James Floyd Smith

James Floyd Smith or J. Floyd Smith (October 17, 1884 – April 18, 1956) was a test pilot and instructor for Glenn Martin and was a manufacturer of parachutes. He built and flew his own plane in 1912 and invented the manually operated parachute for the Army in 1918. He was awarded the Aero Club of America Medal or Merit.

Biography

James Floyd Smith, born in Illinois, was raised on a large ranch in Union, Oregon. Floyd soon tired of rural life and sought more exciting ventures. In 1907 he married Hilder Florentina Youngberg of Galesburg, Illinois. Having only 8th grade educations, Floyd and Hilder were originally circus performers, Floyd a trapese gymnast while Hilder did a "slide for life," gliding down a wire in front of the crowd while hanging only by her teeth. Their act was called The Floydells and later The Flying Sylvesters. Their first son, Sylvester, was killed at age 11 after running into traffic in 1919, in Chicago in front of their second son, Prevost Vedrines (later Floyd) Smith (1913-1991). Weary of circus life and convinced of the future of aviation, Floyd acquired plans and borrowed money to build his own aircraft, which he taught himself to fly. He soloed on June 1, 1912 in Stanton, California and, after having had his airplane repossessed, became a flight instructor for Glenn Martin at Bennett's bean field, which is the current site of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Floyd received Federation Aeronautique Internationale - Aero Club of America pilot license number 207, on 19 February 1913. He is credited at the Boeing Aviation Museum in Seattle with having taught Bill Boeing to fly. In April 1914, Glenn Martin needed a female parachutist to make a jump at the ceremonies dedicating the new Los Angeles Harbor and Floyd asked his wife to make the jump. Having never made a parachute jump before, Hilder agreed that she would jump if she could use one of Martin's planes for practice and instruction under Floyd's supervision. Jumping from only 600 feet (so the crowd could "see the fear on your face") she became the second woman (behind "Tiny" Broadwick) to make a parachute jump. Hilder later soloed on June 10, 1914. Her grave marker says she was the first woman to fly a passenger out of what is now Los Angeles Airport. Floyd established three flight altitude records using a Martin S plane at San Diego in 1915. Two years later he made one of the first simulated carrier landings at North Island. During World War I he received his first patent on a parachute, which was a manually operated pack. After the war, the military had little interest in parachutes and only through the foresight and intervention of Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell was Floyd, in January 1919, given a team and put in charge of all parachute work at McCook Field. Floyd was associated with the Russel Parachute Company, in San Diego in the early twenties and later the co-founder of the Pioneer Parachute Company, with the Cheney Silk Mills in Manchester, Connecticut. They received a $15 million dollar contract from the Navy to produce parachutes. In 1930 the family was living in Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania and Floyd was working as an engineer. While with Pioneer, his son Prevost developed the Pioneer test tower, which still stands, at El Centro Naval Air Facility, California. Prevost and Floyd started the Smith Parachute Company at Gillespie Field in San Diego County, California which became the Prevost Smith Parachute Company after Floyd's death, in 1956, of cancer. He was buried in the Portal of Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation. [ɯInsert footnote text hereduuuuʏ]

Patent

A patent was filed on July 27, 1918 and issued May 18, 1920 for his parachute. The assignee was the Floyd Smith Aerial Equipment Company of San Diego, California. Floyd with Leslie Leroy Irvin, developed a 28-foot backpack parachute. On April 28, 1919, Irvin jumped from a de Havilland biplane traveling at 100 miles per hour at an altitude of 1,500 feet. After Irvin bailed out of the airplane and falling free, he manually reached the ripcord handle and pulled it, and the parachute fully deployed at 1,000 feet. Irvin became the first American to jump from an airplane and manually open a parachute in midair. Floyd's original 1919 ripcord parachute is on display at the Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio. [http://www.libraries.wright.edu/find/gov/patent/miamivalleyinventors.html]

References

*
*Time (magazine); April 30, 1956; Died. James Floyd Smith, 71, onetime dauntless barnstorming flyer and test pilot, who invented the modern ripcord parachute, founder of the Pioneer Parachute Company; of cancer; in San Diego.
*Star-News; December 18, 1956, Pasadena, California. (CNS) Memorial services for James Floyd Smith, pioneer aviator and one of the first men to ever parachute from a plane, were held at the Portal of the ...
*Washington Post; April 1956; James Floyd Smith, 71. Aeronautic engineer and pioneer flier who invented the first successful free type of manually operated parachute now used by the Air Force, established three altitude records for seaplanes and was awarded the Aero Club of America Medal or Merit; in San Diego, California. ...
*Los Angeles Tribune; March 20, 1915; "Bird-Baby" Flies 21 Miles Gazes Down 4500 Ft. on City.

External links

*US patent|1340423
* [http://www.earlyaviators.com/esmithfl.htm Early Aviators: James Floyd Smith]
* [http://earlybirds.org/smithf.html Early Birds: James Floyd Smith]
*