A mile too high?
By Geoffrey Thomas Sun Jan 19, 2014
We have all heard of the Mile High Club but just who christened this secretive sect of people who claim to have had a special encounter a mile (1.6km) or more above the earth.
The honor belongs to Lawrence Burst Sperry, third son of gyrocompass co-inventor Elmer Ambrose Sperry and his wife Zula. Lawrence Sperry invented the first autopilot in 1914 and the artificial horizon still used on aircraft today. In all, he held 23 patents.
The Mile High Club website lists Mr Sperry as its founder, along with the famous New York socialite Mrs. Waldo Polk.
The club was christened on an autopilot-equipped Curtiss Flying Boat in November 1916. However the flight wasn’t without incident and the aircraft plunged 500 feet into the water.
The naked couple was rescued by two duck hunters with Mr Sperry claiming that the crash had stripped them of their clothing. One paper, the New York tabloid Mirror and Evening Graphic, headlined their front page; “Aerial Petting – Ends in Wetting.”
Sadly Mr Sperry was lost at the age of 31. On 23 December 1923 Mr Sperry took off amid fog from the UK and headed for France but never reached his destination. His body was found in the English Channel on 11 January 1924.
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