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JBSA News

Tag: Signal Corps No. 1

Foulois, Fort Sam Houston at the front lines developing aerial photography, reconnaissance
February 20, 2018 — Aerial photography can trace its early history to 1858, when French photographer and balloonist Gaspar Felix Tournachon took a photo of the French village of Petit-Becetre from a tethered hot-air balloon 80 meters (approximately 270 feet) above the ground. However, the roots of military aerial reconnaissance and photography are planted much closer to home, when Benjamin Foulois sowed the seeds of the idea at Fort Sam Houston in the early 20th century... MORE

Photographer James Hare (left) sits aboard the new 1910 Wright “B” aircraft purchased by R.F. Collier, owner of Collier’s magazine, who lent the U.S. Army the airplane in March 1911 after the original 1909 Wright Flyer, Signal Corps No. 1 was retired. The Collier plane, together with a Wright factory pilot, Phillip Parmalee (right), arrived in San Antonio in February 1911, and Lt. Benjamin Foulois began to learn to fly the newer type aircraft. During the next several weeks, these two men demonstrated the advantages to be derived from using the airplane for photographic reconnaissance as well as courier duties between military units.