Charles H. Colvin, Early Aviation Designer, Dies

Charles H. Colvin, an early aeronautics industry figure who designed and installed some of the instrumentation and gauges in Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, is dead at age 92.

Colvin, who two years after Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic sold his Pioneer Instruments Co. to the Bendix Corp., died earlier this month at a hospital near his retirement home in Ojai.

He was born in Sterling, Mass., educated at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., and worked as an aircraft mechanic for Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Cos. in Hammondsport, N.Y., and the Sperry Gyroscope Co. in Brooklyn.

Started Own Firm

Colvin started his own firm, Pioneer, in 1919 and helped design early aircraft instrumentation, including compasses, the climb indicator and the bank and turn indicator.

After selling Pioneer, Colvin owned several firms that made more advanced aviation and meteorological instrumentation. Before and during World War II, he was a consultant to the U.S. Weather Bureau and the Navy. After the war, Colvin served on the President’s Air Policy Commission. He retired in 1963.

He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, of Ojai and four children.