Maximilian Arthur Conrad was an American aviator, who set a world record for a light plane marathon flight.
Background
Maximilian Arthur Conrad was born on March 6, 1903 in Winona, Minnesota, United States. He was one of six children of Maximilian Arthur Conrad and Elizabeth Dolores Conrad. His father owned a store that processed and sold fur coats and clothes. All the family members worked in the business as soon as they were old enough. Conrad began when he was six, carrying letters and messages. His father was also the part-time manager of the Winona semiprofessional baseball team. A domineering patriarch, he pushed his oldest surviving son to love baseball, hunting, fishing, and the fur business as he did. His persistence caused Conrad to hate all his father's passions. Instead, he loved gymnastics, running track, and racing cars, boats, and (later) airplanes. He also enjoyed tinkering with engines.
Education
Despite an indifferent school career, Conrad graduated from the local high school in June 1921 and enrolled at Marquette University that fall, majoring in mechanical engineering at his father's "request. " Unfortunately, dazzled by college life, he soon overloaded himself with too many classes and an evening job as a musician in a dance band. After a year he dropped out of school. In September 1922, Conrad entered the University of Colorado at Boulder. He dropped out again because of a lack of money and moved to Detroit, where he worked in a Cadillac, and later a Plymouth, automobile assembly plant. In 1924 he returned to college at the University of California, Berkeley. He excelled at track and field, trying out for the United States Olympic team that year. Failing to make the team, he soon dropped out of school and returned to Minnesota, where he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in September 1926, majoring in aeronautical engineering. Although he never graduated, his studies and Charles Lindbergh's 1927 transatlantic flight inspired Conrad to become a pilot.
Career
On May 18, 1928, he bought his first plane, a Laird Swallow, in Wichita, Kansas. He took his first flight exactly one year after Lindbergh's historic flight. Within five months he had made his first solo flight, and by the end of the year he had established Conrad Aviation, a flying school and charter service based in Winona. In October 1929, after Conrad had given a ride to a cousin and his girlfriend, the young woman was struck and killed by the rotating propeller when she exited the plane on the wrong side. Trying to save her, Conrad was struck on the head and severely injured. Only the heroic efforts of surgeon Robert Krieg, the determination of his mother, and a long difficult convalescence at the Mayo Clinic enabled him to return to flying. He became right-brain dominant and had to relearn common skills such as writing using his left hand. In addition, his motor abilities were impaired, and his speech and hearing were affected. In late 1930, Conrad resumed flying and running his company at the Winona airfield. He had built a gravel and dirt runway in a pasture owned by one of his father's best friends.
By the summer of 1931, Conrad had a growing charter service to the upper Midwest, to Canada, and even some runs to California. Both of his younger brothers worked with him and flew many of the routes. But on July 24, 1931, Conrad's brother Arthur and four passengers were killed in a crash near Winona. To make matters worse, the circumstances of the crash led to lawsuits against Conrad's company. Even though they were settled favorably, the resulting pressures caused Conrad to experience periodic bouts of depression for the rest of his life. From 1932 to 1944, the company purchased seven Ford trimotor passenger planes and tried to run an airline. During World War II, Conrad's airfield was a government-sponsored private flight-training facility. Even so, the business slowly deteriorated, and he was finally forced to sell all his assets and go to work as a test pilot for Honeywell in Minneapolis. In 1950 his growing family and his debts from the business forced him to move the family to Switzerland in an effort to save money and shield his assets. Conrad soon signed an agreement with the Piper Aircraft Company to ferry small aircraft across the Atlantic. He gained fame and fortune by setting several small single-engine-aircraft records. Ultimately, he flew a record 50, 000 solo hours and set six distance and endurance records. In late 1950, Conrad flew a Piper Pacer solo from New York to Geneva. It was the first of 200 such flights (150 across the Atlantic and 50 across the Pacific), and by 1952 he was able to move his family to San Francisco.
In 1959, Conrad, by then known as "the flying grandfather, " flew 7, 683 miles, solo, nonstop from Casablanca, Morocco, to Los Angeles. The flight, in a Piper Comanche, took fifty-eight hours and thirty-eight minutes.
Over the next two decades, he continued to excite the public with his daring flights. Twice, in 1968 and in 1973, he tried and failed to fly around the world by going over the poles. Even in his last days, he was planning flying adventures and flights that would set world records for his age group.
Achievements
In 1954 he set a speed record for a single-engine solo flight from New York to Paris. It was the first such flight since Lindbergh's in 1927.
On July 6, 1960, he set a world record for a light plane marathon flight, traveling 6, 920 miles in 60 hours on a closed course in California. The next year Conrad set a record when he flew alone in a Piper Cherokee around the world in eight days, eighteen hours, and forty-nine minutes.
Connections
On July 23, 1931, he married the pasture owner's daughter, Betty Biesanz; they had ten children. She was a businesswoman.
