Henry Hope Wong

Henry Hope Wong was an early Chinese-American aviator from Portland, Oregon. At the age of 19, he designed, built and flew his own plane.

Wong was born in Portland, Oregon in 1900. He grew up at 246 Jefferson and First Street. His father, Wong Fook On, was a Chinese immigrant who used the name William Hope in dealings with white Americans. In later documents, Wong Fook On was often referred to as William Hope Wong.

At the age of sixteen, Wong enrolled in the Beam School of Aviation in Celina, Ohio. He made his first flight after less than two months of school, reaching an altitude of 5,827 feet. He claimed to have had only one accident in training, when a ground wire broke as he was preparing to take off and caused the plane to flip over. He returned to Portland in the fall of 1917 and began building the plane in his parents' house. "Because of this, he said, Wong was obliged to rise before he had attained enough headway on the ground, climbed at a 45-degree angle and found he had insufficient power to keep going on such an abrupt ascent. The machine struck directly on its running gear, said Cheadle, bending the axle and causing the fusilage to break in two when the momentum doubled over the plane's tail."