Established in 1929, the school of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati was the second-ever school of aeronautical engineering founded in the country.
For a thorough history of the School of Aerospace Engineering, read the PDF printed in honor of the school's 75th anniversary here.
The College of Engineering had been considering courses relating to aeronautics for some years, and with the interest in cross-country and transatlantic flight and the mounting realization that aeronautics was an important technology of the future, it was decided to offer a dedicated program of instruction. In 1927, using funds provided by an arrangement with the Jacob G. Schmidlapp Educational Fund, a Chair of Aeronautical Engineering was established and a search for a suitable candidate was underway.
One of the chief candidates under consideration from the beginning of the year long search was Major Bradley O. Jones, then employed at McCook Field in Dayton as a navigator and inventor. Bradley Jones had made national headlines, and certainly local ones, with the record nonstop flight in February 1926, from McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio to East Boston Airport in Massachusetts. This flight was the first nonstop flight to navigate solely by instrumentation - developed by Bradley Jones.
In 1929, the program was first established, and keeping with UC tradition, it included a rigorous academic schedule rounded out by 6 quarters of co-op experience, with additional course-planning consultation by Orville Wright.
The first classes of aerospace engineers found easy co-op employment, and eventually a job in the field. In his 1929 article on the new Aeronautical Engineering program, Bradley Jones himself commented that two fourth-year students were already working in the aeronautical field and that placement of future students was unlikely to be difficult.
Excerpts taken from "Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati: Co-operative Education and Research," © 2003 Department of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati. All rights reserved.