Mr. Lynn C. Lashley, a prominent Cumberland banker, reported that early in his career as a loan officer at a local lending institution he helped to finance the purchase of the first airplane to be based at Mexico Farms landing field, a WW I surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jenny. This aircraft was owned by the Cumberland Aero Club with Ronald ’Torque’ Landis and Wilbur Webb Gaither being instrumental in forming the club. The nucleus of the Cumberland Aero Club, in addition to Landis and Gaither, included George Diehl, Sam Huff, Virgil Parker, Alex Rankin and Lynn C. Lashley. Sam Huff later moved to Hollywood and became a stunt pilot for aviation movies participating in the noteworthy movie ‘Wings’. This film won the first Academy Award for the ‘Best Production of the Year’ for 1927-28, the only silent film to win that honor.
Other names connected with local aviation in 1925 include Millard Torbet, Bill Johnson, A. Hammond Amick, Woody Rayburn, and Art Brown. Flying then was expensive, as it is today, with the price of airplanes being out of the financial reach of many would-be pilots and/or airplane owners.
Alex Rankin on left, with Sam Huff with the Aero Club’s ‘Jenny’.
* * * * *
Wings Over Cumberland 