page_title: John Joseph Montgomery
section_title: Evergreen
hierarchical_section_title: John Joseph Montgomery / Evergreen
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos, California, USA.
context_page_description: John Joseph Montgomery was an American inventor, physicist, engineer, and professor at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California who is best known for his invention of controlled heavier-than-air flying machines.
  In the 1880s Montgomery, a native of Yuba City, California made manned flight experiments in a series of gliders in the United States in Otay Mesa near San Diego, California. Although not publicized in the 1880s, these early flights were first described by Montgomery as part of a lecture delivered at the International Conference on Aerial Navigation at Chicago, 1893. These independent advances came after gliding flights by European pioneers such as George Cayley's coachman in England and Jean-Marie Le Bris in France. Although Montgomery never claimed firsts, his gliding experiments of the 1880s are considered by some historians and organizations to have been the first controlled flights of a heavier-than-air flying machine in America or in the Western Hemisphere, depending on source.
  Montgomery devised different control methods for his gliders, including weight shifting for roll and an elevator for pitch.
context_section_description: Following the catastrophic 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Montgomery's gliding experiments were curtailed until 1911. Montgomery began experimenting with a new control system in which pitch and roll of the glider were managed by wing warping, while the tail assembly was fixed. Montgomery intended to add a motor and apply for a patent. This glider, The Evergreen (named after the region where flight tests occurred on the hillsides east of San Jose, California), was flown by Montgomery as well as another aeronaut Reinhardt more than 50 times in October 1911. On October 31 Montgomery was attempting to land at low speed and encountered turbulence, which caused a stall. He crashed and died at the site of his injuries. The hillside (now known as "Montgomery Hill") is just behind Evergreen Valley College. John J. Montgomery was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California on November 3, 1911.
caption: Replica of The Evergreen at the Hiller Aviation Museum.
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