Tony jannus, aviation history

1. TONY JANNUS
AVIATION AS
By: Gerardo Salmeron Siliezar

2. TONY JANNUS
• Antony Habersack
Jannus, better known
as Tony Jannus (July
22, 1889 – October 12,
1916), was an early
American pilot whose
aerial exploits were
widely publicized in
the pre-World War I
period of aviation.

3. BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
• Jannus was born in Washington, D.C., where
his father, Frankland Jannus, was a patent
attorney and his great-grandfather, Roger C.
Weightman, had been mayor from 1824 to 1827.
• In 1910, the 21-year-old was working as a
ship engine mechanic. He became interested
in flying when he saw an air show in
Baltimore, Maryland, in November 1910, and
began flight training that year at College
Park Airport in Maryland.
• Roger Weightman Jannus (1886-1918), also
learned to fly, and both brothers became
test pilots for the aircraft builder Thomas
W. Benoist in St. Louis, Missouri, in late
1911.

4. FEATS
• In 1911, Jannus was the
first pilot to fly the Lord
Baltimore II, an
amphibious aircraft
built in Baltimore, from
the city's Curtis Bay.

5. FEATS
• He flew the first plane from
which a parachute jump was
made, in 1912:
• On March 1, 1912, Tony Jannus
was piloting a Benoist biplane
when Albert Berry made the
first parachute jump from a
moving plane near St. Louis.

6. FEATS
• Later that year, Jannus set
an overwater flight record
of 1,900 miles (3,058 km)
following the Missouri and
Mississippi rivers from
Omaha, Nebraska, to New
Orleans on a float-mounted
Benoist Land Tractor Type
XII.

7. FEATS
• In 1913, Jannus participated
in an air show sponsored by
the New York Times. He flew
actress Julia Bruns in a
Baldwin Red Devil 4,000 feet
over Staten Island for twenty
minutes on October 12, 1913.
The next day, he flew in an air
race over Manhattan.

8. • On October 15, 1913, Jannus crashed during takeoff while going to search for Albert
Jewell, an aviator who had gone missing on southern Long Island, Jannus was
uninjured in the crash. The following month, Jannus moved to St. Petersburg, Florida.

9. FEATS
• Jannus was also the first airline pilot, having
pioneered the inaugural flight of the St.
Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line on January 1,
1914, the first scheduled commercial airline flight
in the world.
• he flew along with his only passenger. Abraham C
Pheil who was the mayor of Saint Petersburg
managed to get this prized seat on the first
commercial flight after an auction he won with a
bid of $400, which today would be about $5000.
It was the first time a ticket had been sold to the
general public for scheduled point-to-point air
travel.
• Jannus piloted the twenty-three minute maiden
flight of the pioneer airline's Benoist XIV flying
biplane. A crowd of 3,000 gathered at the pier to
watch the historic 10 am liftoff and were told by
Fansler that "what was impossible yesterday is an
achievement today."

10. • The Benoist reportedly reached a top
speed of 75 miles per hour (121 km/h)
during the flight, according to a
United Press account. Other reports
indicate that Jannus flew over the bay
at an altitude of less than 50 feet (15
m). Upon landing in Tampa, a crowd of
two thousand was waiting. Thereafter,
flights departed from Saint Petersburg
every day, except Sunday, at 10 am
and 2 pm. Return flights left Tampa at
11am. and at 3 p.m.

11. BENOIST XIV
• Replica of the Benoist XIV flown by Jannus
on January 1, 1914 — the first scheduled
commercial airline flight — displayed at St.
Petersburg-Clearwater International

12. ACCIDENT AND DEATH
• Jannus died on October 12, 1916, near Sevastopol (then part of Russia) when his plane, a Curtiss
H-7 that he was using to train Russian pilots, had engine trouble and crashed into the Black Sea,
killing to Jannus and his two man Russian crew. His body was never recovered.
• Jannus described flying as "...poetry of mechanical movement, a fascinating sensation of speed,
an abstraction of material things in infinite space”.

13. LEGACY
• In honor of him, the Tony Jannus Award was created,
created to perpetuate his legacy, recognizes outstanding
individual achievements in the scheduled commercial
aviation industry and is awarded annually by the Tony
Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society founded in Tampa,
Florida, in 1963.
Permanent exhibit at Tampa
International Airport Tony Jannus Award