System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Donald A. Hall, Airplane designer - Spirit of St Louis
December 07, 1898 - May 02, 1968
Born December 7th, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York, Donald Hall Sr. graduated from Pratt Institute in Industrial Mechanical Engineering, 1919 (though he interrupted his education for a stint in the US Army (S.A.T.C.) in 1918. He began working for Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Corp. as a Junior draftsman, checker, designer, shortly after graduation from Pratt Institute and switched to Elias & Bros in 1921 as Aerodynamic design and acting chief engineer.
In 1922, Hall designed a night bombardment airplane, which won prize in competition at Dayton, OH. He worked at various aeronautics companies, most notably The Douglas Company (1924-25 and Ford Motor Company (1926) before becoming Chief engineer & Parts inspector at Ryan Airlines, Inc. San Diego, California, from 1927-28. It is here that Hall would make his mark.
In sixty days in 1927, Donald Hall and Charles Lindbergh designed the Spirit of St. Louis and planned a flight to Paris. Donald A. Hall worked an average of 90 hours per week, with few breaks. Once he worked for 36 hours strait and at another point over 20 hours. In 60-days they made history. On May 10 at 3:55 p.m. Lindbergh flew his new monoplane 1,500 miles to St. Louis, establishing a record for flight time between the two cities, 14 hours, 25 minutes. The Spirit of St. Louis then helped Charles Lindbergh to become the first person to successfully fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927. The marathon 33-hour, nonstop, non-refueled flight started at Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York and ended when the plane landed at LeBourget Airport in Paris, France, Lindbergh became an international hero overnight.
After this Hall started Hall Aeronautical Development Co. where he acted as President and chief engineer from 1929-1936. He then worked for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft/Convair as Aerodynamics and pre-design engineer, Patent director from 1936-49. In semi retirement, Hall prepared Technical Appendix in Charles A. Lindbergh’s Pulitzer prize winning book, The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953. He died, May 2nd, 1968 in San Diego, California , at age 69.
