Johnny Miller

John MacDonald Miller (15 December 1905 − 23 June 2008) was a barnstorming pilot, the first person to make a US transcontinental flight in a rotorcraft, the first to land a rotorcraft on the roof of a building, and the first to fly a scheduled US mail rotorcraft service. He was also a test pilot and airline captain. He became the oldest active pilot in the US, making his first flight on his 18th birthday and ending at the age of 101. He died aged 102.

Early life John Miller was the first child of Theodore and Florence MacDonald Miller of Poughkeepsie, New York. He had a sister, photo-reporter Elizabeth "Lee" and brother, Erik. Theodore Miller was the manager of the De Laval Cream Separator Company, one of the largest businesses in the area, and Johnny attended a local preparatory school, Oakwood Friends School. In 1915 Miller met and talked to famous aviator Ruth Law and sat in the cockpit of her Wright Model B aircraft. He studied Horatio Barber's flying instruction book Aerobatics given to him by an uncle.

Miller took his first flight in a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny in the summer of 1922 at Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Barnstorming In 1923 a barnstorming pilot, Sloan "Swanee" Taylor, gave pleasure flights in a decrepit Jenny from a field near his home, and the 17-year-old Miller, who was working in a machine shop during school holidays, helped him with maintenance and repairs. The aircraft was actually the Canadian version of the Jenny, a Canuck, but was modified with larger wings, giving slower take-offs and landings. It was previously owned by Ruth Law, and had a brand new engine. At the end of the season, Taylor gave Miller a 5-minute ride, then gave him the Jenny, saying that it would be cheaper to buy a new aircraft rather than repair this one. After doing a lot of repairs to it himself, Miller practised on the ground for a few weeks, and on his 18th birthday found himself rapidly approaching a stone wall, so rather than crashing into it, he applied more power and took off. After around an hour's flying, exploring the effect of the controls, he eventually managed a reasonable landing, whereupon a local farmer who had been watching him, asked him if he gave rides. Miller said yes, and took him up for a handful of change, and on landing two other passers-by asked for rides, which he also did, charging $5 a flight, the amount painted on the side of the aircraft. Miller did some more pleasure flights, then at Christmas he took it to a local barn and with the help of friends did extensive repairs. By the summer of 1924 he had finished, did more flights, mainly with the friends, and then sold it before starting college. with the Curtiss School of Flight at Mineola, Long Island, New York, and did more barnstorming and pleasure flights with his four-passenger Standard J-1 which he had rebuilt over six months from a near-wreck. He started air racing in a Travel Air 2000.

In 1927 the mayor of Poughkeepsie, John Kelsey Sague (later to become Miller's father-in-law), established Poughkeepsie Airport at Red Oaks Mill to the south-east of the town, which in 1931 Miller took over and ran. He established his company, Giro Flyers Ltd in the hangar there. His main business was repair and maintenance of the aircraft, many of them New Standard models, used by bootleggers to bring alcohol in from Canada. Miller's interest in this lucrative business carried on until the end of prohibition in 1933, but the airport carried on until it was closed in 1938.efn-ua|It was here that a young Cole Palen first became interested in aviation, taking his first aircraft ride in 1935. Its fuselage had been damaged when Anthony Fokker wrecked a line of parked aircraft while landing his Express aircraft at Teterboro Airport. Miller rebuilt it with a Wright J-5 engine, turning it into a D-25.

Miller took delivery of his new machine, a black PCA-2 c/n B-13, on 12 May 1931. Two days later, on 14 May, he transferred it to his newly formed company, Giro Flyers, Ltd. On the same day he set off from Willow Grove Miller and his passenger were unharmed, but the Curtiss pilot, his friend Al Wilson, died two days later of his injuries. The autogyro was damaged and was grounded for 27 days waiting for new rotors and a rudder.

On 26 January 1934 he was banner-towing in the PCA-2. He took off from Newark for a flight around Manhattan. The engine stopped over North Arlington, New Jersey and he landed safely in a cemetery, Other test pilots had declined to fly it, fearing for the safety of the aircraft, but Miller, thoroughly understanding the principles involved, was convinced that the radical new design would be safe, and accepted Kellett's offer. The testing went well, Miller even becoming the first pilot to dive an autogyro – the advancing rotors went near-supersonic and caused severe problems for Miller, but he survived, shaken but unscathed, and the aircraft sustained only minor damage, mainly to the rotor blades. The inspector who had asked for this test then declined to pass the aircraft but Miller told him that any aircraft subject to that level of abuse where it and the pilot both survived was obviously worthy of a certificate, and the inspector agreed. Kellett then designed a new version, the KD-1B, with a canopy enclosing the rear, pilot's seat, a radio, blind-flying instruments, a landing light and other changes to Eastern's requirements.

The Eastern Air Lines mail service, no AM2001, started on 6 June 1939. at their Valley Stream plant on Long Island. when they bought their own helicopter. He tried to interest a local hospital in getting a heliport, but they didn't like the idea, and he then retired from commercial aviation. He was also a member of the United Flying Octogenarians club (UFO), and a Charter member of the Quiet Birdmen.

In 2001, the 70th anniversary of his transcontinental autogyro flight, he made the trip again, now aged 94, in his Bonanza. A more leisurely affair, he stopped off at the EAA AirVenture show at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and various other places. and reached his target, Gillespie Field outside San Diego. The return trip involved just two fuel stops, and the whole journey took 35.5 hours of flying.

He continued to fly his Bonanza and latterly a Turbo Baron from Poughkeepsie until he finally gave up his license in 2006. For a few years before this the FAA insisted that he flew with a safety pilot, but Miller gave them strict instructions to never touch the controls. He had been the US's oldest pilot.

He wrote a book called Flying Stories: A Chronicle of Aviation History from Jennys to Jets by the Pilot Who Flew Through It All, published in 2002.

In the 1960s he started cross-dressing, adopting the persona of Felicity Chandelle. He was arrested in New York City in March 1964, charged with vagrancy and being disguised in public. His sentence was two days imprisonment, suspended. Appeals were rejected by both the New York Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court. Eastern Airlines subsequently fired Miller for having 'signalled homosexuality'.

Miller claimed never to have consumed alcohol, coffee or tobacco, and never took prescription drugs, except in his final days. He ate a lot of fruit and seafood, and never had butter on his bread, asking “Who the hell needs a lubricant to eat bread? Chew it.” He exercised through hill walking.

Johnny Miller died on 23 June 2008, aged 102, of natural causes at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Poughkeepsie. His last words, to his nephew, were "I guess my flying days are over". He had requested that his body be donated to medical research through the Anatomy Gifts Registry.

Footnotes