Museum to honor dad of aerobatics

The San Francisco man who was first to fly upside down, master the loop, fly inside a building, and pick up a handkerchief on the ground with his plane’s wingtip will be commemorated this weekend at the Hiller Aviation Museum.

The museum is observing the
90th anniversary of the death of Lincoln Beachey, the man many call the
“Father of Aerobatics,” with a Saturday lecture by author Frank
Marrero. Marreor brought together

class=”articleBody”>30 years of research into the
book, “Lincoln Beachey, The Man Who Owned the Sky.”

Beachey died in 1915 in a plane
crash following one of his stunts.

The attention given to the
flying aces heroes during World War I was the main reason why people
forgot about Beachey, said Willie Turner, vice president of the Hiller
Aviation Museum.

“For years, in the industry of
aerobatics, people knew his name,” Turner said. “But because

  class=”articleBody”>he is in the museum, people are
learning who he was and what he did. That’s what an anniversary is all
about, so people aren’t forgotten.”

His skills and showmanship
occurred at a time when people like the Wright Brothers were making
strides in flight in the early 1900s.

In 1904, Beachey flew an
airship at the St. Louis Exposition, and two years later, flew around
the Washington Monument, Turner said.

At 24 years old, he
incorporated

class=”articleBody”>stunts into his flying. target=”_blank”
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