Floyd H. Nolta

Floyd Harrison “Speed” Nolta (February 24, 1900 - July 26, 1974) was an accomplished American pilot who developed a method of sowing rice seed from an airplane, and later invented the first successful method of dropping water from an airplane for fighting forest fires. He served as an Army airplane mechanic during World War 1 and returned to serve as a pilot in the Army Air Forces during World War 2. He was a stunt pilot in Hollywood and a civic leader in Willows, California.

Early life Floyd Harrison Nolta, born February 24, 1900, in Oakland, Oregon, was the second of ten children born to George Lelvin Nolta and Arizona "Zona" Rees. George Nolta worked a variety of jobs and the family frequently moved around Oregon. Floyd Nolta completed three years of high school. By 1918 the family had moved to Willows. George Nolta's mother had lived in Monroeville, California in Colusa County, California in 1862. That area of Colusa County became part of Glenn County when Colusa County was divided in 1891.

World War I In September 1918, Nolta was living in Willows and working as a garage mechanic when he registered for the draft.

Nolta enlisted in the Army on November 4, 1918, and was sent to the Signal Corps Aviation School at Rockwell Field in Coronado, California. The Army put Nolta's mechanic skills to use as an aircraft mechanic for the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” airplanes being used to train pilots. One of the instructor pilots was Second Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle. According to family lore, it was Doolittle who gave Nolta his first airplane ride and may have also given him his first flight lesson. After serving together, Nolta and Doolittle remained life-long friends and Doolittle often visited Willows to hunt with Floyd and his brother, Dale.

Nolta mustered out of the Army on March 27, 1919 and returned to his job as a mechanic in Willows. In 1926 he married Jesse Claire Pritchett (b. 1901, Georgia), a graduate of Humboldt State Normal School. Jesse worked as a teacher in schools in Glenn County.

Aviation pioneer

Nolta completed his flying lessons during the early 1920s. Growing rice in the Sacramento Valley began in 1912 and it quickly became a major crop on both sides of the Sacramento River. Planting rice seed was a slow, labor-intensive job until Nolta invented a way of sowing the rice seed from an airplane. There is no known surviving record of the exact year but it may have been in 1928 when the first air strip was built in Willows on the location that is now the Glenn Medical Center. In his biography of his uncle, George Nolta wrote that Floyd seeded the Garnett Black property south of Willows in 1928 and that he sowed 8,000 acres that season.

The original airport in Willows was replaced in 1929 when the U.S. Department of Commerce built the Willows-Glenn County Airport as an Intermediate Landing Field as part of the Seattle-Los Angeles Contracted Air Mail Route. The Department of Commerce Airways Division appointed Nolta as the manager of the new airport. On April 17, 1930 Nolta was sworn in as a special deputy to serve as Glenn County’s first flying officer. Each county appointed a flying officer to enforce aviation laws in the era before they came under federal jurisdiction.

Nolta was very involved in the Willows community serving on the boards and as an officer of the American Legion Baseball league, the Achaean Club of the Sacramento Valley, the American Legion Post and semi-pro football and baseball leagues. Nolta was one of the civic leaders who raised funds through the American Legion and the Achaean Club to purchase the Willows Airport from the Department of Commerce in 1932. Nolta continued as the manager of the airport and his Willows Flying Service occupied the first hangar to be built. Nolta staged annual air shows which became the largest ones in Northern California. As other ag flying services were based at the airport it became the busiest airport in Northern California other than those with commercial flights.

Nolta received national attention for his agricultural flying and inquiries arrived from around the world seeking his help. During this production, M.G.M. sent a letter to the Screen Actors Guild asking that Nolta be enrolled in the Guild.

One of the lasting mementos of Nolta’s time as a stunt pilot is a group photo taken when the Associated Motion Picture Pilots presented a trophy to Captain Chuck Yeager in 1947 after he broke the sound barrier. Nolta is in the picture along with other notable pilots including Yeager, Paul Mantz, Kirk Kerkorian (who later became a very successful businessman ), and Florence “Pancho” Barnes. Nolta had a membership card, dated in 1948 and signed by Pancho Barnes showing that he was a member of Happy Bottom Riding Club. Nolta’s membership may have been the result of his connection with Jimmy Doolittle as he, and Barnes, were good friends.

Aerial fire fighting

Floyd and his family moved back to Willows sometime around 1953 where he rejoined the family’s Willows Flying Service which was then located on their own land, four miles north of Willows, near Artois.

In 1955 Joseph Bolles Ely, the Fire Control Officer for the Mendocino National Forest asked Nolta if he could perfect a way to make controlled drops of water on forest fires. There had been many attempts since the 1920s to find a way to do so but none had resulted in an accepted method. Nolta said to come back in a week. Similar to his invention twenty-five years earlier in sowing rice seed, he place a 170-gallon tank in the front cockpit of his Boeing-Stearman Model 75 bi-plane. He added an added a gate with hinges and a snap, and a pull rope, below the fuselage which was controlled from the cockpit.

A week later Al Edwards, the Mendocino NF warehouseman, went to Nolta’s airstrip. Vance Nolta flew the plane while Edwards and Floyd lit the dry grass along the airstrip on fire. Ely later wrote, “…Vance came over low and pulled the rope and put out the fire. The air tanker was born.”

The Noltas did water drops on fires in the Mendocino NF during the 1955 season. Their success led Ely to form the Mendocino Air Tanker Squad in 1956. The squadron, based at the Willows-Glenn County Airport, consisted for a local ag pilots flying Stearman and N3N bi-planes. They assisted on fires throughout the state and the unit was expanded the next year. Other agencies began to contract pilots on their own. The use of aircraft to drop water and retardant quickly became a valuable tool for fighting wild lands fire all over the world thanks to the innovation of Floyd Nolta.

The Willows Flying Service had 18 planes in 1956, including seven for seeding. It continued to thrive through the 1960s but then it began to diminish as the older Noltas could no longer fly and the business passed in and out of the hands of family members. It was finally dissolved in 2004 but the name is still owned by Dale Nolta’s son, Gregg. His son, Chris, is a third generation ag pilot based in Corcoran, California.

Death

Floyd Nolta died in Willows on July 26, 1974, and he is buried in the local cemetery. As his nephew, George Nolta wrote in his biography, “Floyd’s career was a classic Horatio Alger story - poor boy makes good. He led a charmed life - flew with movie stars, partied with generals, and introduced many people to the joys of aviation, and set a few historical records along the way. He retained his roots in Willows, and left a long line of admiring friends and relatives.”