The Naval Detachment, Center for Military History has previously shared with our readers the story of one of California's first naval aviators, Frank Simpson.

Nine years before Charles A. Lindbergh made his first solo flight across the Atlantic and five years before he even enrolled as a flying cadet, naval aviators made history and a California Naval Militiaman was almost part of that history.

It was Simpson who caused California to become the second state to acquire an aviation unit through the friendship he cultivated with Glen Martin (Lockheed-Martin).  Simpson so distinguished himself at Pensacola and in the State Militia that when World War I broke out he was assigned to San Diego to develop the second naval pilot training school, becoming its executive officer.  However, he did not serve overseas.

His remarkable achievements in San Diego were noted by the Navy and he stayed in the service until 1921 when he was discharged for medical reasons.

Mrs. Olga Grandin, Frank Simpson's sister, told me that in 1919 the Navy Department asked Frank Simpson to participate in the first cross-Atlantic flight.  Participation was limited to aviators who had not served overseas during the war.  Simpson was regarded as being one of the senior and best aviators in the Navy but had been kept at home to train and plan for others.  He declined the opportunity because of his family being on the West Coast and he was doing aerial survey and mapping work for the Navy Department in San Francisco Bay.

Within three months after the close of World War I in November of 1919, five different teams were competing for the 10,000 pound prize offered by the London Daily Mail to the first successful Trans-Atlantic aviator.

The story of how the U.S. Navy won its race across the Atlantic is the subject of the attached article First To Fly the Atlantic by Bernard A. Weisberger. 

As a footnote you will note that special, new instruments had to be designed.  One of these was a bubble sextant, invented by Richard E. Byrd, later of South Pole fame.  Early day aviators, moving across land, needed no sextant work and Frank Simpson's flights over water to Cuba from Key West were easy.  It was only 90 air miles off the coast.  A pilot could see Cuba at 8,000 feet before leaving the Florida coast.  A trip across the entire Atlantic was an entirely different matter. A sextant is a very accurate protractor, capable of measuring angles with great precision.  In operating a sextant, the observer locates the heavenly object and draws it down to the horizon line, thus, measuring the angle.  At an altitude of several thousand feet, the angle to the natural horizon would be greatly exaggerated causing inaccuracies in navigational calculations.  This having been perceived, Byrd devised a solution which is still used by aviators today.

Nine Years Before Lindberg

By COL (Ret.) Norman S. Marshall