First Flight and the Amazing Aviators of Florida

As the winter season winds down and the stormy clouds of the rainy afternoons begin to rise, it cannot be surprising when tales of early adventures in the air become mountains of inspiration in the big skies above the Ten Thousand Islands.

Once upon a time in Asia, a young general and a small army became trapped with overwhelming odds. The battle that would take place the following day was inevitable, and the young general was willing to try anything to help his men and improve his chances. From a nearby village, an old alchemist appeared and privately promised the general victory if a secret scheme and new idea could evolve into a new form of war.

The general, although wary, complied with the wizened old wizard and delayed the upcoming battle until the following nightfall. With the sun dipping below the mountains and the enemy approaching from the next valley, the old alchemist was ready to keep his promise.

Earlier during the day, with the aid of the general’s troops, wax-covered paper lanterns were constructed larger than anyone had ever seen. The lanterns were big enough for two men to walk inside and were reinforced with slivers of wood and thin twine. At the center of each of the giant lanterns, candles were set to burning, and a small paper door was closed.

With the general and all his men anxious, the old alchemist smiled and nodded. As the overwhelming enemy began to climb confidently out of a neighboring valley, darkness draped the battlefield as the enemy’s torches approached.

Before a spear could find a target or the first arrow launched, the giant lanterns began to rise into the night as the first hot air balloons. The old alchemist understood that hot air rises, and within the massive volume of the oversized and sealed lanterns, it was only a matter of time before the weight of the giant lantern was defeated by the burning candles and the rising hot air.

With the general’s men marching forward holding invisible twine tethers, the glowing and flying lanterns appeared as supernatural specters advancing for an attack. Within minutes of beholding the unearthly flying demons, the opposing general’s troops panicked and fled the battlefield. The flying appreciations lasted for hours until the heat became too great, and they burst into flames. This event inspired the victorious young general even further as he carefully considered the use of flying objects as a tool for war and a benefit for man.

During the next century, very large kites became instruments of terror in China, and misbehaving citizens were tied to the aeronautical devices and flown high in the sky as a form of punishment. When threatened with kite torture, even the most hardened criminals tended to behave.

In America, most everyone believes that real aviation began with Orville and Wilber Wright in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The two-bicycle mechanics have been credited with the first powered flight, but according to reports from the New York Herald, Gustave Whitehead flew his engine-driven “# 21” over 2,500 feet at an altitude of about 15 feet on many occasions in just one day.” The early Whitehead flights in 1901 predated the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk by two years.

The first passenger flight in America started on a cool January morning in Tampa in 1914, when Anthony Jannus sparked his aircraft engine to life and brought his Benoist Flying boat up to the “passenger dock.” The wind was up on that wintry Florida morning; whitecaps were cresting across Tampa Bay, and with the open flying boat not even having a windshield, the first two commercial airline passengers received in-flight entertainment in the form of interactive water sports when the spray from the propeller and the wind-driven whitecaps splashed into the passenger compartment. The first two airline passengers did not complain and considered the extravagant sum of five dollars a bargain and the flight across the bay the thrill of a lifetime.

When America entered the First World War, a young and underweight Channing Page walked through palmetto thickets and braved rattlesnakes for ten miles to reach Fort Myers Beach. He decided he was going to join the army to defend America after the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine. The army officials in Fort Myers refused him admittance because he was too thin. Flustered but not defeated, Page continued his travels to the nation’s capital and finally met with Florida senators Fletcher and Drane. The young Fort Myers resident pleaded with his senators to convince the army that a skinny Florida boy would be just as good a scrapper as any overweight Yankee would, and after the senators agreed, Page joined the Army Air Corps.

During the war, the Army Air Corps constructed landing fields near Arcadia and Crescent Beach at Fort Myers. According to historical aviation authorities for Lee County: “The flying doughboys of World War One often took weekend ‘training’ flights from Arcadia to Fort Myers Beach to sun, swim, and watch the girls.”

The slight but dashing figure of Channing Page was the first Florida citizen to be inducted into the newly formed Army Air Corps and was the first Floridian to ever receive an officers commission in the US pilots division. Based in France, Page flew numerous missions against the well-armed German air weapon and encountered Zeppelins as tools of war. Channing flew against incredible piloting opponents made famous by the bi-planes and tri-winged airplanes of the Red Baron era and was always ready to concede that Germany did indeed have some scrappy and savvy fighting pilots in the air.

Channing was famous for his sense of humor in the grim face of war and received “The Distinguished Service Cross” and the honored “Croix de Guerre.” After the war, Page returned to his sun-splashed and tropical home in Fort Myers.

During the post-war years, the landing field at Fort Myers became a host site for county business, and on a fateful day in 1920, Captain Channing Page agreed to fly county tax assessor G. Hunter Bryant and Thomas Colcord on a survey flight to assess Naples and Marco Island. The event was interesting enough to compel Fort Myers News-Press editor to arrive prior to take off and interview Captain Page.

“When you write about this,” Page jokingly told the editor, “Don’t put in anything about the war and me being a hero. We’ll probably encounter some bumpy weather, but we’ll try to make it alright.”

Captain Page laughingly remarked, “If anything does happen, be sure to write a good story about it.” As he departed for the Curtis Seagull floatplane, he waved to the editor, “So long!”

The flight was bumpy and the windy weather tricky, and after assessing Marco from the air, Captain Page and his crew headed for Everglades City and a landing on the Barron River. During a circling approach, when turning into the wind for a landing, Captain Page, Colcord, and Bryant fell from the sky in an unseen “air pocket” and crashed to earth. All aboard were lost, but the plucky spirit of Channing Page remains forever after his namesake at Page Field in Fort Myers.

In the early 1970s, the Mackle Brothers’ Deltona Corporation realized that to introduce Marco Island as a new shining star emerging as the southern Hawaii, an airline would be necessary to convey potential real-estate customers from nearby major airports. Marco Island Airways began in 1972 and began daily flight operations from Tampa and Miami to Marco Island using 30-passenger propeller airplanes.

From ancient times, when the first airborne creations were special effects illusions or a form of punishment, to the fledgling aircraft as a weapon of war, the rising spirit of aviators and innovators remains paramount in the colorful history of First Flight and the Amazing Aviators of Florida.