Wright Exhibition Team

The Wright Exhibition Team was a group of early aviators trained by the Wright brothers at Wright Flying School. The team made its first public appearance on June 13, 1910 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Both Wright brothers were with the team. They performed aerial shows and set records for altitude and endurance. Ralph Johnstone was the first to be killed. After attempting another altitude record over Denver's Overland Park in November, Johnstone put his plane into Walter Richard Brookins' 'spiral dip' dive, and he never recovered. The plane plummeted to the ground, and Johnstone was crushed. A month later, on New Years' Eve, 1910, Arch Hoxsey was killed in an identical crash. Although the team had lost its star fliers, newer pilots trained by Welsh joined the team and continued performing around the country. The last big meet the team participated in was in Chicago, August 1911. Although several of the pilots were killed in later crashes, there were no further fatalities while the team performed. However, the team was not helping the Wright Company sell as many airplanes as they had hoped, so the Wrights disbanded the team in November 1911.

Members

*Leonard Warden Bonney (1884-1928) †
*Walter Richard Brookins (1889-1953)
*Frank Coffyn (1878-1960)
*Howard Gill (1883-1912) †
*Archibald Hoxsey (1884-1910) †
*Ralph Johnstone (1886-1910) †
*Augustus Roy Knabenshue (1875-1960), managed the team
*Philip Orin Parmelee (1887-1912) †
*J. Clifford Turpin(1886-1966)
*Arthur L. Welsh(aka Al)(1875 or 1881-1912) †, Welsh was killed in a crash while demonstrating a Wright model C airplane for the U.S. Army in 1912

† Died in flight crashes.

Timeline

*1910 Indianapolis Motor Speedway on June 13
*1910 Death of Arch Hoxsey on December 31
*1911 Chicago in August
*1911 Disbanded

References

*New York Times; June 2, 1912; Aviator Parmelee Plunges to Death; Caught by Treacherous Gust of Wind While Giving Exhibition Flight in Washington State. North Yakima, Washington, June 1, 1912. Philip Parmalee, the aviator, was killed here today while giving an exhibition flight from the fair grounds. Parmelee was the flying partner of Clifford Turpin, whose airship flew into the grandstand at Seattle Thursday, killing two persons and injuring fifteen.
*Tom Crouch; "The Bishop's Boys"
*Fred Howard; "Wilbur and Orville"