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The flight that never took off!

It was in 1927...
The "hangar aces" laughed and wondered about the sanity of that pilot who kept taxiing his Martin T3M back and forth, day after day...on the grass runway...then off into the rough. And that crazy guy squatting on a 2x12 plank lashed under the plane! Why was he taking moving pictures of the landing wheels? 

"That crazy guy" riding under the T3M was L.W. Greve, then president of Cleveland Pneumatic. He had the idea of using a pair of automobile shock absorbers to make the first hydraulic aircraft landing gear. Those taxi flights up and down the fields were his way of seeing, with a movie camera to record the performance, how the first pair of hydraulic airplane shock absorbers--the first set of "AEROL" landing gears--worked.

Today, planes of all sizes...globe-girdling bombers and transports, tiny personal planes and helicopters, carrier fighters...all take-off and land safely on AEROL Landing Gears, designed and made by the 3,100 men and women of Cleveland Pneumatic. 

Cleveland Pneumatic
Tool Company
Cleveland 5, Ohio

LANDING GEARS * BALL SCREW ACTUATORS * AUTOMOTIVE SHOP EQUIPMENT