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Pioneering Carbon County aviator Jake Arner “barnstormed” on a single engine, open cockpit biplane, similar to the OX-5 Bird behind him in the photo. After stunt flying over an area, he would land and offer plane rides for a penny-a-pound.
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Byron Arner operates the flying school and charter service at the Jake Arner Memorial Airport in Lehighton. Jake Arner headed the airport authority that built the current airport. Jake and his son, Byron, operated the airport for 25 years ending in 1998.
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Jensen Aircraft (courtesy Byron Arner. Photo credit Jake Arner) Martin Jensen began an airplane manufacturing company at the site of the former Lehighton Fairgrounds in 1928. He completed two trainers before the stock market crash closed the business.
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FairgroundsAirfield (courtesy Byron Arner) The Lehighton Fairgrounds (the current home of the Lehighton High School) attracted flyers to use the center of the horseracing track as a runway. Martin Jensen built an airplane factory there. A permanent airstrip was built southwest of the racetrack.
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A screen shot from Microsoft “Flight Simulator 2004 – A Century of Flight.” The illustration shows a Curtiss JV-4D “Jenny” used in the airmail flight from Long Island through Lehighton and on, eventually terminating in San Francisco.
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One hundred years ago, the Wright brothers soared in the first successful heaver than air machine. Today armchair pilots can relive those early days of flight on their desktop computers using a flight simulation program.
Microsoft “Flight Simulator 2004 – A Century of Flight” allows people to recreate the flights of the aircraft pioneers and the early planes—Wright Flyer, Ford Trimotor, and the Curtiss JV-4D “Jenny” used in the airmail flight from Long Island through Lehighton and on, eventually terminating in San Francisco.
Why Lehighton? It turns out that in the 1920s, the aircraft had a reliable range of less than 200 miles. In plotting a route for the early pilots, the route planners looked for places along the first leg, from Long Island to Bellefonte to Cleveland to Chicago that were roughly 100 miles apart, had a suitable landing area, and with existing services for aircraft.
Do You Know the Way to Bellefonte?
In 1921, the United Sates Post Office issued the following directions to its pilots of the Air Mail Service.
“Mile 0.” Hazelhurst Field, Long Island. - - Follow the tracks of the Long Island Railroad past Belmont Park- racetrack, keeping Jamaica on the left. Cross New York over the lower end of Central Park.
“Mile 25.” Newark, N.J. - Heller Field is located in Newark and may be identified as follows: The field is 1-1/4 miles west of the Passaic River and lies in the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad. The Morris Canal bounds the western edge of the field. The roof of the large steel hanger is painted an orange color.
The directions go on to describe, “Orange Mountains,” Morristown, Lake Hopatcong, Budd Lake, and Belvedere, N. J. and then go into Pennsylvania.
“Mile 111.” Lehighton, Pa.---Directly on course. The Lehigh Valley and Central Railroad of N.J. running parallel pass three miles through Lehighton. The Lehigh River runs between the railroads at this point. Lehighton is approximately half way between Hazlehurst and Bellefonte. A fair sized elliptical race track lies just southwest of town but a larger and better emergency landing field lies about 100 yards west of the racetrack. The field is very long and lies in a north south direction.
The directions to complete the first leg continue through Mauch Chunk, along the Central Railroad of New Jersey, along the Catawissa Mountain Range, Sunbury, Lewisburg, New Berlin, Millheim, and on to Bellefonte.
In Lehighton, the directions refer to the “fair sized elliptical race track.” This is currently the location of the Lehighton High School. In the early 1900s, it was a horse racing track at the site of the Lehighton Fair. Early flyers used the center of the racetrack as a landing strip. As interest in aviation increased, the first Lehighton Airport was built just southwest of the racetrack. This airstrip was used by the first cross county mail planes.
Early Airmail Service
After Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled power-driven flight on December 17, 1903, they kept their invention secret as they continued to refine the design. In 1906, they received a patent for the airplane.
In 1905, the Wright brothers offered their discoveries to the War Department and, on three separate occasions, were refused. Meanwhile, by 1908 flying was becoming popular in Europe.
The Post Office Department was intrigued with the possibility of carrying mail through the skies and authorized its first experimental mail flight in 1911 between Garden City and Mineola, New York. Soon after, the Department authorized 52 experimental flights at fairs, carnivals, and air meets in more than 25 states.
These flights convinced Congress to appropriate $50,000 to launch airmail service in 1916 and, in 1918, appropriated $100,000 to establish experimental airmail routes.
On May 15, 1918, the Post Office Department began scheduled airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C., using Army Signal Corps planes and pilots. Three months later, the Post Office switched to civilian pilots and ordered specially-built mail planes.
Pilots flew single engine, open cockpit biplanes in this original service. They had no lights and few instruments. Flights were by daylight in good weather because the pilots had to follow railways, rivers, mountains and roads.
In 1919, the Post Office began the first leg of the eventual New York to San Francisco run by opening the section from Long Island through Lehighton to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. To minimize transit time, the mail traveled by air during the day and by train at night.
The Post Office installed radio stations at each field in 1920. In 1921, towers, beacons and searchlights were installed. The Central Pennsylvania section of the New York to Chicago route was known as the "graveyard of the Alleghenies." More airmail pilots died in this stretch than any other along the entire route to the west coast.
In 1925, Congress began contracting for airmail service and service under contract began on July 1, 1927. Contracts went to major industrialists like Henry Ford. The contractors ordered larger and more powerful aircraft to travel further between fuel stops and to handle increasing amounts of mail as well as passengers. With the greater range of the new breed of aircraft, a stop at Lehighton was no longer necessary.
Jake Arner & Lehighton Aviation
When Jake Arner passed away in 1976, the Carbon County Airport was renamed the Jake Arner Memorial Airport. Jake was considered the father of aviation in Lehighton as well as the driving force behind the current airport.
A plaque at the airport describes Jacob “Jake” M. Arner as a “,,, skillful airman who helped lead aviation from its infancy to the greatness that it is today.”
Jake, a Lehighton native, was just a kid when he saw an early airmail plane land at a field in Franklin Township. He was intrigued and when, at the age of twenty, an aircraft company came to Lehighton, Jake ceased the opportunity.
Martin Jensen, a pilot, aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur discovered Lehighton after looking for a site to build an aircraft factory roughly 100 miles outside of New York City. The wages were lower, it was accessible to the New York market and he found that locals had been flying on the center portion of the Fairgrounds Race Track.
Jensen had previously achieved a measure of fame by being one of two pilots to complete the 1927 Dole Air Race from San Francisco to Hawaii. He came out second and landed with only five minutes worth of fuel remaining after a 15-hour flight. All the other pilots either crashed at takeoff or somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Jensen and his copilot shared a $10,000 prize.
Jensen performed a stunt flight in 1927, taking the MGM trademark lion, Leo, from San Diego to New York. The plane had to land in a storm over Arizona and after a nationwide search; Jensen and Leo were found unhurt.
Jensen built a hanger that he used as a factory on the south side of the Lehighton racetrack. At the age of twenty, Jake Arner came to work for Jensen as a mechanic. He traded some of his work for piloting lessons and soon became a pilot.
Jensen had financing from both New York investors and from local investors in Lehighton. He opened for business on October 1928. A year later, in October of 1929, the stock market crashed. Jensen’s engine supplier went out of business and Jensen’s investors went unable to continue financing the business. Jensen went bankrupt. The company had completed two Jensen Trainers, a biplane that was reported to be so stable that he would fly into the wind and land almost vertically.
Jensen retuned to his wife, Marguerite Jensen, a silent film actress in Hollywood California, leaving Jake Arner to run the Lehighton Airport.
Jake worked for New Jersey Zinc until the beginnings of WWII provided the opportunity for him to train pilots for the military in the civilian pilot training program. Here, pilots received their initial flying instruction before heading to Texas for military flight training. In 1943, Jake and three other pilots from Lehighton went to Trenton to work as test pilots for Grumman.
After the war, and again after the Korean War, returning vets used their GI Bill education monies to learn to fly. Arner grew his flying school as he trained a wave of future pilots for the major carriers. Jake became a corporate pilot, retiring from Air Products in 1970.
In his spare time, Jake Arner flew out of the Lehighton Fairgrounds Airport. In the early days, he would barnstorm—stunt fly to attract people, land in an open field, and offer 15 minute rides for a penny-a-pound.
The Lehighton Fairgrounds Airport’s runway was only 1,800 feet long and there was no room for expansion. An airport authority was formed to develop a new airport with Jake Arner as its chairman. A location was selected and the Carbon County Airport was built in 1964.
In 1973, Jake Arner and his son, Byron, entered into a 25-year agreement to operate the airport. Four years later, in 1976, Jake passed away. His son, Byron continued to operate the airport, renamed the Jake Arner Memorial Airport, until 1998. Carbon County currently operates the airport. Byron Arner operates the flight school and charter service at the airport.
Byron began flying with his dad at the age of six and soloed at sixteen. Besides operating the flight and charter school, he managed a career as a pilot for Eastern Airlines. His son, Jake, piloted for Eastern until their went out of business. Jake continues to fly.
The Hell Stretch, 1918
The following is “Flight Simulator’s” description of the daring and difficult “Hell Stretch” airmail route across the Allegheny Mountains.
Once the first regular airmail service between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. was established in 1918, the U.S. Postal Service looked west, and began to scout a route toward Cleveland and Chicago. The land, however, was not as flat as the map. Between New York and the newly chosen airmail refueling stop of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, there was a formidable mountain range to negotiate: the Alleghenies.
On September 20, 1918, pilot Max Miller landed the first airmail plane, a survey flight, in Bellefonte. Once Bellefonte was chosen over rival town Lock Haven as a stopover, the new western airmail route ran: New York – Lehighton - Bellefonte-Clarion-Cleveland. On December 18, mail planes began landing in Bellefonte. Pilots often made a showy arrival, thrilling townspeople. One story claims that pilot Slim Lewis flew so close to the courthouse that the weathervane spun. Townspeople vied with one another to have airmail pilots as house and dinner guests. In Bellefonte, the pilots were honored and well=known, and enjoyed life as celebrities.
But pilots first had to reach Bellefonte, and this meant flying across the Alleghenies and perhaps their life. Visibility was often poor, and instruments in the Curtiss Jennys and de Havilland DH-4s were unreliable. Unpredictable weather and mountain winds posed the greatest threats. This section of central Pennsylvania was so treacherous; it soon earned the nickname “Hell Stretch,” claiming more pilots’ lives than any other leg of the coast-to-coast airmail route.
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