The things you find when you’re looking for something else!
On May 4, 1917, a son was born in Jamestown to Swedish immigrants Gust and Ina Christine Swanstrom Carlson. Floyd William Carlson grew up as the middle child in a large Swedish family at 11 Crown Street. The family attended the old Zion Mission Church.
When he was a teenager, Floyd became enamored with aviation, maybe because his brother, Milton, was the manager of the new Jamestown Airport. In 1933 when he was 16 years old, Milton gave Floyd his first flying lesson. Thirty days later, he would have his first solo flight and on June 22, 1936, he earned his private pilot’s license. He would be a commercially licensed pilot in May 1937.
Milton and Floyd began working for Buffalo Aeronautical Corporation in 1940. They both gave flight instructions, and Floyd worked as a charter pilot. They were both hired by the new Bell Aircraft Company in 1942 as “Flight Research Engineers,” meaning that they were test pilots for the World War II planes built by Bell. The United States government required that each aircraft be flown and tested by company pilots before they were delivered. Floyd and Milton flew development and production fixed wing airplanes, and they were also involved in the initial development of rocket launchers and jet aircraft flights.
In 1943, Bell chose Floyd to be part of the team that was developing a new type of aircraft — the helicopter. As he became more involved in the engineering of the helicopters, Floyd is credited with developing a brace that corrected a vibration problem in the helicopter rotors. It became known as the “Swedish Yoke.” This would enable helicopters to fly at higher speeds, sometimes in excess of 70 miles per hour.
Tragedy struck the Carlson family and Bell Aviation in August 1946, when Milton Carlson was killed in a crash of the Model 47 helicopter. After this, Floyd, with the full support of the Bell engineering department, began a campaign that led to greater flight safety for all the Bell aircraft.
In 1952, Floyd and his wife, the former Evelyn Newberg of Jamestown, moved their family to Fort Worth, Texas, where Bell Aviation was building a $3.5 million factory. Bell continued to build helicopters at their Niagara Falls facility and had them shipped to Fort Worth where Chief Pilot Floyd Carlson tested them.
Bell won a competition in February 1955 for the United States Army’s first turbine-powered utility helicopter, which eventually became known as the “Huey.”
Floyd worked for Bell Aviation for 40 years, retiring in 1982. He had logged more than 20,000 flight hours between 28 different models of fixed wing aircraft and 38 models of rotary-wing and tiltrotor aircraft.
Floyd passed away less than two years later in April 1984. He and Evelyn and their three sons had lived in Texas for 32 years. At his funeral was a flyover of five different Bell helicopter models, ending with the “missing man” formation performed with the last helicopter Floyd had flown.
What does all this have to do with Lucille Ball’s visit to Jamestown in February 1956? Floyd Carlson, a Jamestown native from Crown Street, flew the helicopter that brought Lucy and Desi to Jamestown, landing on the athletic field behind Jamestown High School.
The night before the flight, Floyd was a guest contestant on the television show What’s My Line, which was broadcast live from New York City. Desi Arnaz was a guest panelist on the show, and with three other panelists, tried to guess Floyd’s occupation. The original program can be viewed on YouTube.
Information for this story is from Floyd Carlson: The Legacy and Contributions of One of America’s Greatest Rotary Wing Test Pilots, written by Lieutenant Colonel Paul J. Fardink, U.S. Army, Retired.
