Samuel Stillman Pierce
Samuel Stillman Pierce (b. 23 January 1887, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts) was an aero engineer and aviator.
Attended Volkmann prep school in Boston, then studied Electricity, Navigation, and Marine Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]
In 1907–1908 Pierce was working as an "agent" for Peerless, Cadillac, and Renault automobile companies in Colorado Springs. In 1908–1909 he built and flew "two gliders and one power monoplane" in Colorado Springs. Then he went to work in France for Blériot Aéronautique as "mechanic, test pilot, instructor and translator of foreign correspondence" until 1914. This work included missions abroad to organize the Royal Serbian Flying Corps during the First Balkan War, to set up a flying school in Egypt, and to prepare Lieutenant Tryggve Gran in Scotland for a flight across the North Sea.
In 1915 he went to Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Corp in Hammondsport and went on to found S. S. Pierce Aeroplane Corporation in Southampton, Long Island, New York.[1]
He served as a flight instructor during the war (from 1917) and worked at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Who's Who, 1922, p. 83.
