About This File
MAIW libraries required. The origin point of all glider flying on the west coast, Torrey Pines was the site of flights by pioneers such as Waldo Waterman, inventor of the Waterman Aerobile, Paul Bikle, director of NASA Dryden during the halcyon days of the X-15 and lifting bodies, Irv Culver, who helped designed the Lockheed Constellation and P-38 and coined the term "Skunk Works", Charles and Anne Lindbergh, who I'm sure you already know plenty about, Woody Brown, the first white man to surf Waimea Bay, and William Hawley Bowlus, who designed and built the first American Sailplane and the genesis of the Airstream trailer. Between the 1920s and the early 2000s, before manned glider and sailplane flights were ended by the construction of eight story dorms near the end of the runways, hundreds of competitions took place and tens of records were set, broken, and set again.
Torrey Pines stands as a monument to the lasting influence of San Diego on America's aviation history.
This scenery depicts Torrey as it was during the 1960s and 1970s as home of the Associated Glider Clubs of Southern California, based off of aerial footage from Gary B. Fogel's history of the gliderport.