WILMER STUTZ

Portrait of Amelia Earhart and Wilmer Stutz Available on National Geographic website. Click on title to view,5-26-06      "Amelia Earhart and Wilmer Stutz upon arriving at South Hampton. Wilmer Stutz was the pilot and Amelia Earhart was the passenger, making her the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Photograph by Bettmann/CORBIS

 

Commemoration Stone Courtesy of Steve Jones, 6-20-06      The commemoration stone at Burry Port harbour remembering Amelia Earhart's trip across the Atlantic, as a passenger, in 1928 aboard the Fokker trimotor 'Friendship'. The first part of the inscription is in Welsh ! Editor's Note: The pilot of the plane was Wilmer Stutz and his mechanic on the trip was Louis Gordon.

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Wilmer Stutz", using the Google search engine, (5-25-06), you will find about 89 links, all of them referring to his relationship with Amelia Earhart as follows:      "Until 1928, no woman had crossed the Atlantic by airplane. Having established herself as an avid flyer, Amelia was selected as "an American girl of the right image" to complete the "Friendship" flight between America and Great Britain. With Wilmer Stutz as pilot and Lou Gordon as mechanic, the "Friendship" arrived in Wales on June 18, 1928 and Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic."      So far, all I can find out about his career is that he was "the pilot of the Friendship."

ATCHISON GIRL FIRST TO FLY ATLANTIC      This article from the Atchison Daily Globe, June 18, 1928, only mentions Wilmer a few times, but does offer a very interesting resumé of the incident in Burry Harbour. You can access the page by clicking on the title above.

 

I have no information as to the dates of his birth or of his death.   If you have any information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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