Otto Timm

Otto William Timm (October 28, 1893 – June 29, 1978) was a California-based barnstormer and aircraft manufacturer. Charles Lindbergh's first flight was flown by Timm. Timm had a brother named Wallace Timm who did a lot of flying for the nascent Hollywood movie industry.

Biography

Timm was born on October 28, 1893. Timm originally started in the aviation field in 1910 when he attempted to build a copy of the Santos-Dumont "Demoiselle" monoplane while living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, although it appears this was never completed. The next year he moved to Cicero Field in Chicago, where a group of aviation enthusiasts had gathered. Here he built a copy of the Curtiss Pusher, which flew in 1911. Timm started a business flying the aircraft in Pennsylvania with a partner.

In 1913, Timm sold the business to his partner and returned to Cicero Field to begin construction of a "conventional" biplane design under contract. The next year he built a second for his own use, and started a cross-country tour that ended on 25 May 1915 when it crashed in a field in Magnolia, Minnesota. His plane happened to come down in the field of Burt Kinner, who was fascinated by the aircraft and would go on to become an aircraft designer as well. Timm then built another design under contract for the Grinnell Aeroplane Company in 1915, later flying it at town fairs around the mideast during the summer of 1916.

In October 1916, Timm became a senior flight instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego. He remained here during the war, while also building a new trainer biplane known as the Timm Model T-18. With the ending of the war, Timm moved to Venice, CA and opened the Pacific Aeroplane and Supply Co., where he started construction of a six-passenger biplane known as the Pacific Hawk. Over a six-week period in 1920 he designed and built the C-1 racing monoplane, which would win the International Air Tournament in Los Angeles in 1921.

In July 1921, Timm travelled to Lincoln, Nebraska to test fly the new Lincoln Standard. Here he met Charles Lindbergh, giving him basic instruction on the 16th and 17th. The two remained friends, and when Timm built another Curtiss Pusher for film use in 1925, Lindbergh later bought it and stunt-flew it during the 1928 International Air Tournament. He built another one-off design in 1926, the two-place monoplane Collegiate.

In 1922, Timm founded the O.W. Timm Aircraft Company in Glendale, CA. In 1928 the name was changed to the Timm Airplane Co. The company's first design was the Timm Collegiate series of five parasol-winged twin-seat light aircraft. Here he also produced a large (for the era) passenger biplane with an enclosed cabin seating seven and an open cockpit for two pilots. He changed the name to Timm Aircraft Company in May 1934, and introduced the Timm T-S140, a high-wing monoplane twin-engine design. In 1965, he was contacted by the TallMantz company to design a "one-off" movie model called the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1 which had a short and tragic lifespan, being involved in the death of its pilot, Paul Mantz.

Timm died on June 29, 1978.

External links

• Two Motor Transport Has Safe Landing Gear, May 1938, Popular Mechanics rare photo of Timm T-S140 twin engine transport

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Name	Timm, Otto
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Date of birth	October 28, 1893
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Date of death	June 29, 1978
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