Edward A. Korn at Controls While Starting Benoist Type XII Aeroplane, 1912-1913

The Edward A. Korn Collection documents the aviation career of "Early Bird" Pilots Edward Korn and his brother, Milton.

Series I, Photographs, roughly covers the years of 1910-1916 and focuses on the Korn Brothers' planes and flights. The series is comprised of 109 individual photographs as well as a photograph album of 27 photographs that include both typewritten and handwritten comments from Edward Korn himself. The album also includes an article about the Korn brothers.

Many of the photographs form a visual record of the only surviving Benoist plane, a biplane, Type XII, Number 32, originally owned by Edward Korn which he deeded to the National Air and Space Museum in the late 1940s (Walker, L.E.).

The Benoist Aeroplane Company was based in St. Louis, Missouri and Sandusky, Ohio and constructed plans from 1910 to 1917 (Walker, L.E.)

Series I has been digitized in its entirety and is available online in Wright State University's Campus Online Repository (CORE Scholar):http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_ms220/.

Series II consists of correspondence, typewritten manuscripts, newspaper and journal clippings, post cards, and farm machinery catalogs of varying sizes. The majority of these items focuses on early aviation history and the Korn Brothers' aviation career, but some of the items also document the Korn's farming background with catalogs of farm equipment companies and a small number of post cards illustrating threshing machines.

Source: Walker, Lois. Wright Patterson Air Force Base.[Summary and Appraisal of] MS-220, The Edward A. Korn Collection], undated typewritten manuscript.