Harkness Davenport Article June 3, 1984

              He found
his future
by the seat
of his pants
By DAN HENNING
Register Correspondent
CLYDE — For Harkness
Davenport, the thrill of flying is
undimmed half a century after
he first bounced across a
Florida tomato field and felt
the little bi-plane lift into the
air beneath him.
As a boy from Clyde with no
destination in mind — for the
day or for his life — Davenport
had set put on the first leg of a
journey that would take him
around the country and finally
land him right back where he
started.
"I had been attending the
University of Miami (at Coral
Gables, Fla.) for two years,"
recalled Davenport, 136 W.
Buckeye St., Clyde. "I didn't
know what to do with my life.
They (university instructors
and counselors) didn't encourage us in specialities in
those days.
"I was in the chemistry
classroom, when I decided to
go to the student union to get a
sandwich. I left the Bunsen
burner on, I remember.
"A man came into the union
and announced that he could
teach anyone who wanted for
fly for 40 bucks — that was for
four lessons.
"I went back to the
classroom, turned off the
burner and I've been flying
ever since."
That flight in an Aeronica C-3
only lasted about 15 minutes,
but it was enough to change
Davenport's life, give him a
new goal to strive for.
Although the young student
finished the semester, he did
not return the following fall. Instead, he came back to Clyde,
Ohio, and tried to convince his
family he was headed in the
right direction.
"My housemother (at the
university) had squealed on me
(concerning that first flight), so
I had written home," Davenport recalled. "My dad said,
'Forget it, if you're thinking
about flying.' "
He was eventually able to
convince his parents to con
tinue his educational
allowance, however, and he
went on to buy his first plane,
an E-2 Cub, built by Taylor,
which became the Piper company. That first plane cost $700
or $800.
A lot of the flight schools
were seat-of-the-pants operations in those days, with many
like that 4-to-500-foot ragged
runway in Florida.
"Farmer's fields were often
the only landing strip you could
get to rent," noted Davenport,
who knew he needed to attend a
top-flight school.
"There were only two good
(flight) schools in the country
with college-level training at
that time. One in St. Louis and
one in California. I was told the
one in California was the best,
if you wanted to go on and fly
professionally."
Still, Oakland's Alameda Airport left a lot to be desired.
Built below sea-level, the airport w<?s surrounded by an
eight-to-10 foot dike, which
could make it difficult for
heavily-loaded craft to take off.
From the fall of 1936 to the
following spring, Davenport
trained at the Boeing School of
Aeronautics, a joint venture
between Boeing and United
Airlines.
"I got my instrument rating
in the B-4. It had four bays of
struts and was one of the biggest bi-planes of the day. The
lower wing tip came to my
forehead; it had been an old
United Airlines mail plane."
Davenport's first turn at
"airline-type training" came at
the controls of a Boeing 80A, a
cloth-covered bi-plane with
three Pratt & Whitney 450's.
According to Davenport, it
"held as many (passengers) as
a DC-3."
"We went in groups of five or
six trainees, with each person
taking half-hour to hour turns
at the different positions. We
flew over some of the most
desolate country I've ever
seen...."
Davenport's recollection of
those developing years in the
(Register photo - TIM FLECK)
Harkness Davenport's aviation career started in a Florida tomato patch, barnstormed its way across the coun
try and finally landed again in Sandusky County.
history of aviation also includes
at least one flight pioneer,
although he admits "almost
everyone was a pioneer in
those days."
"(Amelia Earhart) stayed at
the same hotel at the end of the
(school's) field. We (Davenport
and a fellow student) had moved there because we had got
tired of our snoopy landlady
opening our mail."
Miss Earhart had already
made two transatlantic flights
in 1931 and '32, but she was
planning a 'round-the-world
flight for early 1937. She was on
the first leg of that flight,
which had taken her cross
country from Miami, Fla., with
her co-pilot, a man named
Manning.
"It was a warm day and the
black tar macadam (around
the hangar) was soft," recounts
Davenport of the day Miss
Earhart headed for Honolulu.
"That plane was loaded for
bear. When they brought it out
of the hangar, it sank in the
macadam nearly to the axle.
None of us thought she was
gonna make it out of that bay.
When she finally took off, she
just missed the top of the
dike."
A year later, Davenport was
out on his own again, barnstor
ming wherever he could, living,
and flying, by the seat of his
pants. He had bought a Rear-
win 180-hp, round-engine Ken-
Royce, named after the
builder's two sons.
The bi-plane was Davenport's
only meal ticket and times
were hard.
"If you thought a guy'd pay
two bucks for a ride, you'd
charge two bucks. I wouldn't do
it for less than a buck.
"Sometimes you'd land in a
farmer's field and take up the
farmer and his family, but you
can't do that anymore. Too
many regulations. Now, you
have to land on (an approved
field). You can hardly move.
Some bureaucrat — it's not the
FAA's fault — has to rattle his
sabers once in a while."
Increased regulations and the
uncertain income soon took
their toll on the barnstormers,
according to Davenport.
"I was pretty discouraged
after barnstorming. I was making about 25 bucks a week and
you couldn't live on that. We
were just coming out of the
Depresssion. It was a
nightmare.
"I told one of the (FAA) inspectors, 'I'm gonna give up
• Please turn to B-2