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A Roy Knabenshue

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Cause of death
  
Stroke


Name
  
A. Knabenshue

A. Roy Knabenshue nationalaviationorgwpcontentuploads201006Kn

Born
  
July 15, 1875 (
1875-07-15
)

Died
  
March 6, 1960, Temple City, California, United States

Resting place
  
Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation

Augustus Roy Knabenshue (July 15, 1875 – March 6, 1960) was an American aeronautical engineer and aviator.

Contents

Biography

He was born on July 15, 1875, in Lancaster, Ohio, the son of Salome Matlack and Samuel S. Knabenshue. Samuel Knabenshue, an educator and political writer for the Toledo Blade for many years, served as U.S. consul in Belfast, Ireland, from 1905 to 1909 and as consul general in Tianjin, China, from 1909 to 1914.

In 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Roy Knabenshue piloted Thomas Scott Baldwin's California Arrow dirigible to a height of 2,000 feet (610 m) and was able to return to the takeoff point.

He was the first to make a dirigible flight over New York City in 1905.

He performed barnstorming and worked as the general manager of the Wright Exhibition Team. From 1933 to 1944 he worked for the National Park Service and then worked for a Los Angeles, California, firm reconditioning used aircraft.

In 1958 he had a stroke. He had a second stroke at his home at a trailer park in Arcadia, California, on February 21, 1960. He died on March 6, 1960, at the Evergreen Sanitarium in Temple City, California.

Interment and services were held March 9, 1960, at the Portal of the Folded Wings in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California.

Legacy

  • One of the first in America to pilot a steerable balloon
  • In 1904 he piloted the first successful dirigible in America at the St. Louis World’s Fair
  • The Wright Company hired him in 1910 to manage the 1910-1911 Wright Exhibition Team
  • In 1913 he built the first passenger dirigible in America: White City
  • References

    A. Roy Knabenshue Wikipedia