John Bennett has been an avid aviation buff for as long as he can remember, and that "love of flying" is just one of the things that led him to what he terms his latest project-to build a replica of the original Wright Glider.

The glider was the first aerodynamic machine the Wright Brothers, who operated a bicycle shop in Ohio, ever designed and built, and it was on this glider that they first learned to fly.

Bennett said, in a Tuesday interview, that the primary reason he chose to build the replica of the glider was that most people who are attempting similar projects to commemorate the 100th anniversary year of powered flight are building replicas of the Wright Flyer.

The Wright Glider was constructed before the Wright Flyer, after the Wrights decided to build an engine in an attempt to achieve powered flight. The brothers had already developed a lightweight engine that they believed would provide the power for the flying machine.

Bennett said it is only fitting that we commemorate the achievements of the two brothers who revolutionized the world to with their invention.

First aviation experience

Bennett, an 83-year old native of Wisconsin who later moved to California before settling in North Carolina in the 1950s, said he has always been interested in mechanical things and in making things work. In addition, he was intrigued with flying.

"My father had a shop at the house, and I was always doing something in the shop," he said, eyes sparkling. "One day, when I was 12 years old, an airplane flew very low over our place. It landed in an area that had been laid out for a subdivision before the (Great) Depression.

"When I saw it was going to land, I was excited, so I got on my bicycle and peddled as fast as I could the eight blocks to see why he had landed," Bennett explained. "When I got there, he (the pilot) was standing beside the old Curtis Jenney Std.

"He told me he'd never get to Appleton (Wisconsin)-about 45 miles away-at the rate he was going," Bennett recalled. "I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that the magneto points were sticking.

"I told him we had a shop down the road and that we could try to fix it. He peddled back to our house while I rode the handlebars," Bennett said smiling. "When we got to the house, I helped him fix the magneto. He offered to give me a ride in the airplane as repayment for helping him out.

"I was really excited then, and I told my mother I'd wave when we went over the house. It was a short ride-just around the field-but it was an experience I will never, ever forget! It was my first time flying and from that day on, I was hooked."

Bennett said that when he was 14 years old, he and a friend built a glider, and that turned out to be the first of a number of projects he undertook to build various types of aircraft during his lifetime.

Hitchhikes to California, later moves there

"When I was 15, I hitchhiked to California, where my uncle already lived," Bennett said. "During my stay there I worked in a delicatessen. I wanted to stay, but my parents convinced me to return home to Waupaca (Wisconsin) to complete high school-which I did.

"I graduated on Memorial Day and told my parents I wanted to return to California," he explained. "My mother then told me that the whole family would move. They then sold their meager possessions, bought a Model A, and we carried everything we owned in the old car."

Bennett subsequently worked in a series of small jobs and attended John Davey Trade School (now Long Beach State University), where he continued to study mechanics.

Works in aircraft

industry

"An instructor told me I was a natural mechanic," he said. "At the time I had a friend working at the Douglas (Aircraft) plant in Santa Monica. I made application and was hired by Douglas. My first paycheck-take-home pay-was $19.92.

"My first job was pounding rivets on the Douglas Havoc (A-20) in January 1939," he said. "I wasn't happy with that and told my supervisor. Three days later I was moved up to another job. At the time they were developing the Long Beach plant-a much larger facility-and so I transferred to that plant, at first to jigs and tools, and later, to engines.

Joins Army Air Corps

"I worked there until World War II broke out, at which time I volunteered to become a pilot in the Army Air Corps," Bennett said. "I shipped to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Bennett said he was initially shipped to Aircraft Maintenance School, but soon got an assignment to Aviation Cadet training. From there, he was shipped first to Nashville, Tennessee, and then to Albany, Georgia, for Aviation Cadet training.

"That's when I had one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life," Bennett explained. "After I'd gone through much of the training, they eliminated me and many others from the program because they said they had a overage of pilots."

Meets future wife

Bennett said he was still determined to eventually become a pilot, but was shipped to Greensboro for reassignment processing, and then to Seymour-Johnson in Goldsboro, where he learned aircraft maintenance.

"I didn't stay there long, but it was there that I met the best thing that had ever happened to me-the girl I would eventually marry," he said, eyes shining and smiling broadly.

(Bennett and Julia Winders Bennett were married several years later after the war.)

Had celebrity first

sergeant

After completing aircraft maintenance school, Bennett was reassigned to the Douglas School at Long Beach, California. He said his unit has a number of celebrities from the entertainment industry, including the actor Jack Carson, who was his first sergeant.

"I was one of only two to get an excellent rating from the school," said Bennett.

After subsequent assignments to gunnery school at Fort Myers, Florida, and then flight engineer school at Barksdale Field in Shreveport, Louisiana, he was sent to Chennault Field in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for additional training.

Flies combat missions

He was then shipped to Great Britain in 1943, where he was assigned to a bomber wing. He returned to the United States briefly-to Savannah, Georgia-for additional training before flying on combat missions as a flight engineer from Great Britain. He said he subsequently flew on many combat missions over Europe, including six trips on D-Day-June 6, 1944.

"The Cliffs of Dover looked mighty good on the way back from those missions," Bennett said.

After the Allies took France, Bennett was first assigned to France, where he continued to fly on combat missions. Shortly before the war's end, he was assigned to an airfield in Clive, Belgium.

Returns home,

discharged

"I returned home due to a death in the family not long after I got to Belgium, where I was on leave for six weeks," Bennett said. "They offered me a discharge when I returned to base, and I was ready to get out. There were a lot of people getting out (of the military) at the time, including a number of celebrities.

"Two well-known celebrities were in the same discharge line I was in-Red Skelton and Tony Bennett."

Works for Park Service

Bennett then married and worked on several jobs around the area of his home until he took a permanent job with the California Park Service, topping trees.

"I did that for eight years," he said. "Then one day, I saw a Piper Cub fly by above me, and I climbed down from the tree and told them I was leaving. I decided I was going back to flying.

"I went into the tree business for myself then, but wasn't too successful. So I went back to work for Douglas. But it just wasn't the same as before; it was a whole new world. The camaraderie just wasn't there like it had been before the war. I didn't like it very much."

Moves to North Carolina

He soon had an opportunity to sell the house he had just built for four times his investment, Bennett says, and so he made up his mind to leave California.

"My wife had said since she arrived in California that if she ever got back across those mountains, she'd never return, so we packed up our things and moved to North Carolina."

The Bennetts later built the Alpine Inn at White Lake and he sold insurance. But he continued his interest in aviation.

Retains interest in

aviation

"I got interested in race cars for a while," he said, "but I soon became interested in experimentals (aircraft) and Formula I Class racing aircraft."

Since then Bennett said he has built seven powered aircraft in addition to the glider replica, which he has flown. Though he has had a private pilot's license for many years, he has never trained to get a commercial license.

"I've really enjoyed it," Bennett said.

His new glider, though not an exact replica of the Wright Glider made in 1902, is very close to the one that inspired it. It is made of lightweight wood, canvas and wire and weighs very little.

Over the years, Bennett has gone back to work on special projects for Douglas, North American, Northrup, and NASA.

He is one of the original members of the Experimental Aircraft Association. The number on his membership is 40.

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