1. Jimmie Mattern undertook a number of aviation world records, including twice attempting to break the world record for aerial circumnavigation set by Wiley Post and Harold Gatty.
12 Facts About Jimmie Mattern
1. 2.
In 1928, Jimmie Mattern sold an air plane to an oil company in Texas owned by Michael Benedum.
3.
In 1937, Jimmie Mattern was hired as the aeronautical director for the Benedum and Tree's oil company.
4.
Jimmie Mattern supported the space program, attended three Apollo launches and had his pilot's license carried to the moon aboard Apollo 11.
5.
Jimmie Mattern marketed aviation calculators known as the Mattern computer, a course and mileage slide rule, in the late 1940s.
6.
James Jimmie Mattern was born March 8,1905, in Freeport, Illinois, to Phillip and Caroline Jimmie Mattern.
7.
Jimmie Mattern had two older brothers and an older sister.
8.
Jimmie Mattern requested a divorce in Chicago, Illinois, in 1937, stating that Della had left him in 1932 and was living in Washington.
9.
On May 18,1937, the day after his divorce was finalized, Mattern was married to Dorothy J Harvey, a showgirl, at Berwyn Methodist Church.
10.
Jimmie Mattern remained married to Dorothy until his death in 1988.
11.
June 3,1933: Jimmie Mattern flew a rebuilt Century of Progress.
12.
Jimmie Mattern was eventually rescued by Eskimos and flown to Nome, Alaska, by Sigizmund Levanevsky.