Born: 11/04/1891
Died: 08/17/1953
Inducted: 10/13/2001
Born in Germany in 1891, Paul Benjamin Gnauck
emigrated to Milwaukee by way of New York, where he had learned to
fly airplanes. In 1913 he organized the Wisconsin Aero Club,
probably Wisconsin's first experimental aircraft club. The group
immediately set out building an airplane.
In April 1914, the Aero Club launched its
home-built flying boat off a Milwaukee beach. In May, with Gnauck at
the controls, the Wisconsin Club flyer set out to be the first
airplane to cross Lake Michigan from Wisconsin and to set a record
for over-the-water flight. The flyer crashed only a few miles out in
the lake and was lost, but the pilot was rescued.
Gnauck
then acquired a Curtiss pusher and became a regular performer at the
Wisconsin State Fair and other venues. He later joined the U.S. Army
during World War I and gave up flying.
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