Background
Hill was born and grew up in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and graduated with honours from Scottdale High School.
Hill was born and grew up in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and graduated with honours from Scottdale High School.
He studied mechanical engineering at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, but he left the course after a year. He subsequently studied civil engineering at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, but he was unable to complete that course because of ill-health.
Hill appears to have had some experience of flying before he enrolled in autumn 1912 in the Glenn Curtiss Flying School, in order to study flying thoroughly. He was issued land plane certificate Number. 234 by the Aeronautical Club of America.
Between 1915 and 1924, Hill pursued a career as an aircraft instructor, test pilot and aircraft sales representative in several different locations in the central and eastern United States.
Hill joined the United States Air Mail Service on 1 July 1924. On 1 July 1925, he was one of the pilots who inaugurated the first New York to Chicago night air mail service.
When Bertaud was displaced to make way for Charles A. Levine, the chairman of the board of directors of the Columbia Aircraft Corporation, he sought an injunction to prevent Levine and pilot Clarence Chamberlain from attempting the flight. Chamberlain and Levine subsequently flew Columbia from New York to Eisleben in Germany on 4–6 June 1927.
Bertaud"s dropping from the crew of Columbia spurred him to make his own attempt at a transatlantic flight, this time from New York to Rome, Italy, and Hill agreed to join him.
William Randolph Hearst agreed to sponsor the attempt, to publicize his newspaper the, New York Daily Mirror. The newspaper"s editor, Philip A. Payne, accompanied the two pilots on the flight. At 3.57am and 4.03am distress signals from the aircraft were received by radio.
Its estimated position was then 960 km east of Cape Race, Newfoundland.
The Old Glory had last been sighted by the steamship California at 11.57pm the previous day, 563 km east of Cape Race. On 12 September, the Steamship Kyle found substantial amounts of wreckage from the aircraft, but no trace was ever found of Bertaud, Hill or Payne.
In 1928, the Ontario Surveyor General named a number of lakes in the northwest of the province to honour aviators who had perished during 1927, mainly in attempting oceanic flights. These include Bertaud Lake (5090°North 9071°West / 5090.
-9071), Hill Lake (5056°North 9077°West / 5056.
-9077) and Payne Lake (5085°North 9054°West / 5085.