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[[stamped]] FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE [[/stamped]]

boat was deliver to him at Seidlers Beach on Raritan Bay, New Jersey and Coffyn was sent there to fly it for him, remaining until the plane was put up for the winter on December 23rd. 

During the winter months Coffyn designed and supervised the construction of a shallow draft air-propelled boat for Collier, called the "Aero-Skimmer." In the spring of 1914 he reportedly assisted in the early development of the first Burgess-Dunne Hydro-aeroplanes, and in June the Burgess Company established a New York office at 331 Madison Avenue with Coffyn in charge. At the same time he also set up his own consulting business and later became a free lance test pilot until the beginning of World War I in 1917. 

At that time Coffyn became instructor in charge of flying at Rich Field, Waco, Texas, where he remained until July, 1918. While there he assisted in the training of some three hundred flying cadets, many of whom later became internationally famous. By this time he had accepted a commission as Captain in the Army Air Service, and was transferred to Damm Field, Babylon, Long Island, New York as Commanding Officer, where he remained until his resignation from the Service in January, 1919. 

After the war Coffyn went to Great Britain on business relating to the automobile industry. During 1920-1922 he was in the wholesale cotton business in Port au Prince, Haiti, then moved to California where he was in the movie and real estate business until 1929 when he made an aerial survey for a mining company in Mexico. In late 1929-1930 he was an aviation consultant for General Development Corporation, Hartford, Connecticut. In 1931 he was in charge of the Aviation Department of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, and in July of this year took auto-gyro instruction at Pitcairn Field, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania and learned to fly a rotary-wing aircraft. 

From the mid 1930's to 1941 Coffyn was in charge of an office for the Canadian Aviation Bureau in New York. This organization was engaged in securing competent American aviators to work for the Canadian and British Governments to ferry aircraft across the Atlantic during World War II. From 1941 to 1945 he was with

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