June 15, 2011--Maynard L. Hill

Maynard Hill didn't do this to get listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, though his feat should be included among others such as--

The largest mince pie--baked in England of course, it weighed 2,260 pounds.

Or, the most participants in a game of musical chairs--which took place in Singapore and involved 8,238 players.

Or, funkier ones such as--the longest distance covered keeping a table lifted with one's teeth--in Spain some dentally-gifted soul carried one weighing 26 pounds an amazing 38 feet.

Or, the largest condom--of course leave it to the French to get that job done: they made one 72 feet long and, to celebrate World AIDS Day in a version of style, fitted it over the obelisque in Place de la Concorde.

Or, the French again, something I can relate to , the most times jumping in and out of pair of underpants in one minute--the record: 27 times.

Maynard Hill, who died the other day at 85, in 2003 was the first to construct and fly a model airplane non-stop across the Atlantic. The 11 pound model, guided by a mini in-flight computer, flew the 1,882 miles in just under 39 hours. Echoing Charles Lindbergh who, in 1927, flew a plane with him in it non-stop from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to Le Bourget Airfield just outside of Paris in 33.5 hours.

Mr. Hill was no seeker of gimmicky records--what he accomplished was no gimmick but rather a remarkable achievement that included a powerful career.

The son of a blacksmith and a mill worker, after serving in World War II, via the G.I. Bill, he studied metallurgy at Penn State and then went to work helping to design military drones as a metallurgist at Johns Hopkins University.

But he had been obsessed with model planes from at least age 9. So much so that after just three days on his honeymoon, he confessed that he snuck out to the store to buy balsa wood and airplane glue.

It took him years of building and testing models before he felt confident enough to trek from Baltimore to Newfoundland to attempt a transatlantic flight. But it wasn't until he got to version 29 that he had his dreamed-of success. But he could barely see his plane take off since for years he had been legally blind because of macular degeneration; nor, since he was almost totally deaf, could he hear the plane's engine or the shouts of joy when word reached him that his plane had safely landed in Stone Bog, Ireland.

You can read more about him in the linked obituary from the New York Times and see there a wonderful picture of him with one of his models in his suburban backyard.

Let's hope that there are lots more Maynard Hills tinkering around in their garages. Not just making music, but also dreaming, and realizing, impossible flights of imagination.