William John "Jack" Frye (March 18, 1904,
Sweetwater, OklahomaSweetwater is a town in Beckham and Roger Mills counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It was incorporated in 2003. Named for nearby Sweetwater Creek, the town is at the junction of State Highway 30 and State Highway 152...
– February 3, 1959) was an aviation pioneer, who with
Paul E. RichterPaul E. Richter, 1896 to 1949,Aviation pioneer, co-founder of TWA."The Airline Run by Flyers" During the "Golden Age" of flying, Paul E. Richter played a decisive role in creating and building all aspects of commercial aviation and military air transport...
and Walter A. Hamilton, built
TWAThe Twa, also known as Batwa, are a pygmy people who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Current populations are found in the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo...
into a world class airline during his tenure as chairman from 1934-1947.
Frye enlisted in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in 1921, was discharged as a corporal in 1922. He joined the USNR in 1934, commissioned as lieutenant, in 1940, promoted to lieutenant commander, resigned in 1952.
William John "Jack" Frye (March 18, 1904,
Sweetwater, OklahomaSweetwater is a town in Beckham and Roger Mills counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It was incorporated in 2003. Named for nearby Sweetwater Creek, the town is at the junction of State Highway 30 and State Highway 152...
– February 3, 1959) was an aviation pioneer, who with
Paul E. RichterPaul E. Richter, 1896 to 1949,Aviation pioneer, co-founder of TWA."The Airline Run by Flyers" During the "Golden Age" of flying, Paul E. Richter played a decisive role in creating and building all aspects of commercial aviation and military air transport...
and Walter A. Hamilton, built
TWAThe Twa, also known as Batwa, are a pygmy people who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Current populations are found in the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo...
into a world class airline during his tenure as chairman from 1934-1947.
Frye enlisted in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in 1921, was discharged as a corporal in 1922. He joined the USNR in 1934, commissioned as lieutenant, in 1940, promoted to lieutenant commander, resigned in 1952. He received the first commercial pilot certificate issued in the State of
ArizonaThe State of Arizona is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in size by the four Phoenix metropolitan area cities of Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, and Scottsdale.Arizona was the 48th and...
- #1 - and held Transport Pilot certificate #933. Frye, Walter Hamilton and Paul E. Richter, Arizona pilot certificate #2, founded Aero Corporation in 1926
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
, with a
subsidiaryA subsidiary, in business matters, is an entity that is controlled by a separate entity. The controlled entity is called a company, corporation, or limited liability company and in some cases can be a government or state-owned enterprise, and the controlling entity is called its parent...
Standard Air Lines in 1927. Jack Frye, as
pilotAn aviator is a person who flies aircraft for pleasure or as a profession. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887 as a variation of the French 'aviation', from the latin 'avis', coined 1863 by G. de la Landelle in "Aviation ou Navigation Aérienne"...
, flew the first commercial plane into
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. As of July 1, 2006, a Census Bureau estimate puts the city's population at 541,811, with a metropolitan area population at...
(November 28, 1929).
Standard Air Lines was sold to Western Air Express in early 1930. Western Air Express merged with
Transcontinental Air TransportTranscontinental Air Transport was an airline founded in 1928 by Clement Melville Keys that merged in 1930 with Western Air Express to form what became TWA....
in 1930 to form T&WA (
TWAThe Twa, also known as Batwa, are a pygmy people who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Current populations are found in the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo...
). Frye became president of T&WA in 1934 and Richter became Vice President. TWA was known as "The Airline Run by Flyers".
The airline suffered near disaster after its reputation was hurt in 1931 when Notre Dame coach
Knute RockneKnute Kenneth Rockne was an American football player and is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history. His biography at the College Football Hall of Fame calls him "American football's most-renowned coach." He was a native Norwegian, and was trained as a chemist at Notre...
died on a T&WA
FokkerFokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names, starting out in 1912 in Schwerin, Germany, moving to the Netherlands in 1919. During its most successful period in the 1920s and 1930s, it dominated the civil...
tri-motorA trimotor is an aircraft powered by three piston engines. An aircraft with three jet engines is a trijet.Trimotor designs were relatively common in the early days of aviation, as engines were less powerful and less reliable.Notable trimotors include:...
plane. In 1932 Jack Frye, representing TWA, sought a better aircraft and Douglas developed the Douglas Transport.
Jack Frye, and Captain
Eddie RickenbackerEdward Vernon Rickenbacker was an American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient. He was also a race car driver and automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation, particularly as the longtime head of Eastern Air Lines.-Early...
, with a T&WA team of Tomlinson, Fritz and Richter set a cross country record of 13 hours and 4 minutes in 1934 flying the Douglas DC-1. The DC-1 ultimately resulted in the development of the DC-3.
In 1939, desiring greater control of their airline Frye and Richter approached
Howard HughesHoward Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer, film director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained fame in the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big budget and often controversial films like Hell's Angels,...
to buy into the company. (Jack Frye stated in an April 6, 1954 issue of
Life magazine that it was Hughes who approached him (Frye) in regard to investments.) Hughes' interest was airplanes, and his involvement was the development and financing of the
Lockheed ConstellationThe Lockheed Constellation was a four engine propeller-driven airliner built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. A total of 856 aircraft were produced in four models, all distinguished by a triple-tail design and dolphin-shaped fuselage...
(the "Connies"). Frye and Hughes flew the Constellation on a record six hour 58 minute cross country flight on April 17, 1944.
After resigning as president of T.W.A., on February 21, 1947, Frye landed on his feet. On April 14, 1947, he was elected Chairman of the Board of General Aniline and Film Corp,
American IGAmerican IG is the name of a company, and it owes its genesis to a German business conglomerate, namely, Interessens-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, or IG Farben for short...
, General Dyetuff Corporation
AnscoAnsco was the name of a photographic company based in Binghamton, New York, which produced inexpensive cameras for most of the 20th century. It also sold rebadged versions of cameras made by other manufacturers, including Agfa, Chinon, and a Minolta-built model was the first 35 mm camera in...
. On (July 1, 1947), he flew out to New York from his Sedona Ranch and filled the position. He retained the position of CEO and president until 1955. In 1954-1955 he formed his own company, the Frye Corporation, (to develop a new improved version of the Douglas Commercial airplane). Frye served the Fort Worth based company as C.E.O. until his death in 1959.
In 1941, he married the former Helen Varner Vanderbilt Frye who was previously married to
Cornelius Vanderbilt IVCornelius Vanderbilt IV , who often wrote under the name of Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., was the son of Grace and Cornelius Vanderbilt III, who worked in the newspaper industry, and wrote several books.-Biography:...
. Frye died February 3, 1959 in a car accident in Tucson, Arizona, exactly 33 years to the day after his founding of Standard Air Lines. He was originally buried in Tucson, but now is at rest in
Wheeler, TexasWheeler is a city in Wheeler County, Texas, United States, situated on the eastern edge of the Texas Panhandle. Both the city and the county are named for Royal Tyler Wheeler, a chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. The population was 1,378 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Wheeler...
.
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