Not deterred, Anderson attended aviation ground school, learned airplane mechanics, and hung around airports, picking up information from white pilots wherever he could.

One club member and experienced pilot, Russell Thaw, had no airplane but sought to visit his mother on weekends in Atlantic City.

Seeking to obtain an air transport pilot's license but again finding race an obstacle, help finally came from Ernest H. Buehl, known as "The Flying Dutchman," a German aviator who had been invited to come to the United States in 1920 to help open transcontinental airmail routes.

[5] Under Buehl's tutelage and personal insistence, in February 1932, Anderson became the first African American to receive an air transport pilot's license from the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Among these was the pair's first transcontinental round trip flight by black pilots, from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Los Angeles, California.

[4] The duo made additional ‘first flights’ for blacks to Canada and throughout the United States, capturing worldwide attention in the summer of 1934 when they flew their new Lambert Monocoupe, christened The Booker T. Washington, on a Pan American Good Will Tour.

[6] By September 1938, Anderson was instructing in the Washington, D.C. area where, while operating a Piper Cub, he was hired as a flight instructor for the Civilian Pilot Training Program at Howard University.

Anderson went on to train other famous Military Aviation Pioneers such as General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and General Daniel "Chappie" James Jr.[2] By June 1941, Anderson was selected by the Army as Tuskegee's Ground Commander and Chief Instructor for aviation cadets of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, America's first all-black fighter squadron.

[9] Anderson's postwar contributions to aviation continued at Moton Field located in Tuskegee Alabama, providing ground and flight training to both black and white students under the G.I.

In 1967, Anderson Co-Founded the non-profit Negro Airmen International (NAI), the nation's oldest African-American pilot organization in the world.