My great-granduncle John Yuncker was a piano sales manager in Los Angeles during the early 20th century. Here he participated in aviation history by taking one of the first-ever commercial passenger trips on August 30, 1919. As I describe in a previous post, he flew from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara to close on the sale of a very expensive piano.
The airplane appears to be a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny.” It was owned by Syd Chaplin, half-brother of Charlie Chaplin. Here John Yuncker is pictured taking off on his flight, and later being greeted by his colleague Harry Braden upon his return.1 A montage of an unrelated, restored Jenny is shown for comparison.2
The “Jenny” was also the airplane pictured on the famous postage stamp known as the Inverted Jenny.3
- “Travels 200 Miles in Air to Close Ampico Sale,” The Music Trade Review, Sep 20, 1919; online archives, The International Arcade Museum (http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1919-69-12/ : downloaded 11 March 2015), page 5.
- Daniel Berek, Flickr, (https://www.flickr.com/photos/23269353@N00/with/23279510791/ : downloaded 6 August 2016).
- New York Daily News, Edgar Sandoval, (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/inverted-jenny-stamp-upside-plane-sells-1m-article-1.2656004 : downloaded 6 August 2016) citing Siegel Auction Galleries, Inc.