Donald Beatty facts for kids

Donald Croom Beatty (born April 11, 1900 – died July 12, 1980) was an amazing American who loved to fly, explore, and invent new things. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

Even as a teenager, Donald Beatty was an adventurer. When he was just 16, he built his own small airplane using a motorcycle engine! He flew it by himself near Tarrant, Alabama in 1916, but it ended with a crash landing. Not long after, he designed and built a submarine that he powered by hand, which he tested in Edgewood Lake in Homewood, Alabama.

After studying at Marion Military Institute for a year, Donald Beatty joined the United States Navy when he was 17. He went to Navy Radio School at Harvard University. In 1919, a company called United Fruit Company hired him. His job was to build and set up wireless radio equipment for their ships in Asia. It's said that he built the very first voice radio station in mainland China during this time!

Early Days in Alabama: Flying and Radio

After his adventures in Asia, Donald Beatty came back to Alabama. In 1919, he joined James Meissner and other pilots to start the "Birmingham Flying Club." They even had their own airfield called "Roberts Field." This group later became the 135th Observation Squadron in 1922. This was Alabama's very first Air National Guard unit! Beatty became a military pilot at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama and became a 1st Lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps in 1924.

In 1921, Beatty built Alabama's first experimental voice radio station. It was called WIAG and was located in the Matthews Electric building. He used this station to send weather reports to pilots. He even had his flying student, Mary Alice Gatling, play the piano live on the radio! This was probably the first live music broadcast in Alabama. Beatty also invented an improved radio circuit for the station, which earned him his first U.S. patent in 1922.

Exploring South America: The Amazon Expedition

In 1929, Beatty planned a big trip: flying to South America for trade. He found investors from Birmingham and New Orleans, Louisiana. He would be the pilot and leader, with a co-pilot, a navigator, and a reporter to write about their journey. However, the famous Wall Street Crash of 1929 stopped these plans.

But Donald Beatty didn't give up! In 1931, he restarted his dream of exploring South America. This time, he added the exciting goal of exploring the deep parts of the continent. He got help from important groups like the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. He even got money from a famous banker, J. P. Morgan. With $25,000, he and his wife celebrated the naming of their special amphibious airplane, the "Simon Bolivar," in New York City in October 1931.

The expedition faced many challenges in the jungle. They carefully moved through different tribal areas in Ecuador. They were the first to take photos and movies of the native Jivaro (Shuar) people, who were known for their unique traditions. There was a misunderstanding when the team wanted to record the shrinking of a Howler monkey head. To their shock, they saw the process done on the head of their former helper, Sunga. Beatty sometimes used his radio, and Stirling used chemicals to impress or scare the local people. Eventually, the team traveled down the Amazon River on rafts.

Besides their photos, the expedition collected many interesting items and live animals. Beatty even sent a "tiger cub" (which was actually a jaguar) to his 6-year-old daughter! This cub later went to the Birmingham Zoo at Avondale Park. Because of the expedition's success, Beatty became a "fellow" of both The Explorers Club in New York and the Royal Geographical Society.

Flying High with Panagra

Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra) hired Beatty to find a plane that had crashed in the Andes Mountains. He flew a Fairchild 71 plane hundreds of times over the mountains, even wearing an early type of pressurized flight suit. The crash site was covered in snow and was only found later by local people after a very warm summer.

Even though he didn't find the plane, Beatty's experience helped him a lot. He recorded detailed information about the mountains and flights. This allowed him to create new air routes and safety rules for commercial flights over mountains. He started the first system for pilots to talk to people on the ground. His idea for pilots to report their location every 5 minutes became very popular and saved many lives. He also suggested changing flight routes depending on the season to avoid bad weather. This made flying in mountainous areas much safer.

In 1933, Beatty was flying a Panagra passenger plane from Santiago, Chile through the Uspallata Pass. Suddenly, a strong wind (called Clear-air turbulence) pushed the plane very high, above 26,000 feet! This set a new altitude record for a passenger flight in a plane without a pressurized cabin. Passengers and crew used oxygen masks. When the flight took longer than expected, oxygen was saved for the crew, and passengers lost consciousness. Today, this pass is sometimes called "Beatty Pass" because of his important work in developing the route.

In 1935, Beatty flew a Sikorsky S-43 plane and set a speed record for a flight between the United States and the Panama Canal Zone.

In 1938, Beatty had to land a Panagra amphibious plane in the Pacific Ocean. His equipment was damaged by a lightning strike. He landed safely and dropped anchor. After getting fuel and supplies from another seaplane, he managed to take off again in the rough ocean and finish his flight!

Working for the Government and Consairway

In 1939, Beatty returned to the United States. He was appointed as a Senior Air Safety Investigator for the Civil Aeronautics Authority. He worked in Santa Monica, California and investigated all non-military plane accidents in the western states.

Before World War II, Beatty accepted a job with Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego, California. He was in charge of testing and delivering planes all over the world. In 1941, he created a program called "Consairway" to fly planes between California and Australia. Thanks to Beatty's safety rules, this civilian-crewed program had no losses, even though they flew hundreds of times over areas controlled by the enemy. Consairway grew quickly and became a major operation that delivered flight crews and supplies to war zones. Beatty also invented a way to use air pressure readings to adjust flight paths over the Pacific Ocean, which is now a standard way to save fuel. His training for pilots, based on his experience in mountains, was very important in the Pacific war. This was because flying over the Himalayas was the only way to get supplies into China.

Meanwhile, Beatty moved to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. There, he oversaw the changes made to Consolidated's aircraft before they were leased to European countries. To speed up the process for the Royal Air Force, he set up a Convair flight crew training center in Bermuda.

In 1944, Beatty started working for the Platt-LePage Aircraft Company in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. He helped with the top-secret development of the XR-1 dual-rotor helicopter. This was the first helicopter used by the United States Air Force.

Amazing Inventions of the 1940s

As his work at Platt-LePage slowed down, Beatty focused on getting patents for many new inventions. Most of these were about electronic circuits for communication. However, his first invention to be sold was a new type of highway sign. These signs would show how far you had traveled and how long it would take to reach the next city. These "Minute Maps" were used on several roads in Alabama and the mid-Atlantic states.

Beatty was also awarded the first patent for a special circuit that allowed people to leave messages when phone calls weren't answered. This device used a wire recorder and was called the "Tele-Mat" telecorder. It was sold for $250 by the Pentron Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. Pentron was a big producer of audio tape recorders for popular brands like Montgomery Ward and Sears. Beatty also invented other phone-related devices, like the first automatic dialer and a hands-free telephone set.

Beatty is also known as one of the first people to use barometric route selecting. This is a more efficient way for planes to navigate long flights over water by using air pressure readings.

Hayes and GAALT: Improving Communication

In 1951, Beatty became the very first employee of Birmingham's Hayes Aircraft Corporation. By 1958, he was in charge of the company's research and development for electronic equipment. While there, he patented the "Gain-Adjusting Audio Level Terminator" (GAALT). This was a special electronic amplifier that made electronic communications clearer by improving the Signal-to-noise ratio.

The GAALT device became very popular. It was even used on the Kennedy Presidential Train! NASA used it for the Echo 1 communications satellite, which was launched in 1960. Since then, it has been used in many different orbiting and ground-based communication devices. The Alabama Power Company even used Beatty's technology to send company signals through their power lines, so they didn't need separate telephone lines. This was similar to how they had used Beatty's radio station earlier!

Later Life and Honors

Donald Beatty retired to his home in Mountain Brook, Alabama. His home was filled with amazing items from his Amazonian expedition and other memories from his flying and exploring days. In 1973, the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers named him their "Man of the Year." In 1975, an architect named Fritz Woehle was allowed to recreate Beatty's living room for an exhibit at the Birmingham Festival of Arts, which was celebrating Brazil.

In 1978, Donald and his wife decided to donate their collection of nearly 300 Jivaro artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution. Before this, the Smithsonian only had a small collection of items from Stirling's part of the 1930s expedition. Because of this generous donation, the couple received the James Smithson Medal, which is the Smithsonian's highest honor!

Donald Beatty had a stroke on his 80th birthday and passed away three months later, on July 12, 1980, in Birmingham. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.

Beatty was honored for his achievements after his death. He was inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame at the Southern Museum of Flight in 1982. In 1992, he was also inducted into the Alabama Men's Hall of Fame.

Patents

• Beatty, Donald C. (September 17, 1945) "Road sign with location indicator." Patent No. 2,492,679 granted December 27, 1949
• Beatty, Donald C. (July 23, 1948) "Apparatus for delivering and receiving telephone messages." Patent No. 2,525,763 granted October 17, 1950
• Beatty, Donald C. (March 4, 1949) "Apparatus for delivering and receiving telephone messages." Patent No. 2,539,565 granted January 30, 1951
• Beatty, Donald C. (February 9, 1954) "Sound amplifying apparatus for telephone circuits." Patent No. 2,786,099 granted March 19, 1957
• Beatty, Donald C. (January 27, 1956) "Sound amplifying apparatus for telephone and like circuits." Patent No. 2,826,636 granted March 11, 1958
• Beatty, Donald C. (June 10, 1958) "Automatic, circuit-condition-change-responsive, on-off control for loudspeaking telephone and the like." Patent No. 3,041,411 granted June 26, 1962
• Beatty, Donald C. (August 2, 1961) "Gain-adjusting audio level terminator." Patent No. 3,182,137 granted May 4, 1965
• Beatty, Donald C. (November 6, 1963) "Self-regulating compression amplifier." Patent No. 3,275,946 granted September 27, 1966