𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙅𝙐𝙉𝙀𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙃 𝙁𝙀𝘼𝙏𝙐𝙍𝙀~~~~~~~𝗔 𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗕𝗜𝗢 𝗢𝗙 𝗙𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗞 𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗩𝗜𝗡 𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗡, 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗘𝗥 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗗𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗫𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗘 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗡, 𝗧𝗘𝗫𝗔𝗦

From the editor: The article below is a compilation of details gleaned from BLACKPAST, wikipedia and other sources about someone Ron DeSantis would likely not want in the history books, a Black engineer and designer extraordaire from Houston, Texas, Frank Calvin Mann.

Frank Calvin Mann with the Waco Bi-Plane, 1929

Frank Calvin Mann was an engineer and designer who worked with entrepreneur and industrialist Howard R. Hughes on projects that included the Spruce Goose, at the time the largest airplane ever built.

Mann was born on November 22, 1908 in Houston, Texas, first displaying mechanical abilities as a child. When he was 11 years old, he was repairing cars around his neighborhood in Houston, but, as a teenager started repairing airplane engines and by age 20 designed and built several Model T cars. 

He graduated from Wheatly High School in Houston in 1926, then attended Prairie View A&M College, originally planning to become a teacher, but after one year he left the institution feeling he had learned all he could. 

Mann sought a school where he could study aeronautical and automotive engineering, studying both at the the University of Minnesota and UCLA, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.

After graduation, Mann moved to Compton, California where he became an independent engineer. 

In 1934, Howard Hughes hired Mann to work at Hughes Aircraft Company, where he worked intermittently over the next two decades, but he would also work as an independent contractor for Lockheed, Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers.

In 1935, when Mann learned of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, he decided to fly his own airplane to Ethiopia to help the country resist the invasion, joining small Ethiopian Air Force but when the Italians conquered Ethiopia in 1936, Mann escaped and returned to the United States.

In 1939 Mann was invited to Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama to become the primary civilian instructor of the Tuskegee Airmen in 1941, known as the Red Tails, an elite WWII bomber escort unit that took pride in the fact that they never lost a bomber or pilot they were escorting.

He left the program because the Air Force supplied the Tuskegee Airmen only "old World War I bi-plane crates," not the more modern aircraft white pilots flew.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Mann

After the U.S. entered World War II, Mann became one of the aeronautical engineers chosen by the U.S. Army to strip excess weight from the Mitchell B-25 bombers Jimmy Doolittle and his squadron would use in their raid over Tokyo on April 18, 1942. 

From 1943 to 1945, Mann again worked for Howard Hughes in a program to re-arm bombers and fighters with 50-caliber machine guns that could fire up to 500 rounds per minute. 

Also, during the war Mann worked on the Hughes Flying Boat (the Spruce Goose), designed to carry troops to Europe but the war ended before the world’s largest airplane ever flew.

In 1948 Mann began a new career designing and building custom sports cars for Hollywood celebrities including Mickey Rooney, David Rose, and Herb Jefferies, also building a small fiberglass body sports car for a Walt Disney executive that became a prototype for the Chevrolet Corvette. 

In 1950 Mann built an aerodynamic car modeled on the F-86 Sabre Jet that he named Baby LeSabre. The car won Motor Trend Magazine’s "Best Sports Car of the Year Award at the Los Angeles Motorama.

During the 1960s, Mann worked in the" aerospace laboratories of Hughes Culver City. His work included several projects with NASA including the Surveyor Moon Exploration Unit that landed on the moon and sent the first pictures of the moon’s surface back to earth. 

He also worked on the early designs of the space shuttle as well as the Boeing 747 shuttle carrier aircraft.

Mr. Mann at an older age

Mann retired in 1972 and moved back to Houston to care for his aging parents and open a small auto repair shop. 

Frank Calvin Mann died on November 22, 1992 at 84.