John Joseph Montgomery (February 15, 1858 – October 31, 1911) was an American aviation pioneer, inventor, and professor at Santa Clara College in Santa Clara, California.
In 1884 he made the first manned, controlled, heavier-than-air flights in the United States, in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, California (after European pioneers such as those of George Cayley's coachman in 1853 and Jean-Marie Le Bris in 1856).
In 1893 Montgomery visited the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where he met Octave Chanute, who was chairing a conference on "Aerial Navigation". Montgomery presented a paper to the conference, Discussions on the Various Papers on Soaring Flight Following this meeting, Chanute included Montgomery's account of his earlier experiments in Progress in Flying Machines.
In 1905, Montgomery's pilot Daniel Maloney made several successful flights in the vicinity of Aptos, California and Santa Clara, California using a tandem wing Montgomery glider launched from a hot air balloon, but was killed on July 18, 1905 when the aircraft suffered a structural failure. John Montgomery filed for patent on April 26, 1905 (issued U.S. Patent #831,173 on September 18, 1906) for his invention of an aeroplane. He was a member of the Aero Club of Illinois (1910) and member of the research committee of the Technical Board of the Aeronautical Society of New York (1911).
Montgomery died in the crash of his glider "The Evergreen" on October 31, 1911 near Evergreen, California just east of San Jose, California and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California on November 3, 1911.
In 1946, John J. Montgomery's life was portrayed in the movie Gallant Journey starring Glenn Ford and Janet Blair, and directed by William Wellman. The chief pilot for the movie was Paul Mantz. The movie debuted in San Diego, California.
Read more about John Joseph Montgomery: Recognition and Honors
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