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Tom Tak Gunn (1890–1925) was the first Chinese-American pilot in the United States graduating from the Curtiss School of Aviation class of 1911 and earned pilot's license no. 131 on June 19, 1912. He popularized passenger flight in Hawaii and became the head of the Chinese air force.
On February 19, 1912, Gunn made his first public flight at the international aviation meet in Emeryville, California. The San Francisco Examiner reported that hundreds from San Francisco's Chinese-American community turned out to see him. Lincoln Beachey and other pilots were apprehensive because Gunn was relatively inexperienced, but he landed safely.
The San Francisco Examiner reported that Gunn fell from a height of several hundred feet, saying "that he was not killed outright is little short of marvelous." Gunn's jaw was dislocated and his body was covered in severe lacerations. He was taken to the Oakland Central Hospital, where his doctor described his chance of recovery as good.
In May 1913, Gunn and Lily Tong announced their engagement. Gunn left San Francisco for China in June 1913, but promised to return for Tong at the end of eight months.
On June 10, 1913, Gunn arrived in Honolulu, where he planned to stay for a month before traveling to China. On July 13, 1913, in front of a crowd of thousands, he carried his first Hawaiian passengers.
Gunn had been offered a commission as a captain in the Chinese army, though he intended to spend his first six months in the country making freelance exhibition flights. However, new president Yuan Shikai, fearing that Gunn intended to side with his political rivals, put a bounty of 5,000 dollars on his head. Gunn traveled to the Philippines instead, where he was credited with introducing air mail.
By 1913, Gunn had built six different types of plane. He preferred to fly planes he had made himself, explaining that "I always understand a machine I build myself much better."
Gunn died in a rickshaw accident in China in 1925. There is speculation that his death may have been an assassination in disguise. Princess Der Ling, who claimed to have known him, said, he "died for his ideals, a martyr to 'winged China'."Princess Der Ling, "How China Went Air Minded," Flyers, November 1929.
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