Donald Beatty

Who was Donald Beatty?

Donald Croom Beatty was an American aviator, explorer, and inventor.

Beatty was the son of Isaac Beatty, Jr and Hughie Duffee Beatty of Birmingham, Alabama. He began his flying career as a teenager by soloing a small plane he constructed himself with a motorcycle engine at his grandfather's farm near Tarrant on June 16, 1916. The flight ended with a crash landing. Not long afterward he designed and constructed a hand-powered submarine which he sank in Homewood's Edgewood Lake.

After a year at Marion Military Institute, Beatty got permission from his father to enlist in the United States Navy at age 17. He was sent to the Navy Radio School set up at Harvard University. In 1919 the United Fruit Company hired him to construct and install wireless telegraphy equipment along its steamer routes in Asia. He reportedly constructed the first voice radio station in mainland China during that engagement.