SPENCER HEATH - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 02/22/1961 - HFSID 190275

SPENCER HEATH
The airplane engineer and business owner signs this letter in response to a question from a college student
Autograph letter signed: "Spencer Heath" in blue ink. 8½x11. February 22, 1961, written on a typed letter from William W. Stanhope, to "Dear Mr. Stanhope", in full: "My part in aviation serving World War I had to do almost exclusively with aviation propellers- their design, development and quantity production. I had little or nothing to do with the airplane as a whole or their combinative merits for the purposes of the war and I do not remember the names of the different types and designs on either side of the war. I'm sorry I have no information or ... about them for you. Sincerely." Spencer Heath (1876-1963) was an American engineer, attorney and social thinker. As a patent lawyer and engineering consultant his clients included Simon Lake and Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat-disk phonograph record. Heath helped Berliner design and build the first rotary engine blades used in helicopters. He founded the American Propeller Manufacturing Company in 1909 and developed and first mass-produced airplane propellers, including 70 percent of the propellers used by Americans in World War I. In 1929 he sold his patents and facilities to Bendix Aviation Corporation and retired to work on projects in horticulture and the natural and social sciences. His articles on aeronautical engineering were published by the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, the Journal of the Franklin Institute and other technical journals. Lightly toned. Corners rounded. Normal mailing folds. Pencil note (unknown hand) on verso. Otherwise, fine condition.