Richard Chichester du Pont was an American businessman and an aviation and glider pioneer who was a member of the prominent Du Pont family. He was the founder of the major US legacy carrier US Airways, after serving as a special assistant to General Henry H. Arnold, the chief of the United States Air Forces.
Biography
He was born on January 2, 1911 in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of A. Felix du Pont and Mary Chichester. As a young boy he developed an enthusiasm for aviation and took flying lessons. His interest in flight expanded to include gliders and he was flying them while still a teenager. At the University of Virginia, he founded a campus soaring club. In 1932, he went to study aviation at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute. That year, he and his sister Alice flew an open-cockpit airplane up the Amazon River. In 1933, Richard du Pont partnered with Hawley Bowlus to set up the Bowlus-du Pont Sailplane Company, a glider manufactory in San Fernando, California. Du Pont made a record flight in one of their sailplanes on September 21, 1933, taking off from Afton Mountain into the Rockfish Gap and gliding 121.6 miles to Frederick, Maryland. The firm remained in business for only a few years, ceasing operations in September 1936. On March 19, 1934, Richard du Pont married Helena Allaire Crozer. They had two children, Richard Chichester du Pont, Jr. and Lana du Pont. Richard du Pont and his older brother Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr. established the forerunner to US Airways and now renamed American Airlines, the largest airline in the world. Their All American Aviation Company was at first an airmail service that eventually serviced parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. In 1949, the company began passenger service and changed its name to All American Airways and then to Allegheny Airlines. During World War II, the United States War Department created the American Glider Program. After the death of the program's director, Lewin B. Barringer, Richard du Pont was made a Special Assistant to General "Hap" Arnold and placed in charge of the glider program at Army Air Force Headquarters. On September 11, 1943, at March Air Field in California, Richard du Pont was killed when the experimental XCG-16 glider in which he was a passenger crashed during a demonstration flight. After bailing out of the aircraft his parachute failed. His brother, Major Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr., was appointed to succeed him as head of the glider program.
