Cornelius Coffey -- USA

Cornelius Coffey was the first African American to establish an aeronautical school in the United States.  His school was also the only non-university affiliated aviation program to become part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP).  His pioneering efforts led to the integration of African American pilots into the American aviation industry. 

Cornelius Robinson Coffey was born in Newport, Arkansas, on 6 September 1903, just months before the Wright brothers initial flight, Coffey took his first aeroplane flight when he was 13 and became obsessed with aviation.  

In 1925 he enrolled in a trade school on the South Side of Chicago to study automobile mechanics.  John Robinson, a fellow black mechanic and friend of Coffey, shared the burning desire to fly.  Commercial flying schools would not accept African Americans.

But a local black businessman lent the two a vacant store front, where they built a one-seat aeroplane powered by a motorcycle engine and taught themselves to fly.  They were both employed as auto mechanics by Emil Mack, the white owner of a Chevrolet dealership in Elmwood Park Illinois.  Using the business address of the dealership they applied for an aviation mechanics training course and were accepted at the Curtis Wright School of Aviation in Chicago.  They reported to the school for the start of classes, but when it was discovered they were black, Coffey and Robinson were refused admittance.  The school attempted to reimburse the two for their tuition, but their employer Mr. Mack, threatened to sue the school if they were not allowed to enter.  The school backed down and allowed Coffey and Robinson to attend, they graduated two years later at the top of their class.

In 1932, Cornelius Coffey became the first African American certified aircraft mechanic in the United States.  Later that year Coffey became the first African American to hold both a pilot’s and a mechanics licence.  In the late 1930s, Coffey established the Coffey School of Aeronautics at Harlem Airport, located south of Chicago.  Coffey recruited Clyde Hampton, Willa Brown a former student who later became his wife, and other pioneer black pilots as instructors.  In 1939, Coffey, along with Willa Brown the first black member of the Civil Air Patrol, and Enoch P. Waters formed the National Airmen’s Association of America. 

From 1938 to 1945 more than 1,500 black students went through the Coffey School of Aeronautics, including many who would later become Tuskegee Airmen.  After the war, Coffey served as an instructor at the Lewis School of Aeronautics in Lockport, and then at Dunbar Vocational High School in Chicago, training some of the first blacks to be hired as mechanics by commercial airlines.

Coffey was the first black person to establish an aeronautical school in the United States, his school was also the only non-university affiliated aviation school to become part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program.  His pioneering efforts led to the integration of black pilots into the American aviation industry, Cornelius R Coffey died in Chicago on 2 March 1994

He received the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award from the Federal Aviation Administration, and was the first black American to have an aerial navigation intersection named after them by the FAA the "Cofey Fix," a waypoint located on the VICTOR 7 airway over Lake Calumet, provides electronic course guidance to Chicago Midway Airport Runway 31 Left.  Coffey also designed a carburettor heater that prevented icing and allowed aeroplanes to fly in all types of weather, similar devices are still in use on aircraft today.