Julius Barr

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Julius Augustus Barr (born December 6, 1905 in Normal , Illinois , † March 18, 1939 in Alder , Washington ) was an American pilot .

biography

Julius Barr received his pilot training at the US Army Air School at Kelly Field Military Air Base in San Antonio , Texas . There he earned a reputation as a joker, as noted in a flight school yearbook: "Don't tell Julie anything about a new stunt , he'll probably try it."

In July 1928, Barr married Effie Hortense Roberson in Pittsburg , Kansas . The couple had a son and a daughter. In 1930 he took a job as a mail plane with Boeing Air Transport . Above all, he operated the route from Cheyenne to Salt Lake City .

The later crashed Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner (NX19901) prototype, which was operated by Julius Barr at the time of the crash

In 1931 Barr went to China with his family to work for the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) as a flight instructor and manager of Hankow Airport and, until his imprisonment, as a private pilot for Zhang Xueliang . As a result, Barr transported 70,000 pounds of bread in a Boeing of his choice, which was dropped over beleaguered villages, as the Christian Science Monitor reported. Over time, the aircraft had 41 bullet holes by communist troops. Often Barr had to fly at night or " blind ". Later he was the personal pilot of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling . In 1935, at his request, his former classmate Royal Leonard followed him to China, as he felt overwhelmed by the multitude of his tasks. Leonard, who knew Barr's reputation, initially believed it was a joke. In August 1937 Barr and Leonard were involved with other US military on the Chinese side in the Battle of Shanghai .

After seven years in China, Julius Barr and his family finally returned to the United States by ship from Hong Kong in 1938 . From November 1938 he worked as a test pilot for Boeing .

In March 1939 Barr undertook a test flight as a flight captain with nine passengers with the prototype of the four-engine Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner ( registration number NX 19901). The flight took off from Seattle , which is where the plane was supposed to return. The test program envisaged switching off one engine during the flight and testing the flight behavior with three engines. The plane broke in the air over Alder, 100 kilometers south of Seattle. All ten inmates were killed in this accident. Using the measuring devices on board, the accident could be reconstructed: after switching off one of the two outer motors, the machine lost a lot of speed and went into a tailspin. When the pilot tried to intercept the machine from a spin, the wings could not withstand the forces and broke.

Upon further investigation, it was found that Barr had little experience with test flights of this type, although he had a total of about 5000 flight hours, of which 2030 hours on single-engine, 2240 on twin-engine and 765 hours on triple-engine machines.

In the accident, five people died in addition to Barr himself, the Vice President of KLM Pieter Guillonard, Boeing chief engineer Earl Ferguson , the Dutch aviation pioneer and employee of the Ministry of Verkeer en Waterstaat , Albert Gillis von Baumhauer , who had sat next to Barr as a co-pilot other Boeing employees and a representative from TWA .

Julius Barr was buried in Mount Olive Cemetery , Pittsburgh.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Barry S. Martin: Forgotten Aviator. Dog Ear Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-60844-929-3 , p. 47 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ↑ a b c d Bryan Swopes: Julius Augustus Barr Archives. In: This Day in Aviation. March 18, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  3. ↑ The Christian Science Monitor , undated, see [1] .
  4. ^ The Daily Herald , August 19, 1937, p. 1.
  5. ↑ Flying Magazine. P. 16 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Boeing 307 Stratoliner. In: fliegerweb.com. Retrieved October 28, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b Harro Ranter: ASN Aircraft accident Boeing p. 307 Stratoliner NX19901 Alder, WA. In: aviation-safety.net. March 18, 1939, Retrieved October 28, 2018 .
  8. ^ The Daily Banner , March 20, 1939, p. 1.
  9. ^ Baumhauer, Albert Gillis von (1891–1939). In: resources.huygens.knaw.nl. Retrieved October 25, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Remembering Boeing Stratoliner Prototype Crash Near Alder. In: EatonvilleNews. January 18, 2015, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  11. ^ Julius Augustus Barr (1905-1939). In: Find A Grave. March 18, 1939, accessed March 4, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Barr, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barr, Julius Augustus (full name); Barr, Julius A. (alternative name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pilot
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Normal , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1939
Place of death Alder , Washington