| Ed Musick | |
| Birth Name: | Edwin Charles Musick III |
| Birth Date: | 13 August 1894 |
| Birth Place: | St. Louis, Missouri, US |
| Death Place: | Pago Pago, American Samoa |
| Occupation: | Chief pilot, Pan Am |
| Years Active: | 1917–1938 |
| Known For: | Surveying trans-Pacific commercial air route |
| Signature: | Edwin Musick signature.jpg |
Edwin Charles Musick (August 13, 1894 – January 11, 1938) was chief pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneered many of Pan Am's transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean, ultimately reaching the Philippine Islands, on the China Clipper.
Musick was born on August 13, 1894, in St. Louis, Missouri, where his father ran a hardware store The family moved to California when Musick was 9, and he first took flight during boyhood experiments. Musick attended Los Angeles Poly for three years and continued for two years afterwards at night while working as an automobile mechanic. Musick would soon switch careers to become an aircraft mechanic in 1914 for the Glenn L. Martin Company.[1]
In 1938, he and his wife (the former Cleo Livingston) were living in San Francisco; they had no children.
After attending an air show at Dominguez Field in January 1910, Musick, along with a couple of friends, built his first airplane in 1912; it reached an altitude of and promptly crashed.[2] [1] In 1913, he learned to fly aircraft at a flight school in Los Angeles[2] and began flying as an exhibition pilot in 1915. In June 1917 he joined the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps (later called the United States Army Air Service) in San Diego as a flight instructor for the duration of World War I, and was later transferred to airfields in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Miami, Florida.[3] He then accepted a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Flying Corps on August 28, 1918, at Miami, Florida. After the war, he founded his own flying school in Florida and surpassed the 10,000 flying hours mark.
Musick also flew for several airlines starting in 1920–21: Aeromarine Airways, where he studied navigation, and Mitten Air Transport, shuttling between Philadelphia and Washington DC.[4] In October 1927, Musick joined Pan American as it was just starting their operations.[3] He made the company's inaugural mail flight to Havana, Cuba from Key West, Florida, on October 28 of that year.[5] Musick was promoted to chief pilot for Pan American's Caribbean Division in 1930.[4]
In 1934, Musick was chosen to make the trial flights for the new Sikorsky S-42 flying boat. During these stringent test flights, Musick collected 10 world records for seaplanes;[6] one of the test flights was a non-stop flight of .[4]
Musick's work on the trials with the Sikorsky S-42 led to him piloting the first two trans-Pacific survey routes for Pan American in 1935, laid out by Pan Am executives Juan Trippe, André Priester, and Charles Lindbergh and initially plotted by the chartered, which also carried prefabricated buildings, equipment, and supplies to establish air bases.[6] [7] The first survey flight from Alameda to Honolulu, landing at 10:21 am Pacific Standard Time on April 17, 1935, took 18 hours, 21 minutes, breaking a record held jointly by six Navy aircraft; the aircraft, named Pan American Clipper, carried a consignment of 10,000 letters, the first shipment of airmail to Hawaii.[8] Flight time was extended by half an hour as the aircraft circled over Honolulu upon arrival, to the delight of onlookers.[9] Musick commanded a six-man crew, which included navigator Fred Noonan.[10]
The second survey flight departed Honolulu for Midway Atoll on June 15, 1935;[11] the flight returned to Alameda on June 22.[12] Later survey flights pushed the route to Wake Island, returning to Alameda on August 28,[13] and Guam, returning on October 24.[14] The Guam round-trip flight was commanded by R. O. D. Sullivan, Musick's first officer for the April flight.[15]Musick also commanded the first commercial trans-Pacific flight, carrying mail to the Philippines; the Martin M-130 China Clipper departed from Alameda on November 21, 1935, and landed in Manila on November 29,[16] 6 days, 7 hours, and 40 minutes later, logging nearly 60 hours of flight time. The aircraft flew the trans-Pacific route surveyed in the four earlier flights, with stops in Honolulu, Midway, Wake, and Guam.[17] Compared to the first survey flight, the initial leg to Honolulu was slowed by strong headwinds and arrived after 21 hours, 13 minutes of flight time.[18] China Clipper returned to Alameda on December 6.[19]
He was also responsible for surveying a route to New Zealand and Australia in 1937 via Hawaii, Kingman Reef, and American Samoa.[20] [21] The S-42B Pan American Clipper II had arrived in Honolulu for that flight on March 18, 1937, with one of the four engines stopped due to an oil leak, requiring several days to repair.[22] Upon his arrival in Auckland on March 29, the famously terse Musick responded to the crowd of 30,000 who had turned out the greet the flight with the brief statement "We are glad to be here."[23] On December 29, 1937 Musick, aboard the Samoan Clipper, made the first flight from New Zealand to the United States, an experimental and survey flight to Hawaii and then to San Francisco.[24]
Because of his exploits with Pan American, Musick was one of the best known pilots of the 1930s, even making the cover of Time magazine on December 2, 1935.[25] He received the Harmon Trophy in 1936 to recognize the first commercial flight of China Clipper.[26]