A replica of the Santa Clara glider was recently installed in the 35-foot-high lobby of Crownair Aviation’s new facilities.
The original Santa Clara glider was designed by John J. Montgomery with two wings spanning over 25 feet each. Its replica is on loan from the San Diego Air and Space Museum.
Crownair Aviation is at San Diego’s Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (KMYF), named after the glider’s designer.
The original glider was built in 1905 by Montgomery and piloted by Daniel Maloney. The glider was lifted by a hot air balloon to a height of 4,000 feet and released to glide up to 13 minutes before reaching the ground.
This is a proud day seeing the completion of a journey that started long ago. In 2011 my friend, Gill Wright and I, took our first steps down the Montgomery path. John J Montgomery was a little-known aviator in California who dreamed of flight since he was a young boy born in 1858 in Yuba City California. As John grew up, he never lost agreement of achieving flight. Then and 1884 in a small hill near San Diego California he achieved the dream of controlled heavier than air flight, in a place called Otay Mesa. John’s dream of flight ended October 31, 1911 with the crash of The Evergreen glider on a hillside in San Jose California.
In 2011 my friend Gill Wright and myself started doing a research project on the history of John Montgomery and his Santa Clara glider. We wanted to construct a replica of John Montgomery’s “Santa Clara glider”.
As John Montgomery, our journey was long and arduous with many detours with many side roads, like the librarian at the University of Santa Clara who opened the doors to the John Montgomery library allowing us to pour over John’s manuscripts, letters, notebooks and drawings of the fabulous man, to Father Arthur Dunning Spearman who authored John Joseph Montgomery Father of Basic Flying. To Craig Harwood, Gary Vogel authors of Quest for Flight, John J Montgomery and the Dawn of Aviation in the West, and good cousins John Burdick and Bernard Burdick who wrote Achieving Flight, The Life and Times of John J Montgomery whose three books became our light and guide in our quest to find the spirit of John J Montgomery.
In our quest we have amassed several thousand photographs, manuscripts, like John Montgomery’s hand written book called Soaring Flight typed by his wife Regina Montgomery.
Finally, I would like to thank my dear wife, Roberta Lowe-Taylor, who passed last year, for all the help and inspiration you gave to keep me on track. Bert, I shall never forget you, love, Thom
What a great story – thanks for all your (and Gill’s) efforts in this quest, and for keeping us posted on the progress. Congratulations!
Man of iron cojones to pilot that thing down from 4K and live to tell the tale. Wow.