Lincoln J. Beachey

Lincoln J. Beachey (March 3, 1887 – March 14, 1915) was a pioneer American aviator and barnstormer. He became famous and wealthy from flying exhibitions, staging aerial stunts, helping invent aerobatics, and setting aviation records.

He was known as The Man Who Owns the Sky, and sometimes the Master Birdman. Beachey was acknowledged even by his competitors as "The World's Greatest Aviator". He was "known by sight to hundreds of thousands and by name to the whole world."

Birth

Born on March 3, 1887, in San Francisco, Beachey was a lonely, chubby kid who, according to authors Sam Kean and Frank Marrero, nobody would have suspected of becoming a hero. By the age of 10 he was hurtling down San Francisco’s steep Fillmore Hill on a bicycle with no brakes.

Following in his older brother Hillary's footsteps, he worked as a ground crewman for dirigible pilot Thomas Scott Baldwin. He helped build the dirigible "California Arrow" and made his first dirigible flight in 1905, at the age of 17. Later he helped design a faster, more aerodynamic dirigible known as the "Beachey-Baldwin".