1 September 1947: Captain Thomas Jefferson Wells, United States Army Air Forces, flew a Douglas C-54D-1-DC Skymaster, 42,72451, named Robert E. Lee ¹ by its Alabama-born pilot, from Wilmington Ohio, to Presque Isle, Maine, then on to Jacksonville, Florida, and finally, back to Wilmington. The flight covered approximately 2,901 miles (4,669 kilometers).
What was unusual, though, is that Captain Wells WAS NOT FLYING THE AIRPLANE!
Captain John J. Herbert, Jr., wrote about the flight in Flying Safety, a publication of the United States Air Force:
. . . No doubt you have followed, with some degree of amazement, the flight records of the Automatic C-54. A few of the longer hauls have been well over the 2,000 mile mark. For instance: 1 September 1947, Wilmington, Ohio to Presque Isle, Maine to Jacksonville, Florida to Wilmington, Ohio. A total of 2,900 miles. Except for the fact that the pilot, Capt. Thomas J. Wells, lined up on the takeoff runway, and manually pressed a button marked Wilmington, Ohio, every phase of the flight was automatic. Homing in on a landing beam is an element of automatic flight used only when the automatic C-54 desires to land. On this 2,900-mile flight, the airplane flew to three destinations. The predetermined headings preset in the automatic controller directed the airplane to the first two destinations in turn, but the pre-selected landing sequence was set only for Clinton County.
There was no “remote control” over this airplane such as was used directing the “drones” used in the Bikini A-bomb tests. The Automatic Flight Controller, sometimes called the “Plane Brain” is entirely self-sufficient. Installed in the main cabin of the Automatic C-54, the brain stores information given to it before the flight begins, “reads” the flight and engine instruments, tunes and “listens” to beam signals, “computes” distances, time and airspeed and carries out the normal functions of the crew necessary to conduct a point-to-point flight.
The “Brain” retracts the gear when the airplane reaches 50 feet and retracts the flaps at 1,000 feet. The “brain” adjusts the power for continuous climb to cruising altitude. Navigation is done by two mileage counters and magnetic heading selectors. These instruments control the flight until the plane clicks off the preset number of miles on the present heading.
After the last mile has been clicked off, the airplane automatically homes on a predesignated radio station. When the airplane reaches “home,” throttles come back, props go forward, mixture goes full rich, wheels and flaps come down. The automatic C-54 then orbits the station, letting down at 500 feet per minute until it reaches 2,000 feet. At this time the airplane intercepts the glide path, makes a few corrections in azimuth, flies down the glide path and lands.
“Some touch-downs we have made, says Captain Wells, “could very easily have been classified as hard landings. But,” he adds, “that is the reason the C-54 was selected for this type of work. That gear can really take it.”
Another flight, which will take a front file in the archives of aviation history, began ast 1715 on the 21st of September 1947. With coloenl John M. Gillespie, Chief of the All-Weather Division in command, the automatic C-54 took off from Stephenville, Newfoundland on a transatlantic hop to Brize Norton, England. The elapsed time en route was 12 hours and five minutes. The distance 2,400 miles. Twelve sequences of the “no-hands” flight to England are shown in the accompanying illustration.
In summing up the future possibilities of automatic flight, let’s query Captain Wells, the man who pilots the pilotless airplane.
“We are strictly in the Model ‘T’ stage of development,” he says.
If a Model “T” can make it to England without the aid of a single human hand then I say, put us down for a ’48 model. We’ll buy it.”
For the transatlantic flight, the airplane was under the command of Colonel James M. Gillespie. Captain Wells acted as copilot. The navigator was Captain Roman J. Whiting, with Captain Frank G. Shea as assistant navigator. Also on board were civilian James L. Anast, chief of the automatic flight branch, Army All-Weather Flight Center, George B. Johnson, project engineer. The crew chief was Technical Sergeant Walter W. McKee, with flight engineer Staff Sergeant John C. Nimon (Menon?), Technical Sergeant Raymond Centolella was the radio operator. Observers were Major Thomas F. Weldon, chief of the flying research section of the Air Materiel Command, Charles Franklin, communications and navigation branch, AMC; W.W. Downs, Sperry Gyroscope Company; Wing Commander T.R. Jeff and Group Captain H.E. Boster, Royal Air Force.
Colonel Gillespie was awarded the Octave Chanute Award by the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. The award was presented by John Knudsen (“Jack”) Northrop, founder of the Northrop Corporation, during a ceremony held at the Hotel Ambassador in Los Angeles, California, 16 July 16 1947.
A British Pathé news reel filmed after the flight can be seen at:
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/79348/
The Douglas C-54D Skymaster was a large four-engine military transport manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company. The C-54 made its first flight from Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, 14 February 1942.
The airplane was 93 feet, 11 inches ( 28.626 meters) long with a wingspan of 117 feet, 6 inches (35.814 meters) and overall height of 27 feet, 5-5/16 inches (8.3645 meters). It was a low-wing monoplane with retractable tricycle landing gear. The wings had 7° dihedral. The total wing area was 1,462 square feet (135.8 square meters). It had an empty weight of 38,565 pounds (17,475 kilograms), and takeoff weight of 82,500 pounds (37,421 kilograms). With a crew of five, it could carry 49 troops.
The C-54D was powered by four air-cooled, supercharged Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp R-2000-11 two-row, fourteen-cylinder radial engines with a compression ratio of 6.52:1. The engine required 100/130 octane aviation gasoline. The R-2000-11 drove three bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propellers with a diameter of 13 feet, 1 inch (3.988 meters) through a 2:1 gear reduction. This engine had a Normal Power rating of 1,100 horsepower at 2,550 r.p.m. at 7,500 feet (2,286 meters), and 1,000 horsepower at 2,550 r.p.m. at 17,000 feet (5,182 meters); Military Power, 1,350 horsepower at 2,700 r.p.m. at 3,000 feet (914 meters) and 16,000 feet (4,877 meters); Takeoff power, 1,350 horsepower at 2,700 r.p.m. (1,450 horsepower if the engine incorporated plain main bearings). The R-2000-11 was 49.10 inches (1.247 meters) in diameter, 59.62 inches (1.514 meters) long, and weighed 1,562 pounds (708.5 kilograms). The engine was sold commercially as the Twin Wasp 2SD11-G.
The C-54 had a maximum speed 267 knots (307 miles per hour/494 kilometers per hour) at 18,300 feet (5,578 meters), and maximum ceiling of 28,000 feet (8,534 meters). With a fuel capacity of 2,662 gallons (10,077 liters), its maximum range was 1,650 nautical miles (1,899 statute miles/3,056 kilometers).
Douglas built 515 C-54s at Clover Field (manufacturer code -DO) and 655 at Douglas Field, near Chicago, Illinois (manufacturer code -DC). 388 of these were the C-54D variant. The C-54 was produced commercially as the Douglas DC-4.
42-72451 (MSN 10556 was transferred to the United States Coast Guard, and retired to “The Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, 5 May 1964.
Taylor Jackson Starr, Jr., was born 4 January 1921 at Selma, Alabama. He was the son of Taylor Jackson Starr, Sr., and Laura Adell Threadgill Starr. When his mother later married to Albert Patton Wells, Taylor’s name was changed to Thomas Jefferson Wells. In 1930, he lived with his maternal grandmother, Della Threadgill, in Selma, Alabama.
Wells attended Boys High School, Decatur, Georgia, graduating in 1936, followed by the Marion Military Institute, at Marion, Alabama, and then the Citadel Military College of South Carolina (“The Citadel”), Charleston, South Carolina, 1938–1940. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in education.
After the United States entered World War II, Wells enlisted as a private in the United States Army. Selected for flight training, he was sent to Fort Worth, Texas, for primary training, and then to Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas. He graduated at Brooks Army Airfield, also in San Antonio, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, 6 March 1942.
One month earlier, Aviation Cadet Wells married Miss Adelaide Elizabeth Dickson at St. James Rectory, Orlando, Florida, 9 February 1942. Reverend Father John Bishop officiated. Miss Dickson was a student at the Florida State College for Women, where she was a member of the Tri Delta (ΔΔΔ) sorority. They would reside at Albany, Georgia, where he was assigned to Turner Army Air Field as a flight instructor. They would have three children, Lauranne, Thomas N., and Barbara.
During World War II, Lieutenant Wells flew “The Hump,” the notorious transport route over the Himalaya Mountains from India to China. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. DFC and Air Medal. Captain Wells returned to the United States, arriving at LaGuardia Airport, New York, from Casablanca, Morocco, aboard a Douglas C-54A-5-DC Skymaster, 42-72179, at 8:30 p.m., 25 August 1944.
Following the War, Captain Wells flew in the Berlin Airlift, the Allied effort to supply Berlin after the city was blockaded by the Soviet Union, 24 June 1948–12 May 1949.
Wells later served as the staff operations officer at the Air Force Missile Test Center, Patrick AFB, on the eastern coast of Florida.
After leaving active duty in 1956, Major Wells returned to The Citadel where he served as assistant professor of air science.
Promoted to lieutenant colonel 1 April 1962.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jefferson Wells died at Montgomery, Alabama, 4 April 1964, He was 44 years of age. His remains were interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Orlando, Florida.
¹ Another source called the Skymaster The Big Push.
© 2025, Bryan R. Swopes
