johnmacready

This is a highly interesting photo Just visible is the McCook Field test number P-144 which identifies the aircraft as AS.94102 on a master list prepared by Peter Bowers many years ago from a list issued by the Field in 1922 . The actual serial number on the fuselage looks like 9403 which of course is impossible. If we then look closer on the McCook master list we find that P-143 was AS.94103. Since we also know that this master list DO contain errors, it is highly possible that P-143 and P-144 should be switched and P-143 in fact was AS.94102 and P-144 should read AS.94103. A bit puzzling is the year 1918 written on the photo, since P-143/144 were issued in 1919. Stig

The signature on the photo on appears to read "Joe B. Clark," but this is almost certainly a photo of Army aviator and test pilot John A. Macready. For comparison, here are two other seemingly contemporaneous photos of Macready in the SDASM Flickr photostream:

Having looked at much more photos in your possession I now know that the serial on the fuselage reads 8403, which is the former German serial number assigned to the aircraft as 8403/18 Stig

Interesting,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macready

As noted, renown aviator and Army Air Service test pilot John A. Macready. Not only was Macready distinguished as an aviator and test pilot, he's also considered by many to be the father of Aviator-style sunglasses. See: www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/magazine/who-made-those-aviato...

Who Made Those Aviator Sunglasses? By Pagan Kennedy New York Times Magazine (Page 20) - Aug. 5, 2012 Early in the 20th century, as test pilots began flying higher than Mount Everest, they had to defend themselves against temperatures as low as minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit. To survive the frigid blast, aviators wore leather hoods, and they insulated their eyes with fur-lined goggles. To lift those goggles for even an instant was to risk death. In 1920, when Shorty Schroeder dared to take a biplane above 33,000 feet, his goggles fogged and he had no choice but to pull them off. Moments later, his vision blurred, and his eyes were soon frozen over. Schroeder managed to land the plane that day, and his friend John Macready helped pull him out of the cockpit. A month later, still haunted by the memory of his friend’s swollen eyelids, Macready climbed into the same plane to beat Schroeder’s altitude record. Like Schroeder, Macready depended on goggles that had been designed to seal his eyes from the cold and protect his sight. But the early goggles were not dark enough, and “the bright sunlight in the upper atmosphere hurt his eyes,” said his daughter, Sally Macready Wallace. And so Macready began working with Bausch & Lomb to design goggles especially suited to protect against the dazzle in the stratosphere. “My dad gave Bausch & Lomb the original shape, tint and fit” of aviator lenses, Wallace said. By the late 1930s, advertisements for Bausch & Lomb’s Ray Ban sunglasses promised “real scientific glare protection” for fishermen and golfers. Not yet called aviators, the glasses nonetheless captured the essence of aviator goggles, with their teardrop shape and frames as delicate as a biplane’s struts. Sold as sporting equipment, they cost several dollars at a time when sunglasses could be had for 25 cents. During World War II, aviators became standard gear for military men, including Gen. Douglas MacArthur. . .

Thanks for the link to additional info [https://www.flickr.com/photos/danuneken] and for the interesting story about aviator sunglasses TVL1970.

Thank you for your post in : Portrait★Faces

The unidentified aviator is Lt. Oakley G. Kelly. Kelly and John A. Macready flew the first nonstop transcontinental flight across the United States. Taking off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island (NY) on May 2, 1923 in their US Army Air Service Fokker T-2, Oakley and Macready landed at Rockwell Field in San Diego little more than 26 hours and 50 minutes later. There, they were greeted by Rockwell Field's base commander, Major Henry "Hap" Arnold.