Moye W. Stephens

These were people such as Frank Clarke, Pancho Barnes, Sandy Sandblom, Leo Nomis, Bud Creeth, Eddie Bellande, Ross Hadley, and Stephens's lifelong best friend, Dick Rinaldi.

He knew movie stars such as Richard Arlen, Ramon Novarro, Sue Carol, Reginald Denny, Wallace Beery, and Dolores del Río.

After classes at Hollywood High, Stephens rushed to Rogers Airport [5] at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue to look at the biplanes and to talk with the pilots.

[7] His first plane was a Thomas-Morse S-4C Scout,[8][9] A single-seat biplane with fabric-covered wooden airframe it had been an advanced trainer for World War I pilots.

Moye paid movie stunt pilot Leo Nomis [7] $450 for the Scout after his father relented and allowed the boy to buy the plane.

In 1926, he bought his first airplane for $450, a war surplus Thomas-Morse S-4C Scout[8][9] from Leo Nomis,[7] a leading motion picture stunt pilot.

This included work in Cecil B. DeMille's [12] film, Corporal Kate[13] and in Howard Hughes' [14]' Hell's Angels,[15] famous today for its harrowing World War I aerial combat scenes.

In summer 1928 he taught the donor of the Los Angeles La Brea Tar Pits, Captain G. Allan Hancock,[16] to fly in an OX-5-powered Travel Air 2000.

Hiatt, a Stanford classmate, he wrote stories, "The Assault Upon Miracle Castle", and "Ghosts of the Air",[19] both published in Weird Tales, a magazine still in existence.

[15] In 1928 he left Stanford just when beginning law school as he was hired as captain for Maddux Airlines to fly Ford Tri-Motors, although he had no multi-engine experience.

He was checked-out for take off and landing by doing a quick circuit of Grand Central Air Terminal[20] in Glendale, California, with the pilot observing from the right-hand seat.

In June 1929 he resigned from Maddux to join Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) which eventually became Trans World Airlines (TWA).

[citation needed] A few years after Charles Lindbergh's New York City to Paris flight, Stephens flew an open cockpit biplane around the world.

Stephens chose a Stearman C-3B[21] with Halliburton, taking eighteen months, and reaching places such as Timbuktu in Africa, Mount Everest in the Himalayas, The Taj Mahal in India, Petra in Jordan, Singapore in Southeast Asia, and Sarawak in Borneo.

In Iran, they met young German aviator Elly Beinhorn, famous in her day, who had also flown to Timbuktu in a Klemm, although her plane had been forced down because of mechanical failure.

In 1931, Richard Halliburton, a famous travel-adventure writer of the time, asked Stephens to pilot and mechanic for him in an around the world flight.

The trip in a biplane called The Flying Carpet, a Stearman C-3B, took eighteen months, covered 33,660 miles, visited 34 countries, and included France, the Sahara, Persia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

In 1939 he was instrumental in the promotion and organization of Northrop Aircraft, Inc., in consideration of which he was awarded stock interest in the company and was made Assistant Corporate Secretary.

In 1932, shortly after the return of the Flying Carpet, he was invited to become an inaugural member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Aero Squadron.

In 1937 he became a founder and board member of the Aviation Country Club of California, Inc. That same year he took leave of absence from Pacific Aircraft Sales, and enjoyed his honeymoon on a lengthy business trip: Lockheed sent him to New Zealand and Australia to promote sales and to check out the pilots of Union Airways and Ansett Airways in their new Lockheed Model 10 Electra airplanes.

They obtained a franchise from the Brazilian government, but the climate severely affected his young son's health so Stephens returned to the United States.

In 1948, John K. Northrop awarded him a lifetime membership in the Flying Wing Club as "one of a small group of distinguished pilots who have participated in the historical development and pioneered in the public acceptance of this revolutionary and highly efficient type of aircraft".

In 1990, his interview as a pioneer aviator appeared on a PBS television series, The American Experience,[30] on the life of Charles Lindbergh, produced by Ken Burns.