Col. Theodore C. Macaulay USAF (Ret.) (September 30, 1897 – April 20, 1965) was born in Minnesota and educated in New York. His parents were Henry F. and Susan Tomlinson Ayers Macaulay. At the Curtiss Aviation School at North Island, Macaulay leaned to fly in the latter part of 1912, making him an Early Bird (an airman who flew before 1916). In 1913, he was named manager and chief instructor of the Curtis Aviation School at North Island. He earned his Expert Aviator’s License (Number 19) Thanksgiving Day, 1913. Shortly after setting an American altitude record in 1914, Macaulay transferred to the Curtiss factory at Hammondsport, NY. The intent was for him to accompany a shipment of Curtiss H-7 TB flying boats to Russia.

While waiting for completion of this order, Macaulay took a Curtiss an H-7 to Toronto, Canada, the first such aircraft to be in Canada. In 1915, Macaulay was named manager of the Curtiss Flying School at West Island Point (Hanlan’s Point), Toronto, where he trained Canadian pilots for the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. He also conducted test flights for Curtiss. During this time with Curtiss, Macaulay set many altitude and speed records, winning the Curtis Cup in 1915. Sept. 1, 1915 he wed Margaret Street of Coronado, Ca.

In 1916 Macaulay was named a senior instructor of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Aviation Section. His achievements included organizing air fields in Chicago and Rantoul, Illinois and in Memphis, Tennessee. His training assignments took him to Taliferro Field in Hicks, Texas and back to North Island to direct training at Rockwell Field on North Island and Ream Field at Imperial Beach. The site was named after Major William Ream, the first U.S. Army Flight Surgeon to be killed in an aircraft accident.

Macaulay frequently stopped in Tucson on his regular flights between Texas and San Diego. In early 1919, Macaulay wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post that praised Tucson as a “friendly and appreciative city”… and an ideal place for aviators.” In May 1919, the city opened its first municipal airport named Macaulay Airfield. In 1920 the field was renamed Fishburn Field and then Tucson Municipal Flying Field. In 1927 the city would move its airport to a site it named Davis-Monthan Field, which is still in use as Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The original airport changed hands several times and ceased operation sometime between 1933 and 1958.

In 1922, Macaulay participated in a search for a missing aircraft carrying Army pilot First Lieutenant Charles C. Webber and US Cavalry Colonel Francis C. Marshall. A memorial of the crash is in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in San Diego.

Macaulay was an original member of the aviation committee created in 1924 by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce to facilitate the creation of an airport for the city. From 1929 to 1942, he would serve as manager for the Chamber.

From 1942 to 1944, Macaulay would return to the U.S. Army Air Corps as a part of the Army Air Transport Command and as liaison officer with the British and French air forces in North Africa for which he received the Legion of Merit Medal.

Post war, Macaulay stayed active in the community serving as a member of the National City and Chula Vista Chambers of Commerce and the Coronado Civic Club. He was manager of the Coronado branch of the National Trust & Savings Bank. Macaulay wrote many manuscripts, some of which were published in technical magazines and at least one in The Saturday Evening Post in 1919. In 1958, Macaulay attended a reunion of Early Birds in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.