The Des Moines Register/1940/Schneider Dies, A Speed Pilot

Schneider Dies, A Speed Pilot. Edward Schneider, [sic] 33, famous flyer and husband of a former Des Moine woman, Monday was killed in an airplane crash at New York, N.Y. Mrs. Schneider, who survives him, is the former Gretchen Hahnen, daughter of Mrs. Zora Hahnen, 2828 Ingersoll avenue. Mrs. Hahnen, who owns Lucretia's Gift shop, left for New York late Monday night. Wed 6 Years. The couple met in New York and wed six years ago. The Schneiders had no children. Schneider was in Des Moines a year ago. visiting Mrs. Hahnen. According to the Associated Press, the veteran of transcontinental speed contests and "suicide pilot" in the Spanish civil war was killed in a routine training flight with a pupil. Drowned. Schneider and George W. Herzog, 37, who held a commercial pilot's license and was taking a refresher course, drowned in an inlet of Jamaica bay near Floyd Bennett field when their plane went into a spin following a collision with a navy trainer 600 feet above the field. The pilot of the navy plane managed to land his ship without injuring himself or a passenger. Learned to Fly at 16. Schneider learned to fly at 16, and set a junior speed record of 29 hours and 41 minutes from Westfield, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, California, in 1930. A week later he smashed two other records with eastward flights. He was awarded the Great Lakes trophy for his flying feats. The trophy is on exhibition in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D.C. In 1937 Schneider was one of four American leaders of the Yankee squadron which fought for loyalist Spain. Notes: His legal name was "Eddie Schneider" but some sources incorrectly formalized it to "Edward Schneider". He wrote in Look Out, Lindbergh - Here I Come in 1931: "because people are always asking me, my name is really Eddie: I was christened that way. It isn't very dressy, but it serves the purpose."