The Davis-Monthan Aviation Field Register

PLEASE NOTE!

A new book, The Desert Navy, is being written by your Webmaster to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Naval Aviation during 2011. The book will present a general history of Naval Aviation and focus specifically on the Navy and Marine Corps aviators and aircraft whose presence is recorded in the Register. Look for it soon here.

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CODE OF ETHICS

This site operates under an explicit code of ethics. You may review that code at the link (PDF 15KB).

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PRIVACY POLICY

The Privacy Policy is worded specifically to protect prospective contributors and donors to Delta Mike Airfield, Inc. Please click the NON-PROFIT STATUS button at the top of any page to find out about tax-exempt donations you may make to support the work of this Web site.

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OWN THE TIME MACHINE

Your copy of the "Davis-Monthan Airfield Register" with all the pilots' signatures and helpful cross-references to pilots and their aircraft is available at the link. Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author. ISBN 978-0-9843074-0-1.

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OTHER BOOKS FOR YOU

"Military Aircraft of the Davis Monthan Register, 1925-1936" is available at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author. ISBN 978-0-9843074-2-5.

"Art Goebel's Own Story" by Art Goebel (edited by G.W. Hyatt) is written in language that expands for us his life as a Golden Age aviation entrepreneur, who used his aviation exploits to build a business around his passion.  Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author. ISBN 978-0-9843074-1-8.

"Winners' Viewpoints: The Great 1927 Trans-Pacific Dole Race" is available at the link. Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author. What was it like to fly from Oakland to Honolulu in a single-engine plane during August 1927? Was the 25,000 dollar prize worth it? Did the resulting fame balance the risk? For the first time ever, this book presents the pilot and navigator's stories written by them within days of their record-setting adventure. Pilot Art Goebel and navigator William V. Davis, Jr. take us with them on the Woolaroc, their orange and blue Travel Air monoplane (NX869) as they enter the hazardous world of Golden Age trans-oceanic air racing. ISBN 978-0-9843074-3-2.

http://www.cafepress.com/content/global/img/spacer.gifThe Congress of Ghosts is an anniversary celebration for 2010.  It is an historical biography, that celebrates the 5th year online of www.dmairfield.org and the 10th year of effort on a project dedicated to analyze and exhibit the history embodied in the Register of the Davis-Monthan Airfield, Tucson, AZ. Order your copy at the link, or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author.  ISBN 978-0-9843074-4-9.

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www.dmairfield.org

 
Davis-Monthan Aviation Field Register
Ed SchleePancho BarnesBill Piper Jr. rightFrank HawksBobbi Trout
CulturalMotion PicturesFriendsNon Profit StatusProducts and services
ReferencesPublicationsImage CollectionsGuest EditorsPress Coverage
THIS SITE IS ABOUT AN OLD, HANDWRITTEN, LEATHERBOUND AIRFIELD REGISTER.
THIS IS MORE THAN A WEB SITE: IT IS A TIME MACHINE!
IF YOU'RE A FAN OF AVIATION, SIT UP STRAIGHT! THIS IS THE MACHINE FOR YOU.

Despite its battered surface appearance, when you open it the Register is a STUNNING handwritten artifact of early 20th century American techno-cultural behavior (roll your cursor over the register thumbnail, above, left).

Davis-Monthan Airfield, February 13, 1929 (Source: Cosgrove)
Davis-Monthan Airfield, February 13, 1929

The Register was signed by many hundreds of transient pilots and passengers, including those pictured in the thumbnails above, who visited the Davis-Monthan Municipal Airfield in Tucson, Arizona.They landed and wrote their names in the Register between February 6, 1925 and November 26, 1936.

You can get a quick look at the Register by clicking THE REGISTER button, above right. Then explore the Register's PEOPLE, PLACES, AIRPLANES and EVENTS in more detail by clicking those buttons and submenus. You can get a quick update of additions and changes to the site by clicking the What's New on the Site? button present at the bottom of any page.

From the Register stems all manner and direction of United States aeronautical development. The people, aircraft, places and events recorded there, and now available for you to see and learn from, helped spawn the intellectual and physical infrastructures of global aviation technologies, in peace and in war, during the 20th century. It is not an overstatement to say they formed the ideas, performed the actions, and served as loci from which, in many significant ways, we enter our second century of powered flight.

The GOALS OF THIS WEB SITE are to:

Celebrate the lives of the people who signed the Register.

Examine and describe the aviation technologies brought to Tucson by those people.

Share with the global public the historically significant Register of the Davis-Monthan Municipal Airfield.

Solicit and incorporate information and images from users of this site regarding what they know and learn about the pilots, airplanes, events and places cited in the Register and in the database. A special FORM is made available for you to do this.

Develop this Web site as an education and research tool and resource for students and investigators of Golden Age aviation history.

Post images of the 218 register pages, and post the Microsoft Access database I made of the Register in downloadable form (temporarily disabled; working on structural revisions), such that it enables off-line queries and analyses by Web site visitors.

Solicit and incorporate database analyses performed by users of this site in order to make the site's data and knowledge bases open-source and "evergreen". YOU are encouraged to contribute to the content and logical development of this site. You may send the results of your analyses and findings via the CONTACT US button on each Web page.

Share findings and texts derived from and inspired by analyses of the Microsoft Access database of Register entries, available as downloads from this Web site.

WHAT YOU SEE IS JUST THE BEGINNING...

The Great Seal of WWW.DMAIRFIELD.ORG
The Great Seal of WWW.DMAIRFIELD.ORG

This Web site presents full-size, color images of the 218 register pages (click THE REGISTER button, upper right). Pictured are each of the names, aircraft, places and events, written in the Register so long ago by transient pilots and passengers at the Davis-Monthan Airfield.

Further, each record was transcribed line-by- line and recorded in the database. And each will be represented with an online biography. Why? So you may see and learn for yourself, supplemented by texts, databased information and hyperlinks, the breadth and depth of the impact the signers of the Register made on 20th century aviation. The information, photographs, documents and links can be at once riveting, poignant, outrageous, nauseating, shocking, funny and instructive to aviators and non-aviators alike.

Pilots who signed over 80 years ago, military and civilian, male and female, comprise a "Who's Who" of famous aviators. Charles Lindbergh logged in. As did Amelia Earhart, Phoebe Omlie, Jack Frye, Jimmie Angel and Bobbi Trout. And a large number of not-so-famous, workaday pilots passed through: early transport pilots like Hap Russell and Lee Willey, and C.N. Shelton. And businessmen like Dudley Steele and Billy Parker.

Don't know who some of these people are? Through the PEOPLE button above right, this Web site will guide you to their signatures and their lives, and help you to get acquainted with them. Likewise for the PLACES they went, the AIRPLANES they flew, and the flying EVENTS that challenged them.

Said another way, the blue buttons in the upper right corner and across the top of any page on this site are your entry points to explore the entire history spawned by the Register of the Davis- Monthan Municipal Airfield.

If, after you have spent some time with this Web site, you are pleased with what you have learned, please consider purchasing a book through the links in the left sidebar, or please click this link to make a tax-exempt donation of any amount . One-hundred percent of book profits and donations support the Web site.

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PLEASE NOTE: The original Davis-Monthan Municipal Airfield, where the Register lived for a decade, and which is the focus and subject of this Web site, is in no way related, except in name and approximate geolocation, to the functions or operations of the present-day Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Click on this link for a brief summary of the history and geography of the airfield.

This site was opened to the global public on May 4, 2005. Please direct your browser to the What's New on the Site? button at the bottom of any page to review the thousands of additions since then.

As of the revision date of this page, below, between 8,000 and 10,000 visitors enjoy this site per month.
2006 Wolf Aviation Fund Grant

THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 05/04/05 REVISED: 02/14/06, 04/01/06, 04/04/07, 09/25/07, 11/07/07, 03/06/08, 12/30/08, 05/09/09, 11/14/09,12/03/10, 04/07/11, 08/18/11
 
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PRESS COVERAGE AND OTHER ITEMS RELATED TO WWW.DMAIRFIELD.ORG

Occasional press coverage of this site and other project activities is listed at the link. The most recent press release for dmairfield.org is available at the link as a PDF download.

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WHAT IS THE REGISTER?

The Register is a folio-sized, 218-page book. It is the only existing air traffic log for the original Davis-Monthan Municipal Airfield, founded in 1919.

WHERE DOES THE REGISTER LIVE?

The original Register is preserved at the Operations Office of the present Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.

WHY IS THE REGISTER IMPORTANT?

It records, in pilots' and passengers' own handwriting, their flight activities in and out of the Airfield for more than a decade during "The Golden Age of Aviation". Click for a monthly PDF calendar that covers this decade, 1925-1936.

At Tucson during this time, the forces of history, geography and time melded with the makers and actors of early aviation, and their marks in the log call on us to pay tribute to their presence and to their deeds.

The link below gets you an uncopyrighted, 149-page Davis-Monthan Airfield history in PDF format. Excellent reading! Put it, or any of the dozens of PDF downloads available from this site, on your Kindle or portable reader!

History of Davis-Monthan Airfield

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This Web site includes history, analysis and commentary about the Golden Age of Aviation, which comprises roughly 1920-1940. It includes accounts summarized from personal anecdotes, news media and other publications of the era.

Some of these contain references to race and gender that are clearly racist and sexist when interpreted according to 21st century social values. These references are not reinterpreted or edited by your Webmaster for contemporary readers. Rather, they are reported as is with the understanding that your Webmaster has no intention whatsoever of demeaning or attaching any differential value to any race, gender, creed or belief.

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Some images and brief quotations on this site are used under the fair use provision of the U.S. Copyright Act for purposes of comment, criticism, and historical reporting. Hyperlinks are used wherever possible to link to others' more extensive original information.

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