AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2014 - 60

By the time the Sharples
brothers met Noble again, they
had been busy exploring the
idea of forming a pilot's association with like-minded Pylon
Club members. One of them,
Philadelphia lawyer Alfred L.
Wolf, had written a letter to
Carl Friedlander, president of
the Aeronautical Corporation
of America (Aeronca).
Friedlander had written an article for The American Aviation
Daily in which he argued for
an association to represent the
interests of private airplane manufacturers,
and Wolf agreed. "The world of the airline
plane, and the world of the military plane,
was a different world than the one in which
Carl was making his Aeroncas," Wolf said.
There were parallels in the pilot world-
for example, the Private Fliers Association
(PFA) and the Sportsman Pilots Association
(SPA)-but Wolf felt that the SPA was just
for fun, and that the PFA "wanted to be all
things to all men in aviation," according
to one letter. Other groups proved equally
ineffective, and made for a
confusing scene that divided
interests instead of uniting
them. There was the American
Pilots League, the Private Pilots
Association, the United Pilots and
Mechanics Association, and the
Association for the Advancement of
Aeronautics. Without a more focused,
businesslike organization, Wolf and
his compatriots feared that "miscellaneous aviation"-as general aviation
was called then-would come out second best in political battles unless it had
a better lobbying organization.
Those compatriots-all from the
Philadelphia area-included Wolf, C.
Townsend Ludington (owner of The
Ludington Line, an air shuttle service that
flew between Newark and Washington), the
Sharples brothers, and John Story Smith
(secretary-treasurer of the Jacobs Aircraft
Engine Company).
Meanwhile, a student at the University
of Pennsylvania was busy networking.
Joseph B. ("Doc") Hartranft Jr. had made
a name for himself at a very young age as
60 | AOPA PILOT May 2014

Without a more focused,

businesslike

organization, Wolf and his
compatriots feared that

"miscellaneous
aviation"-as general

aviation was called then-
would come out second best
in political battles unless
it had a better lobbying
organization.

BEFORE WINGS became an airfield,
it was a 134-acre dairy farm. The
property included a farmhouse, built
around 1776, and a large barn (above).
AOPA moved to its Frederick, Maryland,
headquarters in May 1983 (top). The
painting on the previous page depicts
AOPA's founders at Wings Field.

a founder of the National
Intercollegiate Flying Club
(NIFC, now known as the
National Intercollegiate
Flying Association), and
founder and president of the
"Cloudcombers"-the university's flying club. Hartranft
invited Wolf to speak at
a NIFC convention, and
Hartranft gave his own talk-
about the need for a national
association to represent general aviation pilots.
With this in common, Wolf
took the next step. He invited Hartranft to
a meeting with the Philadelphia group. It
was the first time the nervous, 22-yearold Hartranft met all the principals in this
influential group, but the meeting aligned
their convictions. However, it was another
fly-out in late 1938 that brought the group
encouragement to formalize their resolve.
This time, the Sharples brothers flew Edward Noble, by now
chairman of the CAA, to southern Georgia for a turkey-hunting
expedition. While waiting in a
blind for the turkeys to show
up, Noble told the Sharpleses
how the airline and military lobbyists came to the
CAA with professionally
executed, very convincing
arguments for their positions-and usually got
their way. Private pilots
usually came one by one
to the CAA with their grievances, coming across as undisciplined
oddballs-and, Noble said, confirming the
image of private flying as a lunatic fringe.
He said that without a single, coherent
voice, general aviation interests would
always be in jeopardy.
Wolf heard essentially the same thing
in April 1939 from Edward P. Warner, a
sympathetic CAA board member, who
said, "Though private fliers think private
flying is very important, no one else is convinced of that, and whenever anyone comes
for government cooperation or assistance,
they are faced with a lack of proof that there
is anything beyond a luxury involved...
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2014

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