Townsend Foster Dodd (6 March 1886 – 5 October 1919) was the first commissioned US Army aviator. As a University of Illinois graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, he joined the Coast Artillery Corps and shortly thereafter became an aviator in the US Army Air Service. Dodd sat on many boards of review during the service's infancy and was one of the members who condemned pusher planes in favor of tractors. He served with General John Pershing on the Mexican Border where he set records for endurance flying. During World War I he was first assigned as the Aviation Officer of the American Expeditionary Force in 1917. He was later replaced by Colonel Billy Mitchell and was reassigned to the Bolling Mission.