Ed Musick

Edwin Charles Musick (August 13, 1894 – January 11, 1938 in Pago Pago, American Samoa) was Chief Pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneered many of Pan Am's transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean on the China Clipper.

Biography

He was born on August 13, 1894, St. Louis, Missouri.

Musick learned flying at a flying school in Los Angeles in the years leading up to World War I. In 1917 he joined the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps (later called the United States Army Air Service) in San Diego as a flight instructor. During the war he taught at airfields in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Miami, Florida. It was in Florida after the war that Musick founded his own flying school and surpassed the 10,000 flying hours mark.

In October 1927, Musick joined Pan American as it was just starting operations. He made the company's inaugural mail flight to Havana, Cuba from Key West, Florida, that same year. Musick was promoted to chief pilot for Pan American's Caribbean Division in 1930.