Lawrence Leon and the Curtiss Aeroplane Co. in 1920s Argentina

On July 22, 1919, the newspapers of Buenos Aires—the capital of Argentina—announced the arrival by steamship of a “yanqui” [Yankee] aviator and his wife from the United States. Thirty-year-old flight instructor Lawrence Leon (1889-1965) was a representative of the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Buffalo, New York. He brought with them a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” and the promise to “study the possibility of establishing air services” in Argentina.^[i] In a matter of weeks he would be a celebrity in Argentine society and in the process would win a special place for U.S. aviation on the other side of the American hemisphere.

Whether for business, personal achievement, military adventure, or humanitarian concern, aviadores estadounidenses [aviators from the United States] took to the skies of Latin America from the outset of powered flight. Many developed close ties to communities south of the border that were based on mutual respect and admiration. Personal diplomacy could and did circumvent the often-discordant political relationships among the U.S. government and its hemispherical neighbors over the 20th century.

Within the the National Air and Space Museum Archives, there are few better cases of the power of personality than that of flight instructor, aerobatic pilot, and businessman Lawrence Leon. Born in Turin, Italy, Leon immigrated to the U.S. in 1913 at the age of 24. He settled in Buffalo and in 1915 began working for the Curtiss Aeroplane Company. Leon earned his civil pilot license (No. 589) in September 1916 at the Buffalo Flying School. During World War I, he served as a flight instructor for the U.S. Army Air Service, before returning to Curtiss as a test pilot. Leon became a U.S. citizen in November 1918.

In mid-1919, the Curtiss Aeroplane Company looked to expand the sales of its stalwart products such as the “Jenny.” The First World War had massively increased the scale of aircraft production and with the return of peace, the company had far too many unsold airplanes sitting in its warehouses. European airplane manufacturers found themselves in the same position. The governments of France and Italy created “aeronautical missions” composed of combat pilots and their aircraft that traveled around the world to woo foreign buyers. Similarly, Curtiss created the Curtiss Aeroplane Export Co. and dispatched sales agents around Latin America. Leon was selected to represent the company in what was then the largest market for aircraft in the region: Argentina.

When Leon arrived in July 1919, Argentina was at the outset of an aviation boom. While there was little flight activity during the war years due to aircraft shortages, the postwar period saw a profusion of aerial accomplishments, such as the first flights over the Andes Mountains. Pilots were again in the news—not as combatants but as popular heroes. Flight activity remained small-scale and precarious, but the Argentine public was hungry for new aerial feats, celebrities, and machines. And with Argentina being Latin America’s wealthiest nation per capita, argentinos could afford airplanes to a greater degree than any of their neighbors.

Despite the opportunities afforded by the flying boom, as an agent of a U.S. firm, Leon faced a serious challenge. A British military mission had already arrived months earlier, and by September 1919, aeronautical missions from France and Italy had disembarked to much fanfare. These missions were generally larger, state-funded operations featuring internationally known pilots. Furthermore, Argentine society was enamored of European culture and technology. The millions of Europeans that had immigrated to Argentina in the preceding decades maintained close cultural and economic ties to their home countries.

In contrast, the relationship between Argentina and the United States was ambivalent at best. Argentine public intellectuals frequently argued in the national press that the U.S. represented the greatest threat to Argentina’s political and economic ambitions, if not sovereignty. This perception grew in the wake of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and intensified during a series of U.S. military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, before improving under the Roosevelt administration’s “Good Neighbor Policy” in the 1930s. Leon confronted an uphill battle to convince the Argentine state as well as private individuals to buy Curtiss planes and not Italian Capronis and French Spads.

Leon proved more than able to outmaneuver his European competition. He had the advantage of his Italian heritage, an asset in some Argentine circles since the nation had received millions of Italian immigrants in the preceding decades. He also had a superb airplane, the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny,” which was one of the period’s most popular aircraft. But these advantages could only get him so far. His Italian, French, British, and German competition also had great products. Instead, Leon won friends and customers through his easygoing attitude, graciousness, business acumen, and sheer competence as a pilot.

Initially Leon announced plans to create a passenger service between Buenos Aires and the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, but this proved a premature ambition as there was little demand for such services. Instead, he dedicated his efforts to opening a flight school at the San Fernando airfield in a suburb of the Argentine capital, with the aid of two more Curtiss pilots, Richard Depew and William MacMullen, and small team of U.S. and Argentine mechanics. The San Fernando school’s aircraft roster included the Curtiss Oriole and Standard J-1, but most flight instruction was conducted in the iconic “Jenny.”

Leon was an excellent teacher. He personally instructed dozens of Argentines, which represented a sizable proportion of civilian pilots in the country. Many of his protégés became important members of the Argentine flight community as instructors, state administrators, aeroclub founders, and, eventually, airline pilots. His services were soon in high demand across the region. In 1922, Leon was sent to Chile and Peru to establish training programs there for civilian pilots.

Critically for Curtiss, the San Fernando school’s successes garnered aircraft orders. Argentine pilots lauded the “Jenny,” locally called “la petisa,” or “the pony,” as a dependable and forgiving aircraft. San Fernando graduates and Argentine military procurement committees placed orders for Jennys and more advanced Curtiss models.

To promote Curtiss and the San Fernando school, Leon undertook dozens of cross-country tours, regularly performed in airshows, and ably competed in local air races. He became known as a crack aerobatic pilot that could both amaze the earth-bound crowds with dizzying maneuvers while inspiring confidence in his cool competence.

Leon knew how to win friends in high places while still endeavoring to entertain the throngs of people that gathered to watch him fly. He routinely flew during official parades to commemorate national holidays, honor fallen local aviators, and benefit local charities, all of which ingratiated him to the Argentine military and political elite. He also made an ally of the most prominent national newspaper at the time, La Nacion, by dropping a congratulatory message from his aircraft for their 50th anniversary.

Although Leon’s time in Buenos Aires was repeatedly interrupted by family troubles and health problems, he remained the face of U.S. aviation in Argentina throughout the 1920s. In February 1927, local flight magazine Aviación wrote that Leon was “the true link” between the U.S. and Argentine flight communities.^[ii]

Even years later, after his final departure from Argentina, the Curtiss-equipped Leon was still remembered for his excellence in flight instruction. In 1935, a contentious congressional debate erupted over the woeful state of aviation safety in Argentina. In illustrating the government’s failures, the main critic of state policy paid homage to the aviador estadounidense and his trusty Jenny: “It will suffice for me to recall the school of the aviator Leon, in San Fernando, where the best Argentine civilian pilots trained without accidents; it had a very good machine and a very good instructor.”^[iii]

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[i] La Nación, July 22, 1919, Lawrence Leon Collection, 1916-1923, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

[ii] “Pan American Flight,” Aviación, February 2, 1927.

[iii] Julio A. Noble, La aeronáutica nacional y la Fábrica de Aviones de Córdoba (Buenos Aires: Partido Democrata Progresista, 1935), 174-5.

Further Reading:

• Lironi, Julio Víctor. Misiones aeronáuticas extranjeras 1919-1924. Buenos Aires, AR: Instituto Argentino de História Aeronáutica Jorge Newbery, 1980.
• Hagedorn, Dan. Conquistadors of the Sky: A History of Aviation in Latin America. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2008.

Dr. Marc J. Alsina is a fellow with the Krieger School Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a Research Associate with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. His research focuses on the History of Technology in Latin America and the United States.