Warren and Vieve Eaton, Norwich Airport, 1934. (Submitted photo)

The Norwich High School (NHS) Hall of Distinction Committee has selected the first six NHS alumni to be included in the Hall of Distinction.

Individuals selected have made outstanding contributions to their chosen fields, including community services, the arts, medical professions, military service, and more, with their contributions having a distinctive impact on a local to global level.

Warren Edwin Eaton: Fighter Pilot, Commercial Aviator, And Soaring Champion

By Edward J. Erickson and Elise B. Eaton

Warren Edwin Eaton has been chosen as an inductee for the 2024 Hall of Distinction.

Third generation New Yorker Warren Edwin Eaton was born on June 10, 1888. Warren was the middle son of Robert Dennison “R.D.” and Maria Smith Eaton. Warren graduated from Norwich High school in the Class of 1907. His high school experience is best summarized as disinterested in academics in favor of athletics and social activities. He was popular among his peers, an affable, easy-going, handsome, patriotic, school-spirited young man who was blessed with a performance-quality tenor singing voice he enjoyed sharing at public events.

Warren was class secretary in his freshman year and president his sophomore and junior years. He was elected vice president his junior year and president his senior year of the High School Athletic Association. In his junior year, Warren captained the school’s second (new) basketball team and the baseball team his senior year. He was a Y.M.C.A. member and played competitive basketball and bowled on Y teams. He took up hunting, became adept at handling guns, and shot deer in the Adirondacks. Warren followed high school graduation taking courses at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Young Warren lacked ambition and a seriousness of purpose, but that changed in 1902 when he met and fell hard for the strikingly attractive, intelligent, and independent-minded Genevieve “Vieve” Lydia Jacoby. Vieve graduated from Norwich High School in 1905 and from Wellesley College in 1909. In an uncharacteristic demonstration of willpower and constancy, Warren pursued her for eleven years in a friendship-to-courtship relationship. On August 5, 1913, Warren and Vieve were married in a simple and pretty wedding ceremony in Norwich’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church. They built a new home at 183 North Broad Street and raised three children, Warren, Jr., Janet, and Elise. Today, the house is owned by its next-door neighbor, the UHS Chenango Memorial Hospital. Throughout their lives, Vieve was a quiet and steadfast source of inspiration and support for his endeavors.

In May 1917, Warren applied for and was accepted into the United States Army’s flight training program. He attended ground school at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and earned his pilot’s wings at the army’s flight school in Mount Clemens, Michigan. Lieutenant Eaton joined the American Expeditionary Force in France for further training as a fighter pilot. In the late summer of 1918, he was assigned to the famous 103rd Aero Squadron in which he flew SPAD XIII fighter planes during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He shot down at least one German aircraft and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) before he returned to civilian life.

Warren E. Eaton’s Impact on Soaring in America

Warren Eaton made significant contributions to the emergence of soaring as a robust and competitive sport in New York State and is regarded today as its most active promoter; the George Washington of the sport.

Warren was instrumental in establishing Elmira as a permanent soaring home base for glider and sailplane competitors at what became internationally known as Harris Hill. As a result, Central New York State in the 1930s rapidly became known around the world as the heart of American soaring.

Warren Eaton was a relentless advocate for the new sport of “soaring.” Eaton’s vision encompassed the emerging fields of atmospheric thermals and geography, instrumentation, and advanced glider and sailplane designs. As the first president of the Soaring Society of America (SSA), Warren Eaton successfully reimagined and promoted soaring as a component of modern aviation in America.

Eaton set several American national soaring records. In 1930, he set a soaring altitude record and came in second for the time aloft record. Eaton scored his second national altitude record in 1934 flying over Virginia’s Blue Ridge. His last record was as a member of the first four-glider tow at Elmira in 1934. He was also a pioneer in the glider-mail movement.

The most visible national legacy of Warren Eaton is his extraordinary, graceful gull-winged Bowlus-du Pont I-S-2100 Senior Albatross sailplane, which he named the Falcon. Vieve gifted the Falcon to the Smithsonian Institution after Warren died; it is on permanent display in the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in the Boeing Aviation Hangar in Chantilly, Virginia.

Closer to Norwich, Warren’s meticulously restored Franklin PS-2 aerobatic glider, in which he made his fatal flight, is on permanent display at the National Soaring Museum at Harris Hill in Elmira, New York.

Vieve continued and expanded Warren’s visionary work in the SSA. She was the first woman to be elected a director, sponsored the Eaton Design Contest she conceived to foster innovative and modern designs for sailplanes, and underwrote national soaring competitions. Her financial generosity towards and interest in advancing the sport was a critical factor that enabled the SSA to withstand the economic pressures of the Depression years in America.

In 1939, Vieve donated the Warren E. Eaton Memorial Trophy to the SSA. This trophy is considered the highest achievement service award by the SSA and is awarded annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to soaring in America.

Warren E. Eaton’s Impact on Aviation in Interwar America

Warren Eaton pioneered commercial aviation in Central New York State. He and a small group of friends invested in, built, and operated Central New York State’s first successful commercial airport as Central New York Airways, Inc., two miles north of Norwich. In 1939 it was officially renamed in Warren Eaton’s honor, and after 1986, it has operated as the Chenango County Lt. Warren E. Eaton Airport.

Warren was appointed to a variety of influential positions that improved aviation safety in America during the Interwar era. He was a founding member of the National Aeronautical Association. Warren was appointed to the New York State Navigational Area Marking Committee to persuade communities to establish navigation aids for pilots. By the mid-1930s, New York State had become a much safer place to fly.

The Nazi Luftwaffe seemed to materialize almost out of thin air and Eaton became interested to see for himself how the Germans integrated gliders into military pilot training. Eaton was aware of America’s military unpreparedness and, after a trip to study the gliding movement in Germany in 1934, became an ardent advocate of increasing America’s population of available pilots through gliders. Before he died, he advanced these ideas in testimony to the Federal Aviation Commission.

While promoting the opening of his new winter soaring school in Miami, Florida, Warren died in a tragic fatal accident flying his glider over Biscayne Bay on December 1, 1934, prematurely ending a promising future in aviation.

Two hugely popular and widely-read national publications in the 1930s covered Eaton’s death: his obituary ran in Time magazine and a story covering the tragedy ran on December 2 in the New York Times. That Central New York aviator Warren Edwin Eaton’s unexpected death in 1934 was noted nationally speaks to his reputation and influence.

Ed Erickson and Elise Eaton, Warren’s granddaughter, have written a biography about Warren and Vieve Eaton’s contributions to American aviation. Their book, "The Emergence of Soaring in America: Warren E. Eaton and Aviation in the Interwar Era," is under contract with Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield). Publication is scheduled for the second half of 2025.

The Norwich High School Hall of Distinction

The NHS Hall of Distinction Committee aims to recognize and commemorate alumni of Norwich high schools who have made outstanding in the areas of, but not limited to, profession, community service, commerce, religion, and art. This Hall of Distinction established in 2024 is intended to serve as a vision and source of pride for our community and student body.

To nominate an NHS alum for the Hall of Distinction, complete the nomination form found at [link] and submit to NCSD Event Coordinator Rich Turnbull at rturnbull@norwichcsd.org, or dropped off at the District Office at 89 Midland Drive in Norwich no later than May 1, 2025.