Dates

• Existence: 1881 - 1912

Biographical Note: Arthur L. Welsh

Arthur L. Welsh was an early aviator who flew with the Wright Exhibition Team.

Welsh was born on August 14, 1881, as Laibel Welcher in Kiev, Ukraine. His family immigrated to Philadelphia, Pensylvania in 1890 and later he went to live in Washington, D.C. He joined the U.S. Navy at 20 years old, at which point he Anglicized his named.

After seeing a flight demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia, he applied to work with the Wright Brothers. He was not hired immediately but was eventually given a position with their exhibition team. After training, he helped establish a flight school at Huffman Prairie, in Dayton, Ohio and worked as a flight instructor. In 1912 he went to work as a test pilot for the War Department.

Welsh died in a crash on June 11, 1912 in a crash. He was piloting a Wright Model C with Leighton Wilson Hazelhurst, Jr. as a passenger at the United States Army Aviation School in College Park, Maryland. They were performing a climbing test but the plane pitched on a turn and fell and while both men ejected both received fatal injuries.

Gender

• male

Occupations

• Air pilots