Wally Timm
| Wallace D. Timm | |
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| Born | August 8, 1896 (also given as August 10, 1896) Lakefield, Minnesota |
| Died | April 29, 1978 (aged 81) El Cajon, California |
| Parent(s) | Julius Timm and Alvine Hohenstein |
| Relatives | Brother, Otto Timm, Reuben Timm |
Wally Timm (August 8, 1896 – April 29, 1978) was an American aircraft designer, pilot and manufacturer.
Wally Timm was born in Lakefield, Minnesota, and with his family moved to Windom, Minnesota. He worked closely alongside his brother Otto Timm in the early days of aviation and was a pioneer in Hollywood films.
Timm started in aviation as early as 1910. Along with his brothers, Otto and Reuben, he first moved to San Diego, California before relocating in Venice, California. Timm began to work as a mechanic, servicing aircraft for Al Wilson, an exhibition pilot, in exchange for flying lessons. He briefly became a wing-walker, but mainly flew when Wilson performed as a wing-walker.
In 1920, Timm's piloting skills were noted for flying an outdated biplane with a Curtiss OX-5 engine from Los Angeles to Bishop California over the mountains and desert. Trying his hand at air racing, Timm entered the Winter Air Tournament held in December 1920 at Daugherty Municipal Field in Long Beach. The events included a 100-mile free-for-all and a 60-mile handicap race in which Timm took third place in a 1916 biplane built by Eddie Barnhart. Timm joined Mercury Aviation in 1920 as an instructor, although he began to be in demand to fly for the nascent Hollywood film industry. In 1922, Timm and Ruel Short dismantled and relocated one of the Chaplin Airfield buildings to Santa Monica Airport to serve as a hangar for Timm's next ventures.
In the 1920s, Timm began to fly as one of the pilots that performed "stunts" in Hollywood productions, joining Paul Mantz and Frank Clarke as highly sought-out talent. One of Timm's early movie stunts involved launching a tethered Curtiss JN-4 from the Los Angeles Railway building for the movie Stranger than Fiction (1921). Timm was only the aircraft assembler and rope cutter on the unauthorized launch. In 1930, Wally and his brother worked with Al Wilson, another early movie stunt pilot, modifying aircraft for the epic 1930 Howard Hughes movie Hell's Angels.
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