I decided to develope this website to serve as a repository on the net for the story of the Early Birds of Aviation so it would be readily available to the relatives, friends and researchers of the early aviators. Since June, 1997, when I started working on my first website Pioneer Pilot, which featured the career of my father-in-law, Walter E. Lees, who soloed in 1912, I became fascinated with the exploits of that select group of pioneers, the Early Birds. From time to time, I have received emails from visitors to my site who either were relatives or friends of the aviators and shared my interest in the group or were simply interested in the pioneer aviators. After I exhausted the materials in Walter's collection, many of the additions have been submitted by those visitors. In every case, they have greatly enriched the site and helped to tell the story. I soon exhausted the 10 megs of free space which I had been granted and only recently, (1-14-00), have I found another free webspace on which to build this site devoted exclusively to the Early Birds. As time and energy permits, I hope to add all available materials to the site so as to make it a resource of considerable value. With that in mind, if you find you have any materials which would enhance the site, please contact me. Many of the photos and stories have been taken from Walter's partial collection of the "CHIRP", the official publication of The Early Birds of Aviation, Inc.
