Floyd Bennett

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Floyd Bennett
October 25, 1890 - April 25, 1928
Place of birth	Warrensburg, New York
Place of death	Quebec, Canada
Allegiance	USN
Rank	Warrant Officer
Awards	Medal of Honor

Floyd Bennett (25 October 1890 – 25 April 1928). American aviator who piloted Richard E. Byrd on his attempt to reach the North Pole in 1926.

Bennett was born in Warrensburg, New York in 1890. He was an automobile mechanic before enlisting in the Navy in 1917. Bennett was warranted a Machinist and learned to fly. He served with Byrd on an aviation survey of Greenland in 1925, where Byrd came to respect Bennett's abilities as a pilot.

Byrd named Bennett as his pilot for an attempt to reach the North Pole by air in 1926. Bennett was at the controls on May 9 as the two men made their attempt, returning to their base at Spitzbergen the same day. Although the European press was skeptical of the claim, because it seemed that the plane had been away from Spitzbergen too briefly to have reached the Pole, Byrd and Bennett were lionized in America. Bennett received a Medal of Honor for this feat. The subsequent discovery of Byrd's diary of the flight, with erased (but still legible) sextant readings, has shown that they could not have actually reached the Pole.

Byrd was a leading candidate for the Orteig Prize in 1927, to be awarded for the first nonstop flight between France and the United States. Once again, Byrd named Bennett as his pilot for the attempt. However, Bennett, alone in the heavily laden airplane during a practice takeoff, was seriously injured and the airplane badly damaged when it ground looped. Consequently, Charles Lindbergh claimed the prize as Bennett recuperated and the plane was being repaired.

Aviation Machinist Bennett died at Quebec, Canada, 25 April, 1928 from pneumonia that developed following extensive injuries from that crash. Byrd was devastated by the loss of Bennett, blaming himself for Bennett's death. On his flight to the South Pole in 1929, Byrd named his airplane the Floyd Bennett in honor of his beloved pilot.

Floyd Bennett Field, New York City's first municipal airport, and the destroyer, USS Bennett (DD-473), were named in his honor. Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport, in Queensbury, New York, near his birthplace, also honors the pilot.