Does Anyone Have Any Information About Ye Ancient & Secret Order Of The Quiet Birdmen?!?!?

WOW! 141 people visited my thread about this subject in the "Aircraft Projects" portion of this site, and NO ONE can tell me anything about the Quiet Birdmen? There are so many of them, it would be impossible to not hear of them. No one's ever seen their logo, with a QB on a shield, between two wings? No one know about Lockheed-Martin test flights & QB? Every test pilot for Skunkworks was a member. Every major pilot since it's creator has been a member. Why is it so secretive? Did I hit the nail TOO much on the head? I've even got a photo-copy of his membership, stating that he is the help his fellow brothers if in need. I will post copies when I find it, as I'm in the middle of moving.

Here's the original thread :

My grandfather is a member of Ye Ancient & Secret Order Of Quiet Birdmen. He used to work out in Cheyanne, WY at a missile-testing facility. He was in the National Geographic magazine due to being the lone survivor of a plane crash in the North Pole. He had his fingers & toes amputated, but survived. My grandmother was the nurse that took care of him.

Anyway, I spent a few hours looking for information about this group on-line, and this is all I could find......

Question: Who and what are the Quiet Birdmen? Charles Lindbergh was a QB, however he was not a founder of the organization, as is often stated. The Quiet Birdmen was founded by seven World War I pilots who, beginning in 1919, regularly met at Marta's Restaurant in Manhattan to share war stories.

And I think that calling a meeting of the order of the Quiet Birdmen, a fraternal organization of air force pilots and former officers (which included some of the country's best aviators and astronauts) a "party" is an oversimplification.

Membership is by invitation, and by nature, QB is a drinking fraternity.

More eclectic are the Caterpillar Club, whose members must have saved their lives at one time or another by parachute jumps, and the Ancient & Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen about which those who know anything may tell nothing.

The drinking part could be true, as my grandfather does drink. I also know when QB die, the order send you a letter of rememberance as a member. I've also heard that every Astronaut & every test pilot for Skunkworks were Quiet Birdmen. I'm thinking this could be the beginning of uncovering how many pilots have died during secret test flights. Has anyone ever heard of them? Does anyone know where I could get a membersip list?

P.S. - Yes, this is the same grandfather with the pin.

This is what George W. Bush must have meant be "shock & awe." Not one person out of the 70 who visited this thread, OR the 172 people who have visited the other thread, could or would, tell me a damn thing about this subject. This is a real conspiracy-making subject here. Why is no one willing to talk about it? Usually, you'd get some a$$hole that at least wants to bash you for asking the questions, or someone saying they've never heard of it. This time, not one peep from ANYONE. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.

[edit on 22-5-2005 by Enigmatic Debris]

[edit on 22-5-2005 by Enigmatic Debris]

[edit on 22-5-2005 by Enigmatic Debris]

ED, they probably, like me, have no idea who or what the birdmen are, and have nothing to contribute. YOu are saying its such a well known and obvious group, well, maybe its not so well known.

Originally posted by Nygdan
ED, they probably, like me, have no idea who or what the birdmen are, and have nothing to contribute. YOu are saying its such a well known and obvious group, well, maybe its not so well known.

Count me in that category, too. I had never heard of this order until reading your thread. It does sound interesting though, I hope someone will have something to contribute. Don't read too much into silence, man. It's probably just that no one has anything to add. I started a thread a while back about the SMOTJ and the Knights of Malta and got hardly any responses... It creeped me out a little at first, given the stature of those two organizations, but I got over it.

[edit on 5/23/05 by The Axeman]

Man, I couln't find anything on these guys... I did however email the webmaster at one of the two QB sites I came across (both password protected) so we'll see what happens. I will post anything worthwhile here.

I thought a google'd clear it up. The name of the group is familiar too, don't know why.

Looks like this stuff clears it up.

Cite
The collection also includes a photographic album entitled "Quiet Birdmen," of 480 members of the Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen, founded 1921, covering period into the early 1950s, and scrapbooks containing clippings and photographs.

So there's some info.

Here's some more

Ye Anciente and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen.
Walter was a member of this club, from which the following extract was taken.
"The American Flying Club, born in France on Armistice Day, installed in a clubhouse of New York's Fifth Avenue in March 1919, took off in a blaze of glory and wound up two years later with a bailiff's padlock on the door. But a Phoenix was to arise from its ashes. A small group of flyers began to meet more or less regularly at Marta's Greenwich Village restaurant. Steve Hannigin, a reporter, visited the festive table, returned the next week with an artist. He did a feature story, with a sketch. In attendance that evening were: Harry Bruno; S. H. MacKeon; Wallace James; Richard R. Blythe; Earle Osborn; C. S." Casey Jones"; Slim Lewis; Ernest Loftquis; Paul G. Zimmerman; Donald Mcllheny; Baron Ladislas d'Orcy; Richard DePew; George Hubbard; R. B. C. Noorduyn; and J. E. Whitbeck. Harold Hersey, then editing Aces High Magazine, had visited Marta's, had his eardrums shaken by the desperate hilarity, and dubbed the gathering, The Quiet Birdmen. Hannegin's story was the first the public heard of the QB's - which grew up to become the greatest secret fraternal order in aviation."

It references a site that is no longer active.

It seems to be an aviation club. There seem to be some QB sites out there, but they require passwords.


This[/rul] site seems to confirm that.

the order of the Quiet Birdmen, a fraternal organization of air force pilots and former officers (which included some of the country's best aviators and astronauts)

[url=http://www.flyidaho.org/events.asp?order=upcoming&menuID=15~15]Here is information about an "annual Fly-in" and contact information.

qbnebraska.com...
Ye Anciente and Secret Order of QUIET BIRDMEN Founded January, 1921

The password is donkey

Nice work with the site and password MrDead! *claps and grins*

Shame they dont have much in the way of information, their history page was, well, oddly lacking. No aims or mission statements that I could see.

ty
that is just the nebraska one, but at least it lets us have a glimpse at it
it seems that the main site is qbird.org

This might help a bit ????????



'Flight of the Bumble Bee' was music to Engel's ears

One of the most successful and exciting pioneers in aviation history -- a man acclaimed as Cleveland’s first owner and pilot of an airplane -- had a Lakewood connection.

Albert J. Engel began flying in 1911 and during 1912, ‘13 and probably ‘14, kept his pontooned seaplane, the Bumble Bee, in the mouth of the Rocky River at Lakewood Yacht Club (now Cleveland Yachting Club).

It wore the club’s burgee (swallow-tailed flag) affixed to its rudder.

Today, the wondrous early aircraft is on display in the Frederick C. Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum at University Circle.

Engel, considered a hell-bent daredevil among his contemporaries, acquired his seaplane in 1912 after crashing his first plane -- one similar to the Bumble Bee but with wheels -- a year earlier.

“The engine on his original plane quit and he had to make an emergency landing in a farmer’s field,” explained David Holcombe of Westlake, who has been a staff member and chief factotum at the Crawford museum since 1978.

“Coming down, he landed on a cow. Neither he nor the cow was seriously injured but the plane was totaled.”

So, Engel decided the better idea was to buy a seaplane for what he assumed would provide softer landings, according to Holcombe.

The builder of both planes was the Curtiss Aeroplane Co. of Hammondsport, N.Y. (later to become Curtiss Wright). Engel had a part-time association with Glenn Curtiss from the earliest days.

With the Bumble Bee, Engel barnstormed the countryside. Aside from using his Rocky River launch site, he flew offshore from Edgewater and Willow Beach parks, and from watery sites in the Akron and Ashtabula areas.

Charles Tracy of Bay Village, longtime aviation editor of the former Cleveland Press, interviewed Engel in 1974 when the airman was 95. Tracy learned that the Bumble Bee received its moniker in a for-women-only naming contest at Chautauqua Lake, N.Y. The prize was a 10-minute flight.

At Chautauqua and several towns nearby, Engel teamed with his Bumble Bee to pioneer mail service in the summer of 1914.

He arranged with the local post master to air-deliver stamped postcards as part of a promotional program to advertise an amusement park in the vicinity.

Later, the postmaster general at the nation’s capital took exception to Engel’s “aerial mail” effort.

“I had to go to Washington to square myself,” Engel told Tracy. “I said I thought I was helping him to get airmail started. He said he didn’t need any help and that it was illegal to carry stamped mail unless authorized by him.”

Engel retired the Bumble Bee before the end of 1914 and rejoined Curtiss full-time in Buffalo, teaching Navy pilots to fly seaplanes.

The aeronautical pathfinder was a lanky, blue-eyed 6-footer who was talkative, especially when the conversation had to do with airplanes. He liked speed and, when the urge to fly engulfed him in 1909, he already was racing motorboats and automobiles.

An inventive, self-taught engineer, he devised numerous improvements for early aircraft, one of which was a seat belt.

Tracy’s interview of 20 years ago was at Engel’s West Side Cleveland home (6624 Denison Ave.), where the distinguished flyer was born on May 12, 1879, and lived most of his life.

Engel died in a nursing home in 1979, only four months before what would have been his 100th birthday.

“It was unusual to have a pioneer aviator live that long,” Holcombe noted.

Holcombe’s memorabilia file at the museum revels that Engel always went by “Al J.,” that he was married but had no children, and that his wife died in 1956.

He was a Mason and belonged to numerous aviation organizations, including the Early Birds, for pilots who soloed before 1915, and the Quiet Birdmen, a fraternity of flyers founded in 1921.

Also, Engel was one of the oldest living veterans of the Spanish American War. Because he learned to speak Spanish at that time, he was chosen by Curtiss, about 15 years after the conflict, to train members of the Spanish Air Force how to fly Curtiss planes.

Toward the end of World War 1, he opened the Engel Aircraft Factory in Niles, Ohio, to do contract work for the government, making components for war planes. In World War I, he manufactured gliders for the Army.

Engel sold his rare Bumble Bee to the Crawford museum in 1946, where it was restored and now is the sole remaining genuine Curtiss hydroaeroplane.

The aircraft is an open biplane with two side-by-side seats on a platform in front of the wings, where pilot and passenger are completely exposed to the elements.

It is made of spruce, ash and fabric, and is driven by a water-cooled, 85-horsepower, V-8, pusher-type prop engine stationed behind the wings. Top speed is 70 mph and the original factory price was about $6,000.





Albert Engel, seen here in his beloved Bumble Bee, was Cleveland's first owner and pilot of an airplane.

Flight of The Bumble Bee

In Wilmington, NC, the QB group is NOT a drinking fraternity! They have dinner meetings, with a program. Anyway, I just got a cup from the estate of a Piedmont pilot, and beneath the QB logo, on one side is written this: "1978 GOVERNORS CONVENTION...STL's 50th ANNIVERSARY. Could someone please interpret and identify this and send me an e-mail answer at: [email protected]. Thanks.

I've been a Quiet Birdman since July of 1978. It is, indeed, an organization of experienced aviators and membership is by invitation and sponsorship only. A lot of the information posted here is very inaccurate, but rest assured, the Anciente and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen is 'alive and well'.

The QB is, if not the oldest at least one of the oldest pilots' organizations in the world. It's very exclusive and to be a QB is a matter of pride for all members. Since the beginning in 1921 fewer than 40,000 membership numbers have been issued, my own being in the 21,000 bracket.

Want to become a QB? Become an experienced pilot and be noticed by a member. It might just happen for you!

reply to post by Merton Meade

Merton,

You need to dummy up. It would be better to tell them it no longer exists.

A QB member.