Did You Know... St. Petersburg and Tampa

Did you know several aviation milestones were set in Florida? The cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg played host to several firsts in aviation in the early 1900s. In 1911, both the first night flight and a new world altitude record were documented over the City of Tampa. Pilot Lincoln Beachey successfully completed a flight after dark in March and later the same year achieved a height of 11,500 feet, then a world record. The first regularly scheduled commercial flight service was established between the City of St. Petersburg and the City of Tampa in 1914. At that time, a train trip between the two cities was 64 miles around Tampa Bay and took from eight to 12 hours. By steamship, the journey was 21 miles across the bay and took two hours. On January 1, 1914, pilot Antony "Tony" Janus, the world's first licensed airline pilot, made the trip from St. Petersburg to Tampa in just under 30 minutes. The return trip with the wind took 20 minutes. His first passenger in the two-seater plane was former St. Petersburg Mayor A.C. Pheil who paid several hundred dollars at an auction earlier in the day for the privilege. After the day's success, two daily roundtrip flights were flown for 28 consecutive days at a cost of $5 for a one-way ticket. Founder Percival Fansler of Jacksonville had two more planes brought in to accommodate the demand. During its month of service, the airline also logged the first woman to fly on a commercial airline. Though its lifespan was brief, the St. Petersburg-Tampa flight service set the stage for commercial airlines as we know them today. Reprinted from Quality Cities September/October 2006 Back to City Trivia Home