Jump to content

Walter Hinton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by KasparBot (talk | contribs) at 10:22, 6 February 2016 (migrating Persondata to Wikidata, please help, see challenges for this article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Walter T. Hinton
Born10 November 1888
Died28 October 1981
Known forTransatlantic flight

Walter T. Hinton (10 November 1888 - 28 October 1981) was a United States aviator.

Hinton, about 1926

Hinton was born in a farming family in Van Wert, Ohio. Seeing a poster urging young men to "Join the Navy and See The World", he joined the United States Navy. He saw action in the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, Mexico. Hinton had a great fascination with early aircraft, and soon went into Naval aviation.

Hinton achieved fame as the pilot of the Curtiss NC flying boat "NC-4", the first aircraft to make a transatlantic flight, in 1919.[1] Hinton's aeronautic adventures during the 1920s include exploring the Arctic by balloon, A wayward flight from Rockaway, Queens to Moose Factory, Ontario in the winter causing a month-long hike to civilization,[2] Hinton and Kloor wrote letters home which their families sold to newspapers describing the flight, which prompted the Navy to start enforcing rarely used censorship rules.[3] making the first flight from North America to South America (on the second try—he floated on a wing in shark infested waters off Cuba for a while at the end of the first try), and exploring the Amazon Rainforest by hydroplane.[4]

He spent years touring as a speaker promoting aviation.

Hinton spent his retirement in Pompano Beach, Florida, where he delighted in sharing his memories with local children. One of his happiest events of his later years was being a special guest on an early supersonic transatlantic flight of the Concorde, making the trip which had first taken Hinton 19 days in less than four hours.

Hinton was President and Founder of the Aviation Institute of U.S.A Washington D.C. in 1927 and 1928, where he published several periodicals on aviation.[5] Periodicals included Opportunities in Aviation,[6] The Wright Whirlwind Motor, Pioneers in Aviation, and Aviation Progress.

References

  1. ^ Popular Aeronautics: 67. Jan 1930. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Aerial Age: 471. 25 July 1921. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ "Airman's letters may cause Navy to censor officer's writings". Editor & Publisher: 11. 15 January 1921.
  4. ^ Pictures of him can be seen on pages 379 and 404 of the April 1926 National Geographic Magazine
  5. ^ Popular Mechanics: 16. January 1930. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ Walter Hinton (1929). Opportunities in aviation. W.W. Norton & Company, inc.