Walter T. Hinton | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
November 10, 1888 Van Wert, Ohio |
| Died | October 28, 1981 (aged 92) |
Walter T. Hinton (10 November 1888 - 28 October 1981) was a United States aviator.
Hinton, about 1926
Hinton was born in a farming family in Van Wert, Ohio. Seeing a poster urging young men to "Join the Navy and See The World", he joined the United States Navy. He saw action in the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, Mexico. Hinton had a great fascination with early aircraft, and soon went into Naval aviation.
Hinton achieved fame as the pilot of the Curtiss NC flying boat "NC-4", the first aircraft to make a transatlantic flight, in 1919.[1] Hinton and Kloor wrote letters to an outside publisher describing the flight, which prompted the Navy to start enforcing rarely used censorship rules.[2] Hinton's aeronautic adventures during the 1920s include exploring the Arctic by balloon, A wayward flight from Rockaway, Queens to Moose Factory, Ontario in the winter causing a month-long hike to civilization,[3] making the first flight from North America to South America (on the second try—he floated on a wing in shark infested waters off Cuba for a while at the end of the first try), and exploring the Amazon Rainforest by hydroplane.[4]
He spent years touring as a speaker promoting aviation.
Hinton spent his retirement in Pompano Beach, Florida, where he delighted in sharing his memories with local children. One of his happiest events of his later years was being a special guest on an early supersonic transatlantic flight of the Concorde, making the trip which had first taken Hinton 19 days in less than four hours.
Hinton was President and Founder of the Aviation Institute of U.S.A Washington D.C. in 1927 and 1928, where he published several periodicals on aviation.[5] Periodicals included Opportunities in Aviation,[6] The Wright Whirlwind Motor, Pioneers in Aviation, and Aviation Progress.
References[]
- ↑ "Error: no
|title=specified when using {{Cite web}}". Jan 1930. p. 67. - ↑ "Airman's letters may cause Navy to censor officer's writings". 15 January 1921. p. 11.
- ↑ "Error: no
|title=specified when using {{Cite web}}". 25 July 1921. p. 471. - ↑ Pictures of him can be seen on pages 379 and 404 of the April 1926 National Geographic Magazine
- ↑ "Error: no
|title=specified when using {{Cite web}}". January 1930. p. 16. - ↑ Walter Hinton (1929). Opportunities in aviation. W.W. Norton & Company, inc.
The original article can be found at Walter Hinton and the edit history here.