Robert Edison Fulton, Jr.

Robert Edison Fulton Jr. (April 15, 1909 – May 7, 2004) was an American inventor and adventurer. He is known for having traveled around the world on a motorcycle in 1932–33, authored a book and made a film about his journey, and for several aviation-related inventions, among his 70 patents. Fulton was also a professional photographer.

Biography Fulton was born in Manhattan, New York, on April 15, 1909, and named after Thomas Edison, who was a friend of his father, Robert Edison Fulton Sr., a president of Mack Trucks. His maternal grandfather, Ezra Johnson Travis, ran stagecoach lines across the old west after the Civil War, and his uncle, Elgin Travis, who took them over from his father, eventually converted the stagecoach routes into bus lines, which became Greyhound Bus Line. As a teenager, he was in the elite when he traveled by commercial aircraft from Miami, Florida, US to Havana, Cuba, in 1921, and then to Egypt when Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1923. He attended middle school at Le Rosey in Lausanne, Switzerland, for two years, then went to Exeter and Choate, graduated with a degree in architecture from Harvard in 1931, and spent a further year of architectural study in Vienna at the University of Vienna. At age 23, he traveled 25,000 miles (from London to Tokyo in 18 months) on a twin-cylinder Douglas H32 Mastif motorcycle to study architecture around the world. Along the way, he shot 40,000 feet of film of his travels, over the 18-month period.

Upon his return, he detailed his adventures in a book, One Man Caravan, telling of almost being shot at in the Khyber Pass by Pathan (Pashtun) tribesmen, avoiding Iraqi bandits, spending a night in a Turkish jail, and being a guest of Indian rajahs. He went on a lecture tour of the United States, showing his film footage and telling of his journeys. In 1983, he produced, edited, and released, with his filmmaking sons, a 90-minute film compiled from his home movies, The One Man Caravan of Robert E. Fulton Jr. An Autofilmography. Later in life, he revisited his motorcycle journey in another film program retelling of the epic trip, "Twice Upon A Caravan."

He then went to work for Pan American Airways, using his skills in cinematography to document the creation of Pan American Clipper (flying boat) air routes across the Pacific Ocean, just prior to World War II. He then formed a company to manufacture aeronautical equipment, Continental Inc. It was used by the United States Air Force until 1996. A sister invention for Navy frogmen was called Seasled.