In its infancy, American aviation progressed through the efforts of innovative aviation legends like Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, who designed aircraft that were seen in demonstrations around the country.
These flights inspired others to try their hand at aircraft construction. And if their early results were occasionally imitative, some of the newcomers went on with innovations of their own.
Now all but forgotten on the national scene, Kansas inventor Albin Longren is one of the aviation pioneers you likely don’t know.
Longren entered the working world as a hardware dealer. With knowledge of hardware and the nascent skill of a natural engineer, he created some hand-built motorcycles and even automobiles, using spare parts and his own vision.
As a member of the Kansas National Guard in 1910, Longren assisted with crowd security during a flying show in Topeka that June. The Curtiss Pusher aircraft crashed, but the mechanically inclined Longren was inspired to make his own flying machine.
Photos taken in 1911 depict something made of wood, bamboo poles, and cloth in the fashion of a Curtiss Pusher, animated by a 60-horsepower Hall-Scott engine.
Longren did not have any formal education as an aeronautical designer and engineer. He also lacked any flight training. Neither stopped him from achieving success with his original biplane, the Longren Topeka.
Barnstorming, marriage to a nurse (who would become a beauty pageant queen and film actress), and continued aircraft development kept Longren busy between 1911 and 1915.
Longren is said to have especially admired his wife, Dolly’s, mechanical expertise as she helped with his aircraft projects. It’s easy to picture Albin and Dolly Longren as a power couple of their era. It is said her outgoing personality was a perfect counterpoint to Albin’s reserve. Ultimately, Albin and Dolly went their separate ways. By 1929, Dolly was a successful antique dealer in New York.
In November 1915 an aircraft mishap sidelined Longren. By 1917, he was an inspector for U.S. Army aircraft at the service’s first flight research establishment on McCook Field, near Dayton, Ohio.
Longren continued designing and building aircraft, including an OX-5-powered biplane, circa 1918, that bore some superficial similarities to the Curtiss JN-4, while also incorporating significant original design.
Back in Topeka after World War I, Longren created the Longren AK, a diminutive biplane with wings that folded rearward for storage. A three-cylinder Anzani engine pulled the AK through the air.
Notable for its day was the use of structural skin, a forerunner of semi-monocoque construction, in the AK’s fuselage that had a rounded cross-section, assembled much like a plastic model kit, with two mirror-image halves mated together.
Some accounts tally Longren’s aircraft production at 21, but it is unclear if this is all types or just the Model AK.
Longren, sometimes described as shy and not talkative, may not have been the best promoter for his impressive AK fuselage. Failing to raise sufficient capital to bankroll serious production of this modern design, the AK was destined to exist as a few hand-built copies.
By the mid-1920s, Longren faced bankruptcy. Most of his assets and designs were sold and he became a consultant to other manufacturers, including Luscombe and Spartan.
Longren innovated some metal forming techniques that benefited Luscombe. He later brought his prowess to Cessna in 1935.
His final contribution to the aviation industry was with a company specializing in manufacturing fuselages. He relocated to Torrance, California, in the middle of the hotbed of aviation manufacturers populating the southern portion of that state.
He eventually retired to a ranch in Adin, California, in 1945. Situated in far northeastern California’s Modoc County, the ranch was his home for the last five years of his life. He died in 1950 at 68.
Longren was buried in his birth state of Kansas, and he was later inducted into the Kansas Aviation Museum’s Hall of Fame. In Kansas he is celebrated as the state’s first successful pilot and aircraft builder.
