Philadelphia Main Line Airport History

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A HISTORY OF THE MAIN LINE AIRPORTPAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA

Roger D. Thorne

Imagine traveling west along tree lined Swedesford Road in far western Tredy-ffrin Township. Passing the intersection with Church Road (originally calledBulls Corner, where the advancing British Army was sighted by an Americanpicket in September 1777), the landscape changes abruptly. As you cross intoEast Whiteland Township a seemingly endless array of office buildings stretchout, comprising the Great Valley Corporate Center. Exactly one-half mile west

from Bull's Corner you reach the intersection of Valley Stream Parkway. Casu-ally glancing to your "one o'clock position," you notice a mature tree across theintersection, taller and fuller than other vegetation in sight. But this is nothingout of the ordinary; just another tree within just another suburban office park.

In fact, the land that surrounds this particular tree marks the birthplace ofaviation in Chester County. This is where "barnstormers" performed, pilotswere trained for war, and vertical aviation history was made. The intent of thisnarrative is to help a few recall, and most to become acquainted with, the rolewhich the Main Line Airport played in the development of American aviation.

Beginnings

Any examination of the Main Line Airport should begin first with a consider-ation of its land. The earliest records of the Great Valley describe a dense,primary growth forest stretching east and west "as far as eye can see." But the

Copyright 2003 by Roger D. Thorne

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soil was fertile, and if back breaking labor was applied to felling trees, remov-ing stumps and rock, and tilling the soil, the land would offer sustenance to afarmer and his family. While earlier title to this particular property was assur-edly held, the first deed for which we have a record cites a John Phillips as theowner in the year 1798. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries show asuccession of owners, with familiar Valley names like Bartholomew (1812-72),

Menkins (1872-1907), and Hughes (1909-16).

In 1916, Lewis Hughes sold the southern half of his 140-acre farm to WilliamB. Devaney, a successful 52-year-old engineer who, for many years, was em-ployed as the superintendent of the Howellville quarry in Tredyffrin Township.Seventy acres represents a fairly small farm when one considers that perhaps30 acres were set aside for feed crops for the animals, and an additional 4 or 5acres for buildings, gardens, and orchards. Family tradition suggests thatalthough it remained a working dairy farm, Mr. Devaney probably purchasedthe farm, to be known as Twin Brook Farm, more for an avocation than as an

income-producing property.

In an aerial photo-graph taken in themid-1920s, a largewhite farmhousestands near, andfacing south, ontoSwedesford Road.Immediately east

of the house is astand of large de-ciduous trees, oneof which remainstoday as noted in

, , , the introduction

Facing Swedesford Road, the farmhouse originally built by the Bartholomew above. Continuingfamily, and part of Twin Brook Farm owned by W. B. Devaney. east is a large

multi-level field-

stone and frame barn, with a red galvanized roof, built around 1851. A redframe coach house lies adjacent to the main barn. Another smaller barn, aspringhouse, and several other "out buildings" are also visible. From thesestructures, and this property, William Devaney and his family raised a herd ofprize Holstein cattle and operated the Blue Rock Kennels, specializing inEnglish Pointers.

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Father of Chester County Aviation

Let's now introduce one of William Devaney's two sons, Charles. A man "bornwith a wrench in his hand" and a keen knowledge of the internal combustionengine, Charlie coupled these talents with a love of speed. By the end of thesecond decade of the century Charlie had already developed his reputation as a

racecar driver, well known on tracks along the entire Eastern Seaboard. Thispassion for speed would lead him to its natural extension: the new frontier ofpowered flight.

In the immediate post World War I years, the War Department was sellingmuch of its surplus aircraft, most still in their original assembly cartons, andsome for as little as $200. The principal aircraft being "surplused" was theCurtiss JN-4 Jenny. The only American aircraft that played a major role inWorld War I, over 90 percent of North American combat pilots had learned tofly in the Jenny. Because they were accessible, cheap, and a fairly "forgiving"

aircraft to fly, the Jennynow became the airplane of choice for a newgeneration of pilots. Charlie had to have one, and with his father's financialassistance, a plane was purchased and the crated aircraft delivered to thefarm.

Charlie's skill as a mechanic enabled the correct assembly of the Jenny, and anagreement with his father provided the use of one of the farm's pastures foroccasional use as an air-strip. In the period 1920 to1922, in an era before anygovernment regulation of

flight existed, Charlietaught himself to fly, takingoff and landing from thepasture, and becoming thefirst in Chester County toown and fly a plane. Ahumorous stipulation sup-posedly made by his fatherspecified that Charlie andtheHolsteins would not % . --;:use the pasture at the sametime. While Charlie did notgive up his "day job," (heworked for years as an automechanic at the Alan C. Hale Buick dealership in Wayne, Pennsylvania, endingthat career in 1935 as service manager), his love of, and skill in, aviation wouldgalvanize Charlie for the rest of his life.

?^-

Charlie Devaney poses before his two-place Waco bi-plane. Late 1920s.

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In the spring of 1928, two Chester County men, John D. Jacob and CarmenVan Lear (who was later to die in a Chester County plane crash), each pur-chased an airplane and talked William Devaney into allowing them to share thepasture with Charlie. By late summer it was becoming clear that the threeplane owners would need a more adequate facility. After a search of the area,in February 1929 Jacob leased several farm fields located south of the Paoli

Pike near Goshenville and cleared them of fences and trees. He spent severalthousand dollars to lay out runways and build six hangars, and named the newairfield Sky Haven.

Creation of the Philadelphia Main Line AirportThe Devaney pastures would not remain quiet for long. On February 27, 1929,William Devaney, strongly influenced by the health issues that would take hislife two years later, sold Twin Brook Farm to the already famous rotating-winginventor E. Burke Wilford. Wilford purchased the Devaney farm for the purposeof designing and flight testing an aircraft variation which he called the "gyro-

plane." This modification of pre-existing autogyro designs by Juan Cierva andHarold Pitcairn was part of the ongoing attempt, then, as now, to continuallyrefine a technology and build a financial success from those changes. Thefarm, initially purchased under the Wilford name, was transferred in May to anewly created entity of which he was president, the Philadelphia-Main Line

Airport, Incor-porated. While

j initial prototypework on hisgyroplane was

being comple-ted in NewJersey, Wilfordhad the largebarn on thenew propertymodified toserve as hangarand workspace.The word

PAOLIwasprominently

painted on the barn's roof to guide pilots, who at that time relied exclusively on"visual flight rules" for their navigation.

In December 1930, the twin-propeller, single-seat, open-cockpit gyroplane,which Wilford had named "Configuration No. 1," was transported to the"Philadelphia-Main Line Airport" for taxi testing. After eight additional months

The open cockpit gyroplane, called "WRK"by inventor E. Burke Wilford,

and built in the barn of the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport. Summer 1931

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in which the original aircraft was redesigned behind the closed doors of thelarge bam, Wilford'steam of mechanics and

engineers introducedthe second configura-tion called the "WRK."

Beginning on August 5,it was this prototype inwhich Lt. Frank Brownmade almost 200 flightsover the airport and theGreat Valley throughoutAugust 1931. In an in-terview with Burke Wil-ford in 1966, he describ-ed how his strange look-

ing helicopter predeces-sor, which took off likean airplane, and wasthen able to land in avery short space, flew.The gyroplane, he said,was:

. . . pulled down the field by a standard power plant and propellermounted in front, and lifted into the air by four rotating bladesmounted overhead on a free-wheeling disc. Their lift proved a

suitable substitute for that once offered by wings.

While autogyros had already been flown in Europe and even in Pennsylvania,Wilford's "WRK"was the world's first autogyro to successfully fly with a rigidrotor.

After using the Airport as his research and development site for almost twoyears, Wilford decided to permanently move his entire operation from Paoli latein 1932. He relocated to a much larger former World War I training center andseaplane base located on the Delaware River in Essington, Pennsylvania, 15

miles south of Philadelphia. There he reincorporated the business as thePennsylvania Aircraft Syndicate Ltd. It was also in Essington that a structuralfailure in the third gyroplane configuration resulted in a tragic crash in 1934,which killed the pilot and caused Wilford to temporarily abandon his entireautogyro project.

Lt. Frank Brown pilots "WRK"over the Great Valley in August 1931. Thiswas the world's first autogyro successfully flown with a rigid rotor.

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The Role of John D. JacobIn another of his real estate "slights-of-hand," Burke Wilford, in February 1931,had transferred the title to the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport in the name ofhis wife, Catherine. She held formal ownership to the land for the next fouryears, and with the move of Wilford's operation to Essington, a search began inearnest for someone with whom a lease of the Paoli airport property could be

made.

In December 1932, after almost four years in which Sky Haven Airport hadflourished and expanded, the Chester County court ordered John D. Jacob, thefield's operator, to immediately cease all flight operations. Several adjacentfarmers and the Rush Hospital for Consumptives had filed suit the previousyear alleging that the airport constituted a nuisance. Witnesses would testifythat the great noise made by planes, together with the dense volume of dustsent up, became exceedingly annoying. Low flying over adjoining propertieswas also complained of as being extremely dangerous. Patients at RushHospital, it was claimed, were retarded in recovery as a result of the operationof the planes nearby.

Jacob, having exhausted all legal remedies to keep Sky Haven open, nownegotiated with the Wilfords to lease the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport andtransfer his flying business there.

Thus started, in early 1933, an energetic growth period for the Airport as anation's fascination with flight seemed able to take people, at least tempo-rarily, from the cares of the Depression. Despite the general austerity, interestin aviation in all its forms was unbridled on the Main Line and throughoutChester County. Throughout each week, and especially on weekends, spec-tators would drive from far and near to the Airport to watch the excitement.Passengers would buy short flights in open cockpit biplanes; student flierswould take training flights with one or another of the instructors operating atthe Airport; and the owners of a growing number of private airplanes addedflying hours to their log books.

John Jacob, now the Airport's manager, began making improvements to thefield and buildings. Devaney's main barn, fitted to serve as Wilford's develop-ment center, was "rehabbed" once again as a fixed-wing hangar. A new work-

shop on the barn's second floor allowed planes to be prepped and paintedaccording to aircraft procedures, and repairs made to woodwork used on air-plane wings, and to metal fuselage and engine parts. Also, to provide some-thing for everyone, the lower level of the barn became a pistol shooting range,and out at the northeast corner of the airport property the Cohort Gun Clubconstructed a popular trapshooting range drawing membership from all alongthe Main Line.

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The purchase of an additional tract of land directly east of the property sub-stantially added length to the east-west runway, which, due to the prevailingwinds sweeping up and down the valley, made it the primary strip. A contem-porary review stated that the Airport now had:

. . . a runway exceeding by several hundred feet the length of any

airport in this section of the country, and capable of taking offand landing the largest of aircraft with a wide margin of safety.

Military pilots, especially naval aviators stationed at Mustin Field at the Phila-delphia Navy Yard, regularly visited the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport in whatwere their state-of-the-art military aircraft. In the memorable summer of 1934,the American Legion Air Circus was held at the Airport. Thousands of specta-tors came to Paoli from all over to watch well-known pilots compete for prizesas they raced their planes around the pylons. Observers described havingnever heard such a tremendous roar of engines as the competitors flashed by

the crowds.

A quite different interest for spectators and aviators alike focused on the MainLine Glider Club, whose members silently rode the currents high above thefield. A contemporary newspaper article describes a typical Sunday afternoonin which:

. . . one member after another soars hundreds of feet into the skyin their gliders, which are nothing more or less than a pair of wings,tail, and a few feet of tubing welded together and resembling an

airplane minus a motor. Using a tow car and 1,000 feet of cable,the gliders are launched into flight the duration of which is fromone and a half to four minutes, with the pilot sitting in a tiny bucketseat fastened on the skeleton framework of the nose with noprotection from the weather.

In January 1935, the Glider Club secured a Federal Department of AirCommerce license for one of its two-place gliders, which was being used as atrainer. By this time in regulation history, when using a glider for commercialtraining purposes, it was necessary to have the craft licensed the same as foran airplane. Since there were at that time only 45 licensed gliders in the entireUnited States, the Main Line Glider Club was pleased to be a part of that elitecircle.

In the spring of 1935, two events occurred for which we do not have completeexplanations. On March 4, the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport, Inc. sold for$1.00 the ownership of the 83.29-acre property to yet another entity of Wil-ford's creation called Aircraft and Airways of America, Inc. Contemporary

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accounts call the transfer simply a technicality, but the "why" remains murky.The second change was the announcement in April that the Airport Manager,John Jacob, for reasons unstated, was leaving the management of the MainLine Airport. His role would be assumed by a former flight instructor namedA. F. Schachterle. What became of John Jacob is unknown to us.

Introduction of Demorr Aeronautical Corporation1936 was a strategically important year for the Main Line Airport. (To elimi-nate confusion with the City of Philadelphia, the use of the word "Philadelphia"in the Airport's title had been dropped by the mid-1930s.)

In June, Demorr Aeronautical was incorporated. The Demorr AeronauticalCorporation could best be described as the business vehicle by which CharlieDevaney, who had remained active in aviation at the Airport and beyond, couldnow leave his position as service manager at Hale Buick and "jump intoaviation with both feet." Charles, as president, along with his close friend

"Nick" Morris, ahighly respec-ted pilot andflight instructorand now vicepresident ofDemorr (a con-traction ofDevaney andMorris), set out

to become anairplane salesand serviceorganization of

..-,, . prominence onthe east coast.Using the MainLine Airport astheir venue,

Demorr succeeded in achieving their dream, becoming the exclusive eastern

seaboard distributor for Ryan Airplanes of San Diego (manufacturer ofLindbergh's Spiritof Saint Louis, and later the fabulous Ryan ST), as well as thePhiladelphia area distributor for Piper Aircraft of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania,considered America's leading light plane manufacturer.

On November 14, 1936, the substantial influence which E. Burke Wilford hadhad upon the Airport for years officially ended with his sale of the property tothe legendary Curtiss-Wright Corporation of New York. Curtiss-Wright would

Nick Morris and Charlie Devaney proudly pose before their newtwo-place metal fuselage Ryan ST monoplane. Late 1930s.

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retain formal ownership for the remainder of the decade, and Mr. Schachterlecontinued as Curtiss-Wright's on-site representative for the next four years.

The success of Demorr, and the new ownership by Curtiss-Wright, were bothcatalysts for Airport growth. There were also two additional catalysts. Onewas the Main Line Flying School, owned and operated by Paul Gingrich, whose

reputation as an expert flight instructor had allowed him to graduate morestudent fliers than any other flying school in eastern Pennsylvania. The secondwas the Main Line Aircraft School headed by Daniel D'Ambrosio, who believedthat growth in aviation would be limited only by a lack of qualified mechanicsto service the emerging technologies, and who organized a school at the Air-port to train airplane and engine mechanics. All promoted reputation andgrowth opportunities.

A document currently at the Chester County Historical Society, dated Novem-ber 1936, and originally secured in the office safe at the Main Line Airport,

provides a succinct description of the field:

The airport is a landing field of 89 acres, prevailing winds areeast and west, 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Location byair navigation Latitude 4003' North, Longitude 7530' West. "Altitude 300 ft. net drainage, 3 landing strips east west 2100 ft.,NE and SW 1950 ft., NW and SE 2000 ft. Entire field available.12 ship capacity, 40 student pilots, 20 graduated. Over 100,000yearly visitors.

There is no record of any regularly scheduled commercial traffic, or U.S.Airmail service, operating through the Main Line Airport. There are, however,several references to flights into and out of the airport arranged through localcommercial establishments. One example is a Ford Tri-Motor aircraft thatvisited the Main Line Airport on at least one occasion. Sponsored by MatthewsFord, a Paoli automobile dealership, this famous aircraft provided short ridesfor many adult and child spectators, its repeated take-offs and landings pro-viding, for most passengers, their very first airplane ride.

Physically, the appearance of the Airport was changing as buildings were

added or removed, and the uses of existing ones again modified. The largebarn was now used less as an aircraft hangar, but the coach house continuedto hold equipment and vehicles. A temporary sheet metal hangar had beenconstructed, located diagonally north and west from the farmhouse, with itslarge sliding doors facing Swedesford Road. An elongated wooden shedlocated directly adjacent to Swedesford Road east of the main bam wasconverted to a permanent "Tee" hangar, its front facing north, and used foraircraft storage and repairs. Additional "Tee" hangars were constructed

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immediately west of the farmhouse. The Airport's physical presence andinfluence on the area continued to become more pronounced.

The Civilian Pilot Training Program, and World War IIBy the late 1930s, war in Europe appeared inevitable. If America became in-volved, large numbers of trained pilots would be needed for military service.One response to that need came as a proclamation by President Roosevelt inDecember 1938, announcing the creation of the Civilian Pilot Training Program(CPTP). This plan, administered through the Civil Aeronautics Authority, wasone of the largest government sponsored vocational education programs of theperiod. It was designed to serve both war-preparedness goals and New Dealeconomic ends. It annually allowed 20,000 eighteen-to-twenty-seven-year olds,primarily college students, to become qualified to obtain a private pilot licenseat government expense. The program would give a substantial economic boostto the light-plane industry, and the network of small airports associated withcivilian aviation throughout the country. The CPTP did indeed help thousands

of small airport operators make financial ends meet until the U.S. enteredWorld War II in 1941.

For the Main Line Airport, the Civilian Pilot Training Program was a godsend.Their CPTP program began in 1939 and was primarily directed to providingflight training and certification to young men from Villanova University andWest Chester State Teachers College (now West Chester University). The U.S.government paid virtually all the fees for a student's flight training, creating anunaccustomed cash flow to the instructors and the Airport that, until then, hadbeen making due by serving a relatively few wealthy patrons less affected by

Depression austerity. Nick Morris and Paul Gingrich, who were normally thetwo full-time flight instructors at the Airport, were now able to hire severaladditional instructors to fulfill the increased mission.

During all the hundreds of training flights flown in and out of the Main LineAirport during the CPTP period, there was only one recorded accident. Astudent pilot in a Piper J-3, coming in final approach toward the northwest,snagged the plane's undercarriage on the telephone lines that ran parallel toSwedesford Road. The resulting crash badly damaged the plane but, fortu-nately, there were no serious injuries.

The inflow of cash enabled Demorr to purchase several Piper J-3s as flighttrainers; a 1936 four-door Ford sedan to transport student pilots back andforth from the Paoli train station and West Chester; and, in 1940, enabled theconstruction of a large aircraft hangar with dimensions of 100 by 60 feet. Withan operating height of 14 feet, it was designed to accommodate the DC-3, the

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largest airplane of its time.An interesting note con-cerning this hangar wasthat, to reduce construc-tion costs, Demorr ac-quired the large overheadtrusses, required to elimi-nate vertical supportbeams, in "used" condi-tion from an airport inSouth Carolina, and hadthem shipped to Paoli byrail. With the completionof the new hangar, thetemporary sheet metalhangar was demolished

Facing southwest, the new hangar under construction adds substanceto the Main Line Airport in the summer of 1940.

By 1940, the War Department was accelerating its war preparations, andCurtiss-Wright, the owner of the Airport since 1936, would clearly be playing amajor role in armaments production. The company that was to manufacturethe P-40 Warhawkfighter, the C-46 Commandotransport, and the Navy SB2CHelldiverdive bomber now desired to divest itself of non-essential assets.Demorr Aeronautical was at the right place at the right time. On April 4, 1940,Demorr purchased the Airport from Curtiss-Wright Corporation for $42,000and assumed full management of the site. Charles Devaney remained pres-ident, Nick Morris, secretary and treasurer, and J. Morton Caldwell (of the

Philadelphia jewelry family) became vice president. By the end of 1940 theairport was considered one of the busiest and best equipped airfields of its sizein the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

America's entry into WorldWar II brought drasticchanges to civilian flying.During the war the MainLine Airport was, by neces-sity, in a state of semi-

hibernation as severe ra-tioning of aviation gasmade it very difficult to flyfor pleasure. The Airport'suse as a training ground forthe CPTP continued untilearly 1943 when the govern-

A North American T-6 trainer at the Main Line Airport, 1941-42.

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ment decided that it now had a pilot glut. For the Airport, it was good while itlasted. Fortunately, in 1942, Demorr Aeronautical had been able to apply itsmachining equipment and experience to secure a sub-contracting agreementwith N.A.F. (Naval Aircraft Factory) Philadelphia to manufacture ailerons for alarge flying boat known as the PBN Catalina. Demorr built component parts for156 aircraft during the period 1942-45. It was reported that these parts wentto assemble Lend Lease Act aircraft destined for the Soviet Union.

The Airport never completely closed to aviation during the war. CharlesDevaney's son Bob tells of a friendly relationship established between theAirport and a Naval aviator stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard late in1944 and into 1945. This aviator apparently had substantial autonomy inaccruing flight hours with the Navy's newest and fastest fighter, the GrummanF8F Bearcat. The F8F was produced too near the end of hostilities to see muchcombat, but was, in fact, the fastest propeller-driven aircraft produced during

World War II. Bob tells of several

occasions when this pilot would roardown the Great Valley and over theairport with his 18-cylinder Pratt &Whitney R2800 radial engine screa-ming (the F8F's 2,000-horsepowerengine was essentially identical toone of four found on a B-29 Super-fortressbomber), scaring livestockand agitating neighbors. Then, theF8F would touch down on the air-

strip, the aviator would spend a fewmoments on the ground talking to

A Grumman F8F Bearcatfighter which often visited theMain Line Airport in 1944-45

one and all, and, on at least oneoccasion, with the whine of a policesiren in the background, take off

again with a roar. With the F8F's capacity to fly almost vertical from takeoff to10,000 feet, the sight and sound must have been unforgettable. In one memo-rable incident, the aviator landed his Bearcatand taxied over the grass strip tothe farmhouse where, leaving the engine idling, he climbed down and went in-side the flight office (built in the rear of the farmhouse and facing out onto the

field) to get a cup of coffee. The ground was spongy from days of rain. Theheavy fighter, equipped with narrow tires ideally suited for a carrier flight deckbut not a sodden former pasture, and vibrating heavily in its normal idle mode,began to sink into the mud until the giant propeller was almost spinning intothe ground. Fortunately, through the efforts of several brave volunteers withshovels and the use of the Airport tractor, the F8F was somehow extricatedfrom its muddy grip, and our aviator was able to take off with perhaps some

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explaining to do back at the Navy Yard about how his undercarriage got somuddy.

The Post War Years and Sale to Bethlehem Steel Corporation

In the years immediately following World War II, private aviation experiencedexplosive growth. The Airport boomed once again, in part because of the new

Gl Bill of Rights that would pay tuition and expenses for ex-GIs wishing topursue flight training as a qualified course of study. Small fields like the MainLine Airport richly benefited from the largess of the government's programs,along with the general increase in discretionary spending of average peoplewishing to fly and enjoy themselves after the privation of the Depression andthe war. Among the notable individuals who took flight training during thistime at the Airport was a young man named Charles "Pete" Conrad, who wouldlater became Pennsylvania's first astronaut and commander of the Apollo 12moon mission in 1969. Conrad served as a grass cutter for the large, grassyexpanses of the runways in exchange for flight lessons. Nick Morris acted as

his primary flight instructor.

Private airplane sales also rose sharply as pent-up demand could now besatisfied, and Piper PA-1 1 's and PA-12's were in especially high demand atPiper distributors like Demorr Aeronautics during the immediate post-warperiod.

There was a brief period immediately after the war when the specter of terrorupset any sense of peace and prosperity in the Great Valley and at the Airport.Bob Devaney recalls that in 1946 the "Valley" experienced a series of delib-

erately set fires to homes and farms. Genuine alarm gripped the area, andDemorr's nightmare of a conflagration fueled by aviation gas required resoluteaction. Bob Thomas, Charlie Devaney's brother-in-law (and before he wasdrafted as the driver of the Ford shuttle for the student pilots) had recentlybeen discharged from Naval service. Thomas was invited, along with his wife,to take up residence in the farmhouse. His job: provide "site security" to theAirport grounds. Thomas got the word out that his recently "liberated" NavyM-l Carbine, and a Thompson submachine gun, would be used withouthesitation to protect the property. Apparently his clear warning was takenseriously, because no attempt was ever discovered to "torch" the Airport

structures or airplanes. Ultimately, several Paoli volunteer firemen werearrested and convicted of these arsons. Bob Thomas and his family continuedto live in the old farmhouse for the next six years.

Quite another quandary presented itself to Demorr in late 1946. An attorneyfrom Philadelphia, representing an anonymous company, made an unsolicitedcash offer of $152,000 to Charlie Devaney for the Airport's buildings and land.This was an unprecedented sum for real estate in the "Valley" (and a 262%

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increase in just over six years since the Demorr purchase from Curtiss-Wright).By January 1947, unable to determine why such an outrageous sum was beingoffered, Charles decided to reject the offer. This decision demonstrated notonly his shrewdness, but also his ability to tolerate risk. And the risk that heundertook became significantly more apparent as, in the next two years, theaviation bubble burst throughout the country and the Airport's revenues

dropped sharply from their immediate post-war highs.

Charlie's decision to reject the initial offer paid off handsomely for him and theother Demorr principals three years later. In January 1950, he signed anagreement with the representative for the still undisclosed company to allow,for $35,000 cash, a 9-month option for the party to potentially buy the MainLine Airport. If the anonymous company decided to back away from the pur-chase, Demorr would recover over 80 percent of their original purchase priceto Curtiss-Wright. If the buyer chose to move ahead and exercise the option, aremaining purchase balance of $195,000 would be due, for a total sale price of

$230,000. At almost $2,800 per acre, this would be the record high for landin the area. Either way, this was a "win-win" for Demorr Aeronautical.

The "why" soon becameapparent. By February1950, three drilling rigs

1 were working non-stoptaking core samples atthe north end of theAirport property, which,

as everyone in the areaalready knew, sat atop alimestone substrate.Long time residents hadgrown used to their wellwater coming whitefrom the tap. Althoughthe sediment wouldsettle in a glass, thelime taste was distinct if

Limestone test-boring rigs at the Main Line Airport in Spring 1950.

not unpleasant.

Then, for the first time, the name Bethlehem Steel Company was mentioned.The puzzle was solved. The three basic raw materials for steel production arecoal, iron ore, and limestone. Using the then-dominant Bessemer refiningprocess, great quantities of limestone were required to act as a flux to purifythe molten iron. Integrated steel companies at that time desired to dominatetheir sources of limestone as well as those of iron and coal. If the core

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sampling validated what local folk already anticipated, this airfield would soonbecome a limestone quarry.

And indeed, on September 26, 1950, the purchase option was exercised.Demorr Aeronautical Corporation sold the Main Line Airport to the Monroe CoalMining Company, as agent for Bethlehem Steel, at the agreed price of

$230,000. Charles Devaney's gamble had paid off very well indeed. As a partof the final agreement, Demorr would be allowed full business possession ofthe property for two additional years, thereby allowing a period of careertransition for the principals.

On a personal note, some three months before the purchase agreement, in aletter dated June 11, 1950 to his sister in Washington D.C., who had invitedCharlie and the family to drive down for a visit, Charlie responded:

Our Ford is getting in bad shape so we can't go anywhere right

now, but if Bethlehem takes the place I think we will really breakout for a while. . . .

And break out they did. The lessons Demorr had learned about business ingeneral, and manufacturing and military subcontracting in particular, nowprovided the firm with a new future. After "winding down" the Main LineAirport in early 1952, the machining operation, which Charles and Nick hadbuilt in one of the hangar buildings, was moved into a brand new machineshop, still under the name Demorr Aeronautical Corporation, and located onMoorehall Road (present Route 29) near Route 30, on the site of the present

Bob Evans restaurant in Malvern. During almost twenty years of operation,Demorr would act as a contract designer, machine builder, and avionics manu-facturer. Demorr Aeronautical Corporation continued in business until 1970.

Charlie Devaney passed away in April 1976 at the age of 76. Nick Morris diedfive years later in April 1981, also at the age of 76.

Haig Kurkjian, and The Return of Rotary-Wing Flight to the Main Line AirportWith the sale to the Monroe Coal Mining Company (Bethlehem Steel), a newfuture lay before the Main Line Airport. Fixed-wing aviation had dominated the

airport during the two decades since Burke Wilford last flew his autogyro overthe Great Valley. However, all that changed with new land-use regulationscreated by the new owners of the land. With the departure of Demorr Aero-nautical from the airport, Bethlehem placed a prohibition on fixed-wing take-offs and landings. That prohibition was reinforced by the placement of barbedwire fencing to subdivide the original runways for the temporary use as cattlegrazing pastures.

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To provide security and enforcement for the airport grounds, and all theadjacent properties purchased by Bethlehem, Bethlehem established a per-manent caretaker to oversee all the holdings north of Swedesford Road. JohnTompkins, a retired police officer, became the full-time overseer, and lived in ahouse provided by Bethlehem that stood where the North Valley ridge metMoorehall Road, west of what is now Valley Stream Parkway near Route 29.

It is now time to introduce the creative genius of a flight test engineer namedHaig Kurkjian. Kurkjian had started work for Kellett Aircraft Company on theirXR-8 helicopter project. Departing Kellett in 1945, he worked for PiaseckiHelicopters (known today as Boeing Helicopters) for almost two years, andthen, in the spring of 1947, began teaching at the Quaker City School ofAeronautics in Philadelphia. It was there, with space provided by the school,that he began designing a helicopter of his own design that he would name theHK-1. Haig was one of a group of aviation visionaries who saw aircraft as anatural extension of the automobile. He prophesied that:

The HK-1 is the first step toward a ship that will be marketed in theCadillac price range, a ship that will virtually eliminate the neces-sity for urbanization by making commutation and private trans-portation in general far faster and safer than automobile travel.

In 1950, the HK-1A was transported from Philadelphia to a farm in Cedars,Pennsylvania, where assembly was completed and the first test flight flown.The prototype was able to briefly hover about 4 feet off the ground. The rotors,however, were judged insufficient for sustained flight, and a vibration required

a blade redesign. But the encouragement generated by that first flight,together with the formal incorporation of Haig-K Aircraft by the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania on December 1, 1950, energized Kurkjian to launch an imme-diate search for venture capital. He knew that funding, as much as technicalinnovation, would ultimately determine whether the H-K project would succeedor fail.

Haig became aware, in early 1952, that the old Main Line Airport would soonbecome vacant. He successfully negotiated a year-by-year lease with Bethle-hem Steel, enabling Haig-K Aircraft to use all existing Airport buildings, and

sufficient portions of the property, for use in rotary-wing development. Bethle-hem Steel made it clear that they had purchased the Airport for their long-termfuture needs and did not intend to begin quarrying for at least 30 years. (Infact, the Robertson farm, located across Swedesford Road just west of theairport, which had been sold to Bethlehem in the summer of 1951, had beengranted a "life tenancy" condition to their sale. The Robertson familycontinued active farming until 1960.)

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The officers of the Haig-K Aircraft Corporation (Haig Kurkjian, president;Toshiyuki Fukushima, vice president and treasurer; and George Hall, secretary)considered the facilities, terms, and future all favorable for Haig-K. In the win-ter of 1952, the firm moved its machining equipment, and the HK-1, to theAirport. The 6,000-square-feet main hangar would be used for repairs andmaintenance, with a portion adapted as a wind tunnel. The five adjacent "Tee"

hangars, totaling almost 6,000 additional square feet, were adapted asmachine shops.

Haig's son Dan Kurkjian recalls that the downstairs of the old farmhouse wasused for engineering offices, while the upstairs served, in the early years, asliving accommodations. During the early 1950's George Hall, the firm'ssecretary and one of its engineers, lived upstairs with his family. In 1960,when the Halls moved into a house in Malvern, the Kurkjian family actuallylived upstairs for a period.

When Haig-K moved to the Airport, the old barn, with the word PAOLIstillvisible on the roof, continued to be useful for equipment storage. All thatchanged on October 15, 1954 as Hurricane Hazel, one of the most destructivehurricanes ever to hit North America, blew ashore near the border betweenNorth and South Carolina. So fast was its movement inland that it reachedPennsylvania by that evening. Hazel's intensity and speed combined to pro-duce the highest sustained wind gusts ever officially recorded in the DelawareValley: 98-miles-per-hour. Power was knocked out to more than 80 percent ofarea homes, many for more than three days.

Among the casualties of the storm was the barn, so badly damaged by thewinds that Bethlehem Steel, concerned that the structure might collapse andkill someone, ordered its superstructure razed. The litter of beams and roofwere removed, leaving only the heavy stone walls remaining. The adjacentcarriage barn, where Wilford had kept his autogyro, fared better from the stormand remained useful as a garage for years to come.

And what about the HK-1? Kurkjian had developed a completely new rotorsystem that successfully eliminated the vibration problems evident in theearlier test flight. All were encouraged by the success, and the prophetic

words from the 1954 Haig-K Prospectus seemed to bode well for the firm'sfuture:

Because of the low initial cost and the inherent safety of such adesign, the field of private ownership appears most promising.The production of such a machine in a two place category . . .would open an entirely new vein in the helicopter market. The

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HK-1 . . . should be immediately competitive at the initial price of$11,000-$12,000, and a market leader when quantity productionpermits the figure to be cut in half.

(As a point of financial comparison, the comparable cost of a two-place Bell47D helicopter was $35,000.)

By 1957, after 9years of research andtesting, the HK-1became the world'sfirst helicopter tosuccessfully flyutilizing a multi-Veebelt drive for bothmain and tail rotors.

The HK-1 was able tohover for extendedperiods, and flewsuccessfully on manyoccasions at theAirport and throughthe Great Valley.

Regrettably, the HK-1proved to be a tech-nical rather than afinancial success.Haig-K Aircraft could

not acquire the millions of dollars of venture capital required to obtain flightcertification for their revolutionary new helicopter from the newly founded Fed-eral Aviation Agency (FAA). This was a crushing realization.

By 1959, Kurkjian decided that the only pragmatic course for Haig-K Aeronau-tics was to use their machine shops and their team of skilled draftsmen, engi-neers, machinists, and mechanics to create an engineering and research anddevelopment consulting business for use by other aviation companies andindividuals. The largest of these customers would be Bell Helicopters.

Arthur Young, the brilliant rotary-wing inventor who founded Bell Helicopters inthe early 1940s, continued to own a farm directly across Swedesford Roadfrom the Main Line Airport. Arthur maintained a very warm personal relation-ship with Haig Kurkjian. This personal trust, and the professional respectgenerated by Haig-K's development of an innovative variable diameter rotor

The HK-1, the world's first helicopter to fly utilizing a multi-Vee belt drive

for both the main and tail rotors, piloted by Haig Kurkjian over the MainLine Airport, 1957.

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used by Bell, resul-ted in Haig-K beinggranted status as anFAA approved repairstation for the BellModel 47 helicopter

during the period1963 through 1973.

The Bell 47 is one ofthe most famous heli-copters of all time;familiar even to thelayman in its KoreanWar "medivac" config-uration from the TV

series M*A*S*H.Haig-K was authorizedto complete any andall airframe and en-gine repairs at their

Looking southwest, the large hangar and "Tee" hangars serve the Haig-KAircraft Corporation in 1956. Remains of the old barn rise behind thelarge hangar. The Burroughs parking lot lies across Swedesford Road.

Main Line Airport facilit ies. They, in fact, built at least a half dozen Bell 47s"from scratch" at the Airport. (At the time, FAA regulations allowed an auth-orized station to salvage an aircraft identification tag from a wrecked helicop-ter and then build a new aircraft under the original identity.) On several occa-sions, Haig-K "scratch built" from the frame up, a brand new helicopter whose

official paper trail would show it to be a used aircraft. Under this perfectlylegitimate method, Haig-K was able to sell "new-used" helicopters to buyers ata price significantly lower than buying that same aircraft from the Bell factory.

The Final Chapter

By the 1960s, steelmaking technology was changing, and brutal competitionshifted the worldwide steel industry away from American dominance. One ofthe responses by American steel producers was to sell off their long-term lime-stone holdings to free up assets and generate cash. In June 1964, BethlehemSteel Company sold its properties in the Chester Valley, including the old Main

Line Airport, to Atlas Chemical Industries, Inc. of Wilmington, Delaware. How-ever, Atlas continued a passive ownership of the land, and Haig-K continuedwith "business as usual."

In 1972, the British company Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (ICI) acquiredAtlas and once again land ti tle passed. It was under ICI, however, that astrategy began to emerge for subdividing its Great Valley land holdings forcommercial development rather than for quarrying. In 1974, Rouse &

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Associates, later known as Liberty Property Trust, purchased the first 650acres of what would become the Great Valley Corporate Center.

In 1976, Haig's son Dan Kurkjian, an experienced pilot and flight instructor,became the last person to fly an aircraft at the Main Line Airport. As part of aBicentennial celebration at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, former site of

Harold Pitcairn's helicopter plant, Dan flew an "Air and Space" Model 18Aautogiro over Willow Grove Naval Air Station and then flew it back to the Airportin Paoli.

During its 25 years of occupancy at the Main Line Airport, Haig-K had sub-leased portions of the 12,000-square-feet of building space to generateadditional cash flow for the business. A portion of the main hangar had beensublet to a small auto body shop. In 1977, sparks from an acetylene torchignited what became a conflagration that totally destroyed the hangar. Thetrauma to Haig-K was devastating, as all the equipment and assets within, even

the original HK-1, were irretrievably lost. This tragic incident, coupled with theloss by fire three years before of three of the "Tee" hangars, brought an end toHaig-K's use of the old Airport. The company abandoned the land completelythe following year. Haig Kurkjian would die of cancer in 1981 at the age of 62.

In 1978, the same year that Haig-K Aircraft finally departed the Great Valley, acompany called Shared Medical Systems (SMS) broke ground for a large datacenter, with a corporate headquarters to follow two years later. SMS was oneof the first occupants of the many to follow in the Great Valley CorporateCenter. It is ironic that those SMS (now Siemens) buildings today sit almost

precisely at the juncture where the fixed-wing runways of the old Main LineAirport intersected.

In October 2001, citing low steel demand and competition from imports, theformer steel colossus, Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the firm that had orches-trated the purchase of the Main Line Airport in 1950, filed for protection underChapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. As of this writing, total liquidation is inprocess. Nothing remains constant.

Today, only that single tree stands to give us a reminder of the daring and

resourceful men and women who "pushed the envelope" of their dreams, andthe story of flight itself. They, and the Main Line Airport, must not be forgotten!

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND FOOTNOTES

In preparing this narrative 1 received unstinting assistance from several individuals to whom Iwish to express my gratitude for their ideas, information, photographs and encouragement:

Richard and Robert Devaney. Interviews in Malvern, Pennsylvania by the author overthe period July 2 to September 14, 2002, as well as frequent e-mail correspondence

concerning their perspectives and little-known facts about their father, CharlesDevaney, president of Demorr Aeronautical Corporation, and the Main Line Airport andthe surrounding land during the period 1916-52. They were vital to this project.

Mary Robertson Ives. Letters to the author dated June 11 and August 16, 2002concerning her recollections of living on the Robertson farm located near the Main LineAirport.

Daniel Kurkjian. Interviews in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania by the author over theperiod July 8 to September 20, 2002, and frequent e-mail correspondence. Dan sharedhis invaluable recollections about his father, Haig Kurkjian, president of Haig-K AircraftCorporation, the Airport during the period 1952-78, and simplified concepts and

nuances of rotary-wing flight.

James Lear and Isador Isakoff. Volunteers in the Archives Division of the AmericanHelicopter Museum and Education Center, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Theycontributed many anecdotes of rotary-wing history that provided a clearer context inwhich to place the many significant rotary-wing events at the Main Line Airport.

Other references are acknowledged as follows:

Tredyffrin-Easttown History Club Quarterly,v. XV, #4, "Berwyn Around 1920," October 1970.

Malvern's 50th Anniversary Book, 1939. The Main Line Airport.

Curtiss-Wright History - The Spirit of Innovation;http://www.curtisswright.com/history/Default.asp

Franklin Fact Archive, Monday October 16 - Hurricane Hazel;http://www.whyy.org/tvl2/franklinfacts/octl600ff.html

Richard S. Tipton, Arthur Young, Maker of the Bell;http://www.arthuryoung.com/makerl.HTML

Wilford WRK Gyroplane, 1931; http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/wilford-r.html

Haig-K Aircraft Corporation Prospectus, 1954, as viewed in its entirety at the AmericanHelicopter Museum.

"Personalities in the Helicopter Industry. . . . Presenting E. Burke Wilford." American Helicopter(July 1949), 18-20.

Obituaries:E. Burke Wilford, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1983.Nicholas W. Morris, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1991.

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Dominick Pisano, To Fill the Skies with Pilots: The Civilian Pilot Training Program, 1939-1949

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).

Frank K. Smith and James P. Harrington, Aviation and Pennsylvania(Philadelphia: The Franklin

Institute Press, 1981).

Chester County Recorder of Deeds Archive, West Chester, Pennsylvania. A complete deed

audit for the Philadelphia-Main Line Airport and the Main Line Airport for the period 1929-1950, conducted September 10, 2002.

Bloomberg News Service, June 7, 2002. "Bethlehem Steel Corp. Delisted from New York Stock

Exchange."

Chester County Historical Society. Library. Newspaper clipping files . (West Chester, Penn-

sylvania).

Taken from a biplane, and facing north across Swedesford Road, theMain Line Airport as it appeared in the summer of 1939.

Philadelphia Main Line Airport History

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Transcript of Philadelphia Main Line Airport History