 | Cornelius Robinson Coffey,
(1903-1994) |
Cornelius Coffey was born in Newport, Arkansas, on 6 September
1903, just months before the Wright brothers' initial flight.
Coffey took his first airplane ride when he was 13 and he was
"hooked" on aviation for life.
In 1925 he enrolled in a trade school on the South Side of
Chicago to study automobile mechanics. John Robinson, a fellow
black mechanic and friend of Coffey, shared a burning desire
to fly. Commercial flying schools would not accept them, but
a black business man lent the two a vacant store front where
they built a one-seat airplane powered by a motorcycle engine.
They then taught themselves to fly.
The two were employed as auto mechanics by Emil Mack, a white
man who owned a Chevrolet dealership in Elmwood Park, Illinois,
when they applied and were accepted at the Curtiss Wright
School of Aviation in Chicago for an aviation mechanics training
course. Upon reporting to the school for the start of classes,
Coffey and Robinson were refused admittance when it was discovered
they were black. The school attempted to reimburse the two
for their tuition, but their employer, Mr. Mack, threatened
to sue the school if they were not allowed to enter. The school
backed down and allowed Coffey and Robinson to attend. Two
years later they graduated at the top of their class.
In the late 1930s, Coffey established the Coffey School of
Aeronautics at Harlem Airport, located south of Chicago at
87th Street and Harlem Avenue. From 1938 to 1945 more than
1,500 black students went through the school, including many
who would later become Tuskegee Airmen.
After the war, Coffey served as an instructor at the Lewis
School of Aeronautics in Lockport, and then at Dunbar Vocational
High School in Chicago, training some of the first blacks
to be hired as mechanics by commercial airlines. He died in
Chicago on 2 March 1994.
Cornelius Coffey was the first black person to hold both
a pilot's and mechanic's license. He was a recipient of the
"Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award" from the
Federal Aviation Administration and was the first black American
to have an aerial navigation intersection named after them
by the FAA (the "Cofey Fix," a waypoint located
on the VICTOR 7 airway over Lake Calumet, provides electronic
course guidance to Chicago Midway Airport Runway 31 Left).
Coffey also designed a carburetor heater that prevented icing
and allowed airplanes to fly in all kinds of weather. Devices
similar to his are still in use on aircraft today.
Coffey was the first black person to establish an aeronautical
school in the United States. His school was also the only
non-university affiliated aviation school to become part of
the Civilian Pilot Training Program. His pioneering efforts
led to the integration of black pilots into the American aviation
industry.
The Cornelius R. Coffey Aviation Education Foundation was
established at the American Airlines Maintenance Academy in
Chicago to help train a younger generation of high school
and college students interested in aviation. It is a fitting
legacy to this intrepid American aviator.
The museum plans to proudly exhibit Cornelius Coffey's Piper
Tri-Pacer 135 aircraft in the new exhibit Barnstormers, Wing-walkers,
and Entrepreneurs: 150 Years of Aviation in Illinois, due
to be completed next year. | 
