The Cloudbuster Aviator

About the Book

It was the very early years of powered airplanes, plans for such machines were published in U.S. national aviation magazines. The airplanes being constructed from such plans were changed by craftsmen countrywide. In this case the Curtiss design was modified by a widowed dairy farmer, himself at Death's door. His sixteen year-old son would be the aviator. Associates in the venture were the farm's well educated handy-man and a talented cabinet maker from the nearby town. Legal opposition by the farmer's unmarried sister, his children's guardian after the farmer's death, prevented exhibition flights in Oregon. The Cloudbuster was thus forced to carry out its flying in Washington State during the cool summer of 1912.

About the Author

The author of The Cloudbuster Aviator, has spent most of his life with airplanes. He holds a commercial pilot's license for single and multi-engine airplanes and single-engine seaplanes. His interest in the history of powered airplanes is an offshoot of his daily work with modern aircraft. In his imagination this book is the written record of a 16-year-old Oregon farm orphan, flying the derivative of a successful 1912 airplane with the support of a skillful farmhand and a cabinet maker from a nearby town. His legal guardian using state courts prevents further exhibition flying with the airplane in Oregon. The crew sneaks the airplane away and goes north to carry out exhibition flights that was typical in the summer of that year. That made it possible for the young pilot and his mechanic to join an American team planning to travel by sea and make exhibition flights in the Australian summer.