PILOT STORIES: Kaufman, Stephen T.

At 3:45 p.m. on March 3, 1927, Stephen Kaufman crashed a Douglas M-1 airmail airplane while attempting a take off from Bellefonte, Pennsylvania's airmail field. The airplane could not leave the ground due to the extra weight it was carrying of snow and ice on its wings, and Kaufman was forced to fly through a fence at the end of the field. On March 28, he complained about the type of propeller used on the Douglas M-1 airplane, saying that it helped contribute to the problem. "I would also say that the Pittsburgh Steel Propeller was very inefficient in regards to taking a ship off of a small or muddy field."

Earlier that year, on January 24, 1927, Kaufman was flying another Douglas M-1 aircraft from Cleveland, Ohio, bound for Chicago, Illinois. Fog had reduced the ceiling to 800 feet. He was flying at 8,000 feet to get above the clouds. After an hour and forty minutes of flying, his motor began to choke. As he came down, the ceiling had been reduced to only 500 feet. Fortunately, the ground was low and he was able to land on rough but flat land.

In 1929, Kaufman joined with other pilots, including fellow ex-airmail pilot Ernest M. Allison, to fly for Harry Smith's newly formed China National Airways Corporation.