kantner

This is a photo of Harold D. Kantner with Lucrece the bear cub and collie Chip Wood. Both were the mascots at a flight school set up at the behest of the US Navy during the First World War near the Curtiss Aeroplane Factory in Buffalo, NY. After the flight school's first instructor was killed in a fatal plane crash, Kantner was hired to take on the task as the lead instructor in 1917. See: Yale in the World War, Part One, by George Henry Nettleton (1925) (ISBN 076619695X, 9780766196957) books.google.com/books?id=a7gIX6_9DX4C&pg=PA450&l...

Looks like a Jenny and probably Kantner second from right. Stig

Interesting!

Photo here: Text of handwritten description: Kantner 60 Kantner Designed Biplane OX Curtiss Eng. - Built for Blair Thaw - younger brother of Bill Thaw of Lafayette Escadrille in France - Delivered to Blair early 1915 while I was employed by Howard Huntington at Curtiss Field, Mineola L.I. NOTE: Alexander Blair Thaw, for whom the aircraft was built, would perish in a plane crash while flying for the American Air Service in France on August 18, 1918. See: LIEUT. BLAIR THAW KILLED IN FRANCE Pittsburgh Aviator, Just Promoted, Falls While Flying to Paris. AIRPLANE UPSET ON WIRES Engine Trouble the Cause--Thaw Took Part in First Flight with De Havilands. New York Times, August 23, 1918 query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9402E7DF1439E13AB... query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9402E7DF1439E1...