TONY JANNUS AND THE WORLD’S FIRST COMMERCIAL AIRLINE FLIGHT STORY / RODNEY KITE-POWELL | PHOTOS / TAMPA BAY HISTORY MUSEUM
The fact that the Tampa Bay area has a long and interesting history should no longer be a surprise to most people. Our region’s recorded history dates back almost 500 years, and its human history stretches back to between 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. While that early history is very interesting, the area’s more modern history certainly seems more accessible to us today.
On January 1, 2014, we will be celebrating one of the more significant modern events in our area’s history. That date marks the 100th anniversary of the first commercial airline flight. That flight took place over Tampa Bay in a two seat seaplane piloted by Tony Jannus. The St. Petersburg - Tampa Air Boat Line lasted only three months, but it proved that regularly scheduled commercial airplane service was a viable enterprise. The first flight departed at 10 am on January 1, 1914, lifting off from the waterfront in downtown St. Petersburg near today’s Jannus Landing. Just before the flight, Percival Fansler, one of the main backers of the airline, made a brief speech, saying “What was impossible yesterday is an accomplishment today, while tomorrow heralds the unbelievable.” The seaplane landed in Hillsborough Bay and eventually docked at the foot of
Lee Street on the Hyde Park side of the Hillsborough River (near today’s Brorein Street Bridge, just south of the Tampa Tribune and Media General buildings). The first passenger was former St. Petersburg mayor Abraham Pheil, who won the ticket in an auction. He paid $400 for the round trip flight (over $8,500 in today’s dollars). Regular flights cost $5, equivalent to over $100 in today’s dollars, and the airline flew several flights daily, plus offered exhibition flights on the weekends. A one way flight usually took about 20 minutes, barring any mechanical troubles. Since it was a seaplane (dubbed an Air Boat at the time), if there was a problem Jannus could land in the bay and make repairs as needed. Jannus actually crashed the plane into the bay on a few occasions, but neither he nor his passengers were ever seriously hurt. The 20 minute flight time was an astounding achievement for the day. Until the Gandy Bridge opened 10 years later, the travel time between St. Pete and Tampa was 2 to 3 hours by boat. People could also take a 64 mile train trip around Old Tampa Bay or a bone-rattling automobile trip of roughly the 3 same length but probably twice
REENACTMENT OF THE FIRST FLIGHT At 10:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Fantasy of Flight CEO Kermit Weeks will fly his full-scale Benoist replica across Tampa Bay, reenacting the same flight Tony Jannus performed 100 years before him. Weeks has spent more than three years researching and building the plane in anticipation of the centennial flight. Weeks has chronicled the construction of the Benoist plane at www.benoist14.com/tag/fantasy-offlight/. For more information regarding events surrounding the centennial anniversary, call Flight 2014 president Will Michaels at (727) 420-9195. You can also check out www.airlinecentennial.org for updates.
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