Albert Paul Mantz (August 2, 1903 – July 8, 1965) was a noted air racing pilot, movie stunt pilot and consultant from the late 1930s until his death in the mid-1960s. He gained fame on two stages: Hollywood and in air races. Early years Mantz (the name he used throughout his life) was born in Alameda, California, the son of a school principal, and was raised in nearby Redwood City, California. He developed his interest in flying at an early age; as a young boy, his first flight on fabricated canvas wings was aborted when his mother stopped him as he tried to launch off the branch of a tree in his yard. In 1915, at age 12, he attended the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco and witnessed the world-famous Lincoln Beachey make his first ever flight in his new monoplane, the Lincoln Beachey Special. Mantz took his first flying lesson at age 16 using money that he made from driving a hearse during the influenza epidemic of 1919. Although he had accumulated hours towards his private pilot certificate, Mantz quit flying altogether when he witnessed the death of his instructor. On September 24, 1924, Mantz became a part of a famous aviation event when he lent his car battery to the Douglas World Cruiser that had "dead-sticked" into a field on its way to San Francisco for a celebration of the world flight. U.S. Army air cadet Mantz applied for admission to the United States Army flight school at March Field, California but was told he needed at least two years of college to be eligible. Apparently resorting to a ruse involving Stanford University stationery, he managed to gain admission with false documents and became a successful cadet. He did not inform officials of his prior flying experience. In 1927, shortly before his graduation at March Field, Mantz was flying solo over the Coachella Valley when he spotted a train heading west over the empty desert floor up the long grade from Indio. He rolled over into a dive, leveled off a few feet above the track and flew head-on towards the train as the engineer repeatedly sounded the whistle. At the last moment Mantz pulled up, did a "victory roll" and flew away. This sort of dangerous stunt was fairly common during the early era of loosely regulated flying in the 1920s but the train's passengers included