Wally Timm (August 8, 1896 – April 29, 1978) was an American aircraft designer, pilot and manufacturer.

Early life Wally Timm was born in Lakefield, Minnesota, and with his family moved to Windom, Minnesota. He worked closely alongside his brother Otto Timm in the early days of aviation and was a pioneer in Hollywood films.

Aviation career Timm started in aviation as early as 1910.Skyways for Business (National Business Aircraft Association, American Aviation Publications), Volumes 15–16, 1956. Along with his brothers, Otto and Reuben, he first moved to San Diego, California before relocating in Venice, California. Timm began to work as a mechanic, servicing aircraft for Al Wilson, an exhibition pilot, in exchange for flying lessons.Wynne 1987, p. 16. He briefly became a wing-walker, but mainly flew when Wilson performed as a wing-walker.Wynne 1987, pp. 17, 23.

In 1920, Timm's piloting skills were noted for flying an outdated biplane with a Curtiss OX-5 engine from Los Angeles to Bishop California over the mountains and desert.Aerial Age, August 29, 1921, p. 586. Trying his hand at air racing, Timm entered the Winter Air Tournament held in December 1920 at Daugherty Municipal Field in Long Beach. The events included a 100-mile free-for-all and a 60-mile handicap race in which Timm took third place in a 1916 biplane built by Eddie Barnhart.Parks, Dennis. "The OX-5 Racers." General Aviation News, September 18, 2011. Retrieved: November 28, 2012. Timm joined Mercury Aviation in 1920 as an instructor, although he began to be in demand to fly for the nascent Hollywood film industry.Wynne 1987, p. 28. In 1922, Timm and Ruel Short dismantled and relocated one of the Chaplin Airfield buildings to Santa Monica Airport to serve as a hangar for Timm's next ventures.Wynne 1987, p. 31.

Flying for Hollywood In the 1920s, Timm began to fly as one of the pilots that performed "stunts" in Hollywood productions, joining Paul Mantz and Frank Clarke as highly sought-out talent.Wynne 1987, pp. 23–28. One of Timm's early movie stunts involved launching a tethered Curtiss JN-4 from the Los Angeles Railway building for the movie Stranger than Fiction (1921). Timm was only the aircraft assembler and rope cutter on the unauthorized launch.Kelly 2008, p. 37. In 1930, Wally and his brother worked with Al Wilson, another early movie stunt pilot, modifying aircraft for the epic 1930 Howard Hughes movie Hell's Angels."Grand Central Airport." airportjournals.com. Retrieved: March 27, 2012.

Wally and his brother Otto constructed a replica of a 1900 vintage Gustave Whitehead aircraft for the 1938 movie Men with Wings'''.Boone, Andrew R. "Planes Fly Again." Popular Science, December 1938, p. 102.

Aviation manufacturing In 1934, Wally and his brother Otto joined to form a new company named the Timm Airplane Company at Glendale Airport, to produce the Timm T-S140.Wynne 1987, p. 75. The design featured a high wing, powered by twin engines, using new features developed at NACA such as flaps and tricycle landing gear.Hansen 2003, p. 340.

Timm formed the Wally Timm Company in Glendale, California.Aero Digest, Volume 40, 1942. He purchased the rights to the Kinner Sportwing, a side-by-side monoplane training aircraft, and modified it as a tandem-seat trainer to compete for the Civilian Pilot Training Program buildup prior to World War II. The Timm Aerocraft 2AS lost out to a Fairchild design.Juptner 1993, p. 123.Underwood 2006, p. 102.

Later years After World War II, Timm became a distributor for Taylorcraft aircraft at Whiteman Airport in California,Flying Magazine, August 1952, p. 59. as well as partnering with Norman Larson in Seattle to sell Beechcraft aircraft. One of their modified Beechcraft Bonanza's, the "Waikiki Beach", was piloted on a world record flight by Bill Odom and is displayed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.Western Aerospace, Volume 29, 1949. Timm remained an active pilot into the late 1950s.

In his later years, Timm was remembered as a "cultured, refined gentleman of the old school." He died on April 29, 1978 (aged 81) at El Cajon, California.Wynne 1987, p. 164.

References Notes

Bibliography

Hansen, James R. ed. The Wind and Beyond: A Documentary Journey Into the History of Aerodynamics, Volume I: The Ascent of the Airplane. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2003. Juptner, Joseph P. U.S. Civil Aircraft Series, Volume 8. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 1993. . Kelly, Shawna. Aviators in Early Hollywood (Images of America: California). Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2008. . Underwood, John. Grand Central Air Terminal (CA) (Images of Aviation). Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2006. . Wynne, H. Hugh. The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies.'' Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1987. .

External links The Wally Timm Company Aetna (Timm-Aetna)