Neal Vernon Loving

Loving was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 4, 1916.[1] His father, Harding Clay Loving, was the first black optometrist in Michigan.[1] Loving became interested in aviation at age ten, when a de Havilland biplane flew over his house.[1] He attended Cass Technical High School, where he studied aeronautics.[1]

After graduating high school, Loving took a job with his former aeromechanics teacher, George Tabraham.[1] He became a licensed aircraft mechanic, and began to build a ground trainer aircraft.[1] Loving's trainer received Mechanix Illustrated's Project of the Month award and was displayed at the Detroit City Airport.[1] In 1936, he was hired by the Detroit Department of Recreation to teach model aircraft building.[1] He continued his own education with an accelerated course in drafting and engineering at Highland Park Junior College.[1]

Loving was rejected from both the U.S. Air Cadet Corps[2] and Detroit's Cass Aero Club because of his race.[1] He joined the Ace Flying Club, an organization for black aviators, where he met fellow aviator Earsly Taylor.[1] The two would become close friends and business partners.[1]

After Tabraham became head of the Aero Mechanics High School, he hired Loving as an instructor.[1] As with his previous job, Loving taught model aircraft building.[3] He was the first black teacher at the school, which had an all-white student body at the time.[3] Loving said in an interview that he initially taught only boys, until "the girls found out that my class was fun and wanted to join. The authorities didn't want a black man teaching white girls but the principal put his foot down and girls got in my class."[3]

While still teaching high school, Loving co-founded the Wayne Aircraft Company with Taylor.[1] It was the first black-owned aircraft company in Michigan.[4] Like Loving, Taylor had another full-time job, so progress was slow.[1]

Loving and Taylor joined the Civil Air Patrol during World War II.[1] After being rejected by the local squadrons because of their race, they formed their own, all-black group, Squadron 639-5.[1] With Loving as executive officer and Taylor as commanding officer, the squadron provided flight training, pre-military training, and classes in parachute jumping.[1] For the latter, they were nicknamed the Parachute Squadron.[1]

In 1943, Loving was laid off from the Aero Mechanics High School. He began working seven days a week on the Ford Motor Company's assembly line, while still working at the Wayne Aircraft Company and training pilots for the Civil Air Patrol.[1] With little time to rest, Loving developed long-term fatigue.[1]

On July 30, 1944, Loving set out on a routine flight at Wings Airport in Utica, Michigan.[1] Flying on only two hours of sleep, he failed to realize he had lost too much altitude.[1] Loving's glider crashed, crushing his legs.[1] Both legs were amputated below the knee, and Loving spent eighteen months in the hospital.[1] He and Taylor closed the Wayne Aircraft Company during this time.[1]

A month after being fitted with wooden prosthetics, Loving was approved for a driver's license.[3] By 1946, he was flying again.[1] He once said that "the nice thing about artificial legs is that you can be as tall as you like and wear any shoe size you want."[5]

Loving and Taylor opened the Wayne School of Aeronautics in 1947.[1]

Over the course of his career, Loving designed and flew five aircraft.[6] In 1949, he began building a midget-class racer called Loving's Love.[1] Loving's Love had a single seat and inverted gull wings,[7] and could reach speeds of 215–255 miles per hour.[1] Loving entered it in the 1951 National Air Races, becoming the first double amputee and the first African-American licensed as a racing pilot.[1] Loving's Love won the Experimental Aircraft Association's Most Outstanding Design award in 1955.[1][8]

In either 1953 or 1954,[1] Loving flew Loving's Love to Kingston, Jamaica[8] to visit Taylor, who had opened a flying school there with her new husband, Carl Barnett.[1] Loving later married Carl's sister, Clare Therese Barnett.[9]

In 1955, Loving enrolled in Wayne State University as an aeronautical engineering major.[1] He closed the Wayne School of Aeronautics two years later.[1] After graduating, Loving became an engineer at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he worked on methods of measuring clear-air turbulence.[1]

Loving married Clare Therese Barnett in 1955.[1] They adopted two children, Paul Leslie and Michelle Stephanie.[1] The family settled in Yellow Springs, Ohio.[10] Loving continued to fly for nine years after his retirement, until heart problems caused his license to be revoked.[1] Clare Loving was reportedly "more worried about his daily bike excursions around town than his adventures in the air."[8] Loving lived in Yellow Springs until his death from colon cancer in 1998.[5]

Loving's Love is displayed at the Experimental Aircraft Association Air Education Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.[2] In 2000, the Neal V. Loving scholarship was created to help high school students from Maryland's Upper Shore attend the Patrick School of Aeronautics.[6]

• Meritorious Civilian Service Award[11]
• Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame[11]
• Wayne State University College of Engineering Hall of Fame[11]
• Organization of Black Airline Pilots Distinguished Achievement Award[2]