 1923.  He was buried with military honors in Section 1 (Grave 1284) of the Arlington National Cemetery. 

As an early aviator, during various periods of this career, Baldwin found himself associated with such greats as the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Glenn Curtiss and Thomas E. Selfridge.  Baldwin holds the distinction of holding three pilot certificates: Balloon Pilot Certificate No. 1, Airship Pilot Certificate No. 9, and Airplane Pilot Certificate No. 7, which were all issued by the Aero Club of America.

First Metal Aircraft - Red Devil

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