Rudolph William was born on August 14, 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the son of John August and Nora Ann Reidy Schroeder. Details of his early life are sketchy. After his father's death in a train accident, he had to support his family.
Rudolph William Schroeder attended Crane Technical High School in Chicago in the early 1900's.
After studies Schroeder became an automobile mechanic. After building several gliders between 1908 and 1910, he met Otto Brodie, who taught him to fly a Farman biplane. Schroeder then worked with a number of early fliers and developed a flair for experimentation and innovation with aircraft power plants. In 1916, when Schroeder entered the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps, few men possessed his flying and mechanical experience.
His personal characteristics account for his rapid advancement in military service, including duty as commander of various phases of training at air stations in Illinois and Texas. By 1918, with the rank of captain, he was in command of a group of test pilots at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio.
Early in 1920 Schroeder began to prepare for an airplane flight into the stratosphere. The plane chosen for the attempt was a LePere biplane, an open cockpit design powered by a Liberty engine equipped with a special turbine supercharger. On February 27, 1920, Schroeder took off and continued to climb upward for an hour and forty-seven minutes. Having no pressure suit or heating equipment, he depended only on heavy clothing and a regulation oxygen mask and goggles to protect him against the low pressures of the thin upper atmosphere, and dangers of oxygen starvation. After Schroeder reached an estimated altitude of 33, 000 feet, contrails from the engine exhaust indicated that carbon monoxide fumes were drifting back into the cockpit; at about the same time his oxygen supply gave out. Thinking that there were some engine malfunctions, he raised his goggles for a momentary look at the instruments and the intense cold in the open-cockpit biplane instantly froze the film of moisture between his eyelids and eyeballs. His vision gone and dimly aware that he was sinking into unconsciousness, Schroeder attempted to maneuver the plane into a gentle spiral for a descent, but inadvertently put himself into a vertical dive for almost six miles. As his plane plummeted Schroeder regained consciousness and somehow managed to pull out of the dive at an altitude of about 2, 000 feet. But reentry into the troposphere also fragmented the ice in his eyes, lacerating the eyelids, and forced him to make a harrowing approach and landing at McCook Field. The official altitude was set at 33, 113 feet. Schroeder became involved in the development of parachute flares for night landing, instrument flying, antiknock fuels for high-compression aircraft engines, controllable pitch propellers, and other flying aids.
After leaving the army as a major in 1920, Schroeder returned to the Chicago area, where he worked at Underwriters Laboratories from 1920 to 1925, helping establish operational safety standards for both aircraft and pilots. Later, architects of government standards referred to UL's work as a benchmark in preparing federal regulations.
Between 1925 and 1933, Schroeder participated in several notable aviation projects, including a company airline for Henry Ford, aircraft safety design, and airport management in the Chicago area. With a growing reputation as an expert in aviation and flight safety, Schroeder joined the Air Commerce Bureau as chief of the Air Line Inspection Service in 1933, becoming a specialist in accident investigation. He was made assistant director of the bureau in 1936.
In 1937 he moved to United Air Lines as manager of operations. There his commitment to the details of airline safety brought new operational rules and procedures that promoted increasing passenger confidence.
Schroeder suffered a stroke in 1941 and retired the next year. He died in 1952.
Rudolph William Schroeder was the chief test pilot at McCook Field, where he insisted on the development of a free-type parachute pack and was the first air service aviator to wear one. He was credited with being the first to fly with a supercharged engine and the first to open a night-flying school. Schroeder rose to vice-president of United Air Lines in charge of safety, and his guidelines for flight procedures, including instrumentation and operations, help set patterns for the entire industry. In 1945 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for army work in high-altitude flight research between 1918 and 1920. The citation stressed that Schroeder's work had been a major factor in acquiring the basic high-altitude flight experience that provided a large measure of success in the operations of the Army Air Force in World War II.
Deeply committed to the theory and practice of aviation safety, Schroeder became an early proponent of redundant systems in aircraft design.
Personable, with a keen sense of humor, Schroeder consistently displayed unusual mechanical aptitude and a penchant for experimentation. He possessed an awesome memory fed by intense curiosity.
Information about Schroeder's family is uncertain. He married his first wife, Lillian (last name unknown), prior to World War I and adopted a son. After a divorce he married Janet T. Carr in 1934; they had a daughter. The second marriage also ended in divorce.
