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The Guggenheims, Allies of Aviators

By Laura Muha

Daniel Guggenheim died in 1930 without ever having flown, even as a passenger. Yet it if weren't for the contributions of this wealthy Sands Point industrialist, `'you couldn't hop on an airplane and fly where you can fly today,'' says Bob van der Linden, an aviation historian with the Smithsonian Institution.

In the last five years of his life, between 1925 and 1930, Guggenheim pumped more than $3.3 million into a series of aviation-related initiatives -- money that led to the development of safer, more reliable engines; instruments enabling pilots to navigate without looking at the ground, and public acceptance of aviation as a viable means of transportation. But Guggenheim was in his 70s in these experimental years and was happy to leave the actual flying to younger people.

People like his son, Harry, whose experience as a Navy pilot during World War I had first sparked Guggenheim's interest in aviation. Harry Guggenheim was convinced that the nation's future was in air travel, and in 1925 he talked his father into donating $500,000 to create a school of aeronautical engineering at New York University -- the first of eight such schools the father and son would eventually endow. ``It is not too much to say that they really established the profession of aeronautical engineering in the U.S. as we know it,'' says Richard P. Hallion, U.S. Air Force historian and author of a 1977 book, ``Legacy of Flight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation.''

Daniel Guggenheim also set up a fund to promote aviation, including research. One of its most important projects was a ``town marking'' campaign that encouraged communities to paint their names on the roofs of large buildings so pilots who were lost would be able to reorient themselves. (In those days pilots navigated by looking at the ground.) ``It was a simple idea, yet it had such a profound impact on aviation safety,'' says Hallion.

In 1926, the elder Guggenheim announced a ``safe aircraft'' competition with a $100,000 prize that led to the development of an engine that could fly at low speeds without stalling, the main cause of crashes. Two years after that, he established a flight laboratory at Mitchel Field to develop instruments that would enable pilots to fly even when it was too foggy for them to see the ground. Together the Guggenheims also established a model airline in California to demonstrate that air travel was safe and reliable.

After Daniel's death in 1930, Harry, who co-founded Newsday with his wife, Alicia Patterson, in 1940, continued the family's aviation-related philanthropies, going on to sponsor rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard. Harry Guggenheim died in 1971. He and his father's contributions to aviation are celebrated in a short documentary at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

'Bad Boy of the Air'

Of all the pilots who used Curtiss Field as a base in the early 1920s, few were more skilled - or more colorful -- than Bert Acosta.

``He could have flown a barn door if it had wings,'' says Paul Rizzo, a former flight instructor who knew Acosta well.

But Acosta, a test pilot for the Curtiss Corp., also had a reckless streak that earned him the title ``bad boy of the air.'' He delighted in flying under bridges and rolling a wheel over the roofs of Manhattan skyscrapers as he passed overhead; on more than one occasion, his license was suspended for ``stunting.''

On another occasion, a passenger asked him what time it was. ``I don't know, but I'll find out,'' said Acosta, and promptly headed for Manhattan, where he buzzed the clock tower of the Metropolitan Life building. (``That story is completely true!'' says Rizzo.)

On the ground, Acosta's love of women and alcohol repeatedly landed him in hot water, and occasionally in jail. (Acosta was twice divorced -- the second time, newspapers reported, after his wife discovered love letters from a woman who said she was pregnant with his child.)

But Acosta's reputation as a pilot didn't suffer. In April, 1927, he and fellow flier Clarence Chamberlin set a joint endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes and 25 seconds aloft. And less than two weeks after Charles Lindbergh's historic crossing of the Atlantic, Acosta flew from Long Island to France with Commander Richard Byrd.

In 1936, Acosta signed on as anti-Franco mercenary during the Spanish Civil War. But after he returned to the United States, his drinking worsened, and in December of 1951, he collapsed in a New York City saloon. Acosta was taken to the hospital, where it was discovered that he had tuberculosis.

He died in a Colorado sanitorium in 1954 at age 59.

-- Laura Muha is a freelance writer.