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

THADDEUS S. KERNS

Northern California Pioneer Aviator - Plane Builder

[[Image of a man holding a steering wheel]]

Thaddeus S. Kerns was born in Santa Ana, California, June 5, 1894.  In 1901 the family moved to Chico, California where Kerns attended grade and high schools.  There his father was a prominent banker and property owner.

Mechanically inclined, young Kerns developed an intense interest in the rapidly developing progress of aviation and spend all his spare time building model planes.  Then, while in high school, he obtained a booklet describing "How To Build" a man-carrying glider.  Assisted by school companions he built a glider and succeeded in making some short gliding flights from cliffs near his home.  He then built a crude airplane which was so underpowered it would not fly.  His interest was intensified when aviator Frank Johnson made exhibition flights at Chico on February 19 and 20, 1910.

Kerns graduated from Chico High School in the spring of 1910 and by that time was determined that he wanted to learn to fly.  His parents objected but after much persuasion his father agreed to assist him financially in building his first real airplane.  It was a modified Curtiss-type pusher biplane, powered by a 40 hp. Elbridge, two-cycle, liquid-cooled aviation engine.  He purchase a Gibson propeller for the plane which he completed and had ready to 

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