Gurdon L. Tarbox - Signed ALS (Body by Other), Dated 11-25-1966. Inventor of Automatic Pilot ("Iron Mike"). With Accompanying Article Typescript. Aviation / Aerospace

no location: Gurdon L. Tarbox, 1966. No Binding. Near Fine. Near Fine. See scan. Gurdon L. Tarbox - Signed ALS, in shaky elderly hand, with body of ALS by his wife; see scan). Dated 11-25-1966. Tarbox was, with his brother Preston, the inventor of the first automatic pilot -later to be nicknamed the "Iron Mike". With accompanying article typescript. These were a gift to an American collector, the late Richard Carlow. The typescript is the text of an April, 26, 1956 article in the Georgetown (SC) Times newspaper, describing the invention, its testing, and the histories of the brothers themselves; it includes a fairly lengthy excerpt from another, earlier article, one from July 13, 1911, the day after the first - and highly successful - test flight of an unmanned craft using the auto pilot. Gurdon Tarbox was later inducted into "The Early Birds", an organization of men who flew before 1915. In her ALS, his wife notes, "...tho, today, he will not fly! Period!" (i.e., in November of 1966). Provenance information to purchaser. ALS and typescript are both Near Fine. See scan. An extraordinarily scarce autograph. Ships in a new, sturdy, protective box - not a bag. LPR46