Edward Lincoln Hoffman (1884–1970) was a United States Army Air Service (USAAS) pilot, officer and Engineering Division Chief at McCook Field.

The 1926 Collier Trophy was awarded to Major E. L. Hoffman, Air Corps for "development of a practical parachute;" the year's greatest achievement in American aviation.

[2][3] Born to American Civil War veteran William Hoffman and his wife Mary E Aearn[citation needed] on 17 December 1884 at Fort Slocum, Davids Island, New Rochelle, New York.

[6] After the WWI Armistice, Smith's team came under command of Major Hoffman who formed the Parachute Board adding several other civilians including: Floyd Smith, Guy Ball, show-jumper Harry Eibe, Army parachutist Sgt Ralph Bottreil, engineers James M. Russell and James J. Higgins.

[citation needed] Conservative Major Hoffman and others believed the free-fall was dangerous and that a jumper might blackout before pulling the ripcord.

On 20 October 1922, Lieutenant Harold R. Harris, chief of the McCook Field Flying Station, jumped from a disabled Loening PW-2A high wing monoplane fighter.

Harris' lifesaving chute was mounted on the wall of McCook's parachute lab where the Dayton Herald's aviation editor Maurice Hutton and photographer Verne Timmerman, predicting more jumps in future, suggested that a club should be formed.

Two years later, Irvin's company instituted the Caterpillar Club, awarding a gold pin to pilots who successfully bailed out of disabled aircraft using an Irving parachute.

[10] US President Calvin Coolidge congratulated Major Edward L. Hoffman, Air Corps, on the 1926 Collier Trophy for "development of a practical parachute;" the year's greatest achievement in American aviation.

[15]  [16] On 8 June 1936, Hoffman received a reprimand from the United States Secretary of War George Dern for concealing connections to the Safe Aircraft Inc. and the Triangle Parachute Company in Cincinnati.