William Mankey Dies; Modified Wing Design of Lindbergh’s Plane

William Arthur Mankey, the aeronautical engineer whose wing modifications helped make possible Charles A. Lindbergh’s solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927, has died.

He was 90 when he died April 8 in Las Vegas, where he had gone on a senior citizens’ outing.

Mankey, with Gerry Vultee and Jack Northrop, formed the drafting department at Donald Douglas’ original airplane plant in Los Angeles in the early 1920s.

A friend of Douglas, T. Claude Ryan, had designed a high-wing monoplane but wanted to increase its payload.

Redesigned Wing

Ryan asked Douglas for assistance and Mankey and Northrop, who later formed his own aircraft manufacturing company, were loaned to Ryan’s San Diego plant on weekends where they redesigned the plane’s wing, lessening its weight.

It was this model that, modified further, became Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis.”

After Lindbergh’s flight, when orders for the highly acclaimed plane began to flood Ryan’s factory, Mankey had joined Ryan as chief engineer and was able to get the craft--now dubbed the B-1 Brougham--certified for sale.

In the early 1930s, Mankey became one of the first members of the Bureau of Naval Aviation and then joined Glenn L. Martin as the Martin company’s chief project engineer on the B-26 attack bomber, a major part of America’s air arsenal in World War II.

After the war, Mankey rejoined Ryan briefly and then went with the Defense Department, retiring in 1966.

He is survived by his wife, Lucille, and a son, Jack.