Dates

• Existence: 1875 - 1960

Biographical Note: Roy Knabenshue

Augustus Roy Knabenshue was an early balloonist and aviator.

Knabenshue was born in 1875 in Lancaster, Ohio. In 1904, during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, he piloted Thomas Scott Baldwin's California Arrow dirigible to 2,000 feet and returned to the takeoff point. Then, in 1905, he was the first to make a dirigible flight over New York City in 1905 in the Toldedo II. In 1913 he built the first passenger dirigible in America: White City.

As public interest grew in airplanes, he began working for the Wright Brothers as the manager of their exhibition team. He later worked for the National Park Service. He died in California in 1960.

Gender

• male

Occupations

• Air pilots