Biographical Sketches

WINFIELD BERTRUM "BERT" KINNER

Born: December 16, 1882    In: Iowa
Died: July 4, 1957    In: Long Beach, CA

In 1920 Winfield Bertrum Kinner, working as an aircraft engineer, decided to go on his own and established the first municipally-owned airport in Los Angeles, below Huntington Park. Kinner Field was a modest start, with a small hangar and a 1200’ dirt runway, and ex-barnstormer Anita Snook as his first and only employee to run a flight school and work as a mechanic while he concentrated on airplane designs as the Kinner Airplane & Motor Corporation.

His first product was a small, 60hp lightplane that he named Airster, and Snook was its test-pilot. This yellow prototype attracted a first customer in December 1920, one Amelia Earhart, who bought it for $2000 to take flying lessons from Snook and christened it "The Canary." Earhart soloed in her ship and, after Snook left to get married, stayed on and continued to build flying time. In October 1921, she used the Airster to set a world altitude record for women pilots of 14,000’, the first of her many records.

Kinner expanded his design to produce a series of lightplanes that became popular, allowing the business to grow into larger quarters in Glendale, as well as acquiring the Security National Aircraft Corp at Downey Field to build the Security Airster. Coincidentally, Kinner’s line of efficient three- and five-cylinder radial engines powered many civil and military aircraft in the late ’20s and ’30s. The airplane business ended in the mid-’30s because of the Depression, but his engines were produced well into the war years for primary trainers.

Bert Kinner is one of 14 aviation pioneers laid to rest in the Portal of the Folded Wings next to Burbank Airport.

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.