By ERNEST JONES
On December 17, 1903, he made the world's third flight, one of 195 ft. in just under 13 secs. Later in the day the fifth and world famous flight was made, 852 ft. in 59 secs. The wind ranged from 22-27 mph. While deciding on further flying, the wind turned the machine over and damaged it beyond the practicability of further immediate flights, and the Wrights returned to Dayton.
On September 16, 1908, Wilbur Wright began a series of astounding flights in France in the course of delivery to a French syndicate, ending the year with another NEW WORLD RECORD for distance and duration, covering 124.7 kils. in 2:20:232 and winning the Michelin trophy---by far the longest flight ever before made.
During 1904 and 1905 flights were continued with two other machines at Dayton, Ohio, where local residents were again astonished witnesses. The more important of these flights were as follows:
September 26, 1905---11,125 miles in 18:09 by Wilbur Wright; September 29, 1905---12.00 miles in 19:55 by Orville Wright; September 30, 1905---...miles in 17:15 by Orville Wright; October 3, 1905---15.25 miles in 25:05 by Orville Wright; October 4, 1905---20.75 miles in 33:17 by Orville Wright and October 5, 1905---24.2 miles in 38:03 by Wilbur Wright.
To the end of 1905 about 160 flights in all were made, covering as many miles. The record of October 5, 1905, was not beaten anywhere in the world until 1909.
May 6, 1908---Renewing flights preparatory to fulfilling foreign and American contracts, the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk and made a series of 13 flights as follows:
May 6, 1908---1,008 ft. in 0:22;
May 8, 1908---956 ft. in 0:31;
May 8, 1908---2,186 ft. in 0:59.5;
May 11, 1908---0.78 mile in 1:11;
May 11, 1908---1.55 miles in 2:11;
May 11, 1908---1.80 miles in 2:28;
May 13, 1908---1.85 miles in 2:44;
May 13, 1908---0.60 miles in 0:55;
May 13, 1908---------- miles in 2:40;
May 13, 1908---2.40 miles in 3.20;
May 14, 1908---0.37 miles in 28:6 (In this flight, Charles Furnas, SECOND AIRPLANE PASSENGER, flew with Wilbur);
May 14, 1908---2.55 miles in 3:40:25 again with Furnas and
May 14, 1908---5.00 miles in 7:29
In September 1908, Orville Wright began flying in Washington preliminary to delivering the airplane contracted for under Signal Corps specifications, breaking all previous records.
After some days of trials at Sartrouville, beginning March 2, 1906, a flight of about 12m. was made on March 18.
The machine was a miniature tractor monoplane, wings arched laterally, rudder immediately to rear of chassis, 25 h.p. carbonic-acid gas engine. No appreciable flights were made, however, until August 12, 1906. After changes in the machine (Viua II), and a rear horizontal stabilizer added, a flight of 8-10m. was made at Montagny, June 21. Other flights were as follows:
July 19---20m., Montagny
August 19---24m., Montagny
October 7-14---4m., Issy
January 26, 1907-----m., Bagatelle
March 2, 1907---4-10m., Bagatelle
March9-27---Running on ground and up to 3-4m.
April 1907---Machine modified and Antonoinette 24 h.p. engine installed. This was a tractor monoplane with folding wings of steel tube ribs, rudder aft hinged to chassis, fixed horizontal stabilizer aft on outrigger and an elevator further aft.
July 5, 1907---Flew 20m. and crashed at Bagatelle.
Vuia never attained further prominence in aeronautics, and made no further flights.
His 1906 machine had but nine h.p. His second machine was a baby tractor of 18 h.p., rear elevator automatically connected with engine and variable angle of incidence of wings. This got off temporarily on various occasions.
On February 13, 1908, he covered 300m., and began curves. In June 1908, he made short hops, up to 100m., in Kiel where he won 5,000 marks in the presence of Prince Henry of Prussia for a flight lasting 11 secs. He was not prominent after this date.
The machine was a box-kite structure, a pusher tailless biplane, wings at sharp dihedral, with a box elevator forward at the end of a covered fuselage.
Trials of the machine had actually begun in July, suspended under his airship XIV and run along the ground, and later on its wheels without the balloon support.
October 23, 1906---He flew more than 50m., though not measured. He was carried about on the shoulders of an American named Huntington. The flight was officially homologated at 23m., winning the Archdeacon Cup for the first time.
November 12, 1906---Flew 220m., officially obsserved, in 21.2 secs., winning the Archdeacon Cup and the Aero Club of France prize of 1,500 F. for the first flight of 100m. FIRST "OFFICIAL" DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORD.
Five other flights were made this day of 40, 40, 60, 50 and 82.6m.
Two auxiliary surfaces were added to each outer cell of the machine acting as ailerons. He won the first of the 100F. prizes of the A.C.F. and was declared second holder of Archdeacon Cup by his flight of 82.6m. in 7.2 secs.
The entire world heralded these flights. Made before officials of the Aero Club de France, newspaper correspondents and other witnesses, they stirred up renewed effort everywhere, and attracted attention to the earlier and infinitely greater flights of the Wrights.
The winter was spent in building a new machine, thought his next flight was at St. Cyr, on April 4, 1907, 50m., in the XIV-bis of 1906.
Trials went on at same time with the new machine XV (Antoinette 100), a headless biplane with sharp dihedral in wings like XIV-bis, a tractor this time, with elevators on outer forward corners of dihedral main planes of wood instead of fabric, biplane tail enclosing two vertical panels. The tail acted as both elevator and rudder, being mounted on a universal joint at the end of bamboo outriggers. No flights appear to have been made, thought trials began March 22, 1907.
The next Dumont airplane was the XIX, the famous Demoiselle, a baby tractor monoplane with two-cylinder opposed air-cooled Dutheil-Chalmers engine of 17-20 h.p., with elevator forward just ahead of the chassis on a level with the axle. The wings had a sharp dihedral angle. Vertical lozenge-shaped panel on each side of chassis and a universally mounted cruciform tail.
November 16, 1907---With this machine wre made flights of 200m., 100m. and 200m. at Issy on November 17, among others.
March 1908---Experiments were made with Dumont's sixteenth aircraft, a machine with two engines of low power.
October 1908---A new Demoiselle was flown at Issy similar to above but with forward elevator omitted and with an Antoinette 24 h.p. engine. In November it was flown at St. Cyr.
Flights were continued at various times through 1909, including the FIRST CROSS-COUNTRY flight one of about eitht kils., from St. Cyr to Buc on September 13, returning the following day, and another on the seventeenth, of 18 kils. in 16 mins. Dumont's name was not thereafter prominently connectied with aeronautics.
The Demoiselle, fitted with two-cylinder engine, became rather popular. It was flown by Audemar and Roland Garros at the Belmont Park, New York, meet in 1910 and facsimiles and parts therefor were sold by American supply concerns for several years thereafter.
Having constructed a power machine for Leon Delagrange, Charles Voisin undertook to demonstrate it and began grasscutting on February 28, 1907, at Bagatelle. On March 16 it flew 10m.
March 30, 1907---Flights of 20 adn 60m. The machine was a biplane pushere, biplane elevator forward on outriggers, box tail aft on outriggers, rudder inside tail and Antonoinette 50 h.p. engine.
April 8, 1907---50m at Bagatelle; on the thirteenth, 34m. The machine was delivered to Delagrange, but he did not fly it until later. Charles Coisin did not fly again.
April 5, 1907---On this day Louis Bleriot made his first flight, one 5-6m, at Bagatelle, after several years of experimenting. April 5, 2-3m; April 19, crash.
The machine was a tailless pusher monoplane, elevator and rudder forward, paper-covered wings upturned at lateral extremities and Antoinette 24 h.p. engine.
Bleriot began in 1900 with a beating-wing machine. His second was a Voisin along the lines of that made for Farman and Delagrange in 1905. In 1906 a third was experimented with on Lake Enghien. This two-screw, 24-h.p. Antoinette tractor biplane had two elliptical cells arranged in tandem, forward biplane elevator, rudder aft and was mounted on two floats. It was later altered and tried October 12-18, 1906, with two 24 h.p. Antoinette engines driving two propellers.
Again it was remodeled, fitted with a 50 h.p. Antoinette. In this the rear ellipticalcell was comprised of two parallel surfaces. Two pusher screws were placed aft of the forward cell, with rudder in rear cell. Biplane elevator forward on outriggers.
Wheels were substituted for floats and the machine moved to Bagatelle. Mounted by Peyret, this machine, now called No. 4, was smashed without flying.
Bleriot himself achieved his success with No. 5, the Canard, his first monoplane, on April 5, 1907. On the nineteenth it was broken.
Then No. 6 was constructed, a Langley-type tractor monoplane, the Libellule, with dihedral wings covered with paper, Antoinette 24 h.p. engine and rudder at aft end of fuselage. At the tips of the wings were wing sections otating about transverse shaft as elevators. With this he made flights between July 11-August 6 up to 150m.
August 10-September 17---With a 50 h.p. Antoinette, flights were continued, the longest being 184m., the longest flight since that of 220 m. by Santos Dumont on November 12, 1906.
The Bleriot VII (50 h.p. Antoinette), tractor monoplane, with combined ailerons and elevators (?) at each side of aft end of fuselage, flown next at Issy.
October 5-December 18, 1907---Various flights up to 500m.
April 1908---Trials commenced with Bleriot VII-bis. (Antoinette 50 h.p.), tractor monoplane with warping wings, elevator and rudder aft end of fuselage.
June 17-July 23, 1908---with VIII-bis. On June 29 he won the second A.C.F. prize for 200m. in a flight of 700m. On July 4 he flew 8:24 in the VIII-ter.
September 9-October 30, 1908---Flights with VIII-ter at Issy, the longest being seven kils. in 6:40 on October 21.
October 31---Bleriot flew cross-country from Toury to Artenay 14 kils. He returned to Toury after one stop en route. Other flights in November. The Bleriot IX was not overly successful.
Then he produced No. X, a biplane, with three rudders forward on outriggers, two elevators aft on outriggers at outer extremities of wings, no tail and driven by chain through reduction gears by a 50 h.p. Antoinette. It was not lown.
The Bleriot XI (Antoinette 65 h.p.) was brought out ini January 1909. This was a tractor monoplane with warping wings, open fuselage, fixed horizontal stabilizer in tail to which were hinged elevators and which were hinged elevators and rudder on rear strut of fuselage.
This machine with the Gnome 50 and 100 h.p. engines was so successful that it was copied all over the world. In America copies and parts gherefor were sold to a rather large extent. Leblanc and others flew Bleriots in the Belmont Park meet in 1910.
Bleriot's greatest achivement in actual flight was his FIRST AIRPLANE CORSSING OF ENGLISH CHANNEL., July 25, 1909. In the Rheims meet in August 1909, he won first prize for speed over Curtiss. After some further experimenting with two other machines, including a monoplane "limousine," Bleriot quit active participation in flying.
October 15, 1907---285m., unofficially beating the Santos Dumont record of 220m. Subsequent principal pioneer flights were made as follows;
October 19, 1907---100m.
October 23, 1907---185m. in 15.4 secs., winning the first of the 150m. prizes of the A.C.F. Five others, longest 150m.
October 24, 1907---Three flights 100m. or more.
October 25, 1907---Six flights up to 190m.
October 26, 1907---770m. in 52.6 secs., a new OFFICIAL WORLD RECORD FOR DURATION AND DISTANCE, winning the Archdeacon Cup held by Santos Dumont and money prize of the A.C.F. for the first official flights of 300 and 500m. Seven other flights up to 400m. Other flights up to 400m. made following days. He also established speed record of 52.7 k.p.m.
November 9, 1907---Twice beat previous record by flying 800 and 400m. and beginning to circle.
November 10, 1907---1,036m. in 1:14, complete circle and some short flights, continuing on eleventh. THIRD MAN TO FLY A KILOMETER, and first in Europe.
November 11, 1907-January 11, 1908---Flights with circles continued almost daily, up to 700m. On January 11, 1908, he covered 1,800m. in 1:45.
January 13, 1908---Won Deutsch-Archdeacon prize of 50,000F. offered four years before for the first complete circuit of 1,000m. at Issy, duration 1 min. 28 secs. Another new DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORD; also SPEED RECORD of 1:28 for one kil.
January 14, 1908---he made a flight of 1,500m. in 1:33.
At this time he was constructing his tandem monoplane Farman II that never achieved success.
March 14, 1908---Renault 40 h.p. engine fitted and flights 500-600m. at Issy. The machine, the I-bis, had been slightly altered.
March 21---DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORD flight of 2,004.8m. in 3:31, doubling previous official flight in circular flight, the Antoinette having been reinstated.
May 1, 1908---Antoinette 60 h.p. substituted and short flights made. On may 25-June 2 exhibition flights were made in Ghent, Belgium.
May 30, 1908---In Ghent, Ernest Archdeacon carried 1,241m., the THIRD PASSENGER TO RIDE IN AN AIRPLANE.
July 6, 1908---At Issy, Farman flew 20:19.6, winning the Armengaud prize of 10,000F. for first machine to fly a quarter hour in France. A new DURATION RECORD.
July 31-August 8, 1908---Farman flew in America at Brighton Beach, New York.
September 29, 1908---42 kils. in 43 mins. at Mourmelon.
September 30, 1908---34 kils. in 35:36 mins. at Mourmelon.
October 2, 1908---40 kils. in 44:32 mins. at Mourmelon.
October 28, 1908---M. Painleve carried about two kils. and other flights made up to 40 kils. Ailerons put on.
October 30, 1908---Flew cross-country Chalons-Rheims, 27 kils. in 20 mins., the machine returning by truck.
October 31, 1908---Won the 25m. height prize.
November 16, 1908---Added extra surface turning the machine temorarily into a triplane at Chalons and made some flights up to 10 kils.
Filghts continued up to the end of the year and subsequently. In 1909 he designed and built his own machine, which he entered at the great Rheims meet. On July 18, 1909, he flew for one hr. 23 mins, at Chalons, and on August 27 he made a 180-kil. flight in 3:04:56.4 at Rheims, official WORLD RECORD FOR DISTANCE AND DURATION, winning first prize. On the twenty-eighth he flew 10 kils. in 10:39 with two added passengers, the FIRST TIME THREE WERE CARRIED IN AIRPLANE.
He next flew proiminently at Blackpool meet, England, and won first duration and distance prize of $10,000, on OCtober 20, 1909. On November 3 he flew 232 kiils. in 4:17:53 at Mourmelon, another new WORLD DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORD.
Farman went into manufacturing and became one of the world's most famous makers of airplanes.
October 22, 1907---Robert Esnault Pelterie made his first flight, one of 150m., at Buc. Other flights were as follows;
October 26---Several of 100m.
October 27---Described arcs and damaged machine; 100m.
November 16---Short flight.
The Pelterie I was a tractor monoplane, closed fuselage, warping wings, flexible rudder and elevator aft. R.E.P., 30 h.p. air-cooled, seven-cylinder engine.
June 8, 1908---Trials began with Pelterie II, flying 300m., 500m., and 1,200m. at 30m. height, record height and distance for monoplanes.
The machine was then altered into the II-bis and in November 1908 flights were continued. On November 21, 1908, at Buc, the machine made 316m. and other flights of 250-300m. flown by M. Chateau, who won the third and last A.C.F. prize for 200m. The Pelterie machine was flown in the Rheims meet of 1909, but was not prominent thereafter. It was the first machine to have a welded steel fuselage and an oleopneumatic landing gear.
Subsequently, Pelterie quit flying and devoted himself to the manufacture of aircraft engines and planes. He began his experimenting in 1906, making towed flights.
September 19---He flew 500m.
January 20, 1908---With the Delagrange II, similar to the previous one, with Antoinette 50 h.p. engine, he flew 100m.
March 14, 1908---300m. in 19 secs.
March 16---Five flights 500-600m.
March 17---Won first of the 200m prizes by a flight of 269.20m. in 21.2 secs.
March 20---Competing in rivalry with Farman, he made a circle of about 700m.
March 21---Took up Henri Farman, FIRST PASSENGER TO FLY IN AIRPLANE. Other flights made up to 1,500m. in 2.5 mins.
April 10---2,500m., in which the wheels touched for an instant.
April 11---3,925m., in 6:30, although the flight really lasted 9:15 and covered 5,575m., but the wheels touched. The smaller figure established a NEW WORLD DISTANCE AND DURATION RECORD official, beating Farman's record of 2,004.8 in 3:39 of March 21.
May 23-31---In exhibitions in Rome, Italy, he made numerous flights up to eight kils. in 9:30 before the king (May 27) and established new official world DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORDS of 16 kils. in 16:30 (June 22) and 17 kils. in 18:30 (June 23).
June 27-July 10---Flights in Turin. On July 8 he took up Mme. Therese Peltier, FIRST WOMAN TO FLY IN AIRPLANE, and M. Montu.
Returning to France he began flying again on September 3. On September 5 he flew 10 kils. in 9:40 with a new Antoinette of 50-60 h.p.
September 17, 1908, he flew 30:26 and again took up Mme. Peltier.
Flights continued. In August 1909 he flew a Voisin and a Bleriot at Rheims meet in which Curtiss represented America. He ahd become one of the greatest aviators of his time and flew in a number of meets. An unsuccessful attempt was made to bring him to America.
He was killed in flight at Bordeaux, January 4, 1910.
It was a pusher monoplane, with twin pusher screws, elevator and rudder on outriggers aft.
De la Vaulx did not pursue aviation thereafter.
December 5-6, 1907---First flights of some meters.
December 12, 1907---Flights of 50 and 100m. at Issy. On January 15, 1908, flights of 30, 40 and 80m.
He then joined with Koechlin and built a tractor monoplane with three pairs of wings tandem, stepped up toward the fron to closed fuselage. Dutheil-Chalmers 20 h.p. engine.
October 29, 1908---Flights with this machine commenced at Villacoublay, up to 500m.
The machine never became prominent nor did Pischoff attain fame as a pilot.
February 13---100 and 150m.
February 14---Flights up to 60m.
Boyer does not subsequently appear as a flyer.
March 12, 1908---THIRD FLIGHTS IN AMERICA. Flew 319 and 120 ft. at Hammondsport, New York, in the Red Wing, first airplane of Dr. Bell's Aerial Experiment Association.
The machine was a biplane, with wings tapering from a chord of 6.3 ft. at the center to four ft. at the extremities. The spread was 43 ft. The gap decreased toward each wing tip from 65. ft. at the center section, to five ft. at the ends. The total area of the main cell was 385.7 sq. ft. The elevator was placed in front at the end of a pointed rectangular bow projecting from the center panel. A fixed stabilizer and a rudder were mounted at the end of outriggers to the rear, no lateral control being provided. The engine was an air-cooled, eight-cylinder Curtiss, with carburetor for each cylinder, developing 40 h.p. at 1,800 r.p.m. It weighed 220 lbs., complete. The landing gear consisted of skids for operating from the ice of the lake, with light skids under tail and wing tips. The total weight of the machine with pilot was 570 lbs.
On May 18, 1908, the association's second machine, theWhite Wing, was flown 279 ft. The plane was generally similar to the Red Wing. It had, however, a box tail, triangular wing tips movable in opposite directions through a shoulder yoke control and a three-wheeled fixed running gear. On both machines a wheel on a pillar rocked fore and aft to operate the elevator. Turning the wheel steered left or right, respectively.
June 21, 1908---The third machine of the association, and the best known, the June Bug, was first flown by Curtiss. The first three flights were 456, 417 and 1,266 ft. Twenty-nine flights were made from June 21 to August 31, the longest being two miles.
July 4, 1908---The FIRST "OFFICIAL" FLIGHT in Amereica was made in the June Bug at Hammondsport by Curtiss when he won the Scientific American trophy for the first flight of one kil. in America. The distance officially recorded was 5,090 ft., and the time 1:42:5.
The June Bug was generally similar to its predecessors, but various detail changes were made. In November 1908 pontoons were added, and unsuccessful attempts were made to fly it as a seaplane.
On order of The Aeronautic Society of New York, the first Curtiss airplane known as such, waas built, and marked Curtiss' entrance into airplane manufacture. First flights were mad ein June 1909 and in the summer at the society's meet in New York. His subsequent flights during the teaching of Charles F. Willard were so successful that a duplicate machine was rushed to Europe, fitted with a more powerful engine. Curtiss won the first Gordon Bennett race in France and other events there and in Italy. On his return, he launched into the flying exhibition business and his teams covered the country. On May 29, 1910, he flew from Albany to New York for t he world's $10,000 prize, making an AMERICAN CROSS-COUNTRY RECORD. The Curtiss machine was duplicated by hundreds throughtout the land, knock-down parts being featured by airplane supply houses.
December 6, 1908---The fourth airplane of the experiment association, the Silver Dart, was the particular design of McCurdy who was its only pilot. Eleven flights from 200 yds. to a mile were made between December 6-22, 1908
February 23, 1909---The machine was next flown at Dr. Bell's summer home in Nova Scotia, with a new Curtiss eight-cylinder engine, the first Curtiss water-cooled one. Many flights were subsequently made, the longest being 12 miles. These were the FIRST FLIGHTS IN CANADA.
The Silver Dart had a vee-belt drive from the engine, which was mounted on the lower wing. It generally resembled the others, but had greater spread and wing-tip control surfaces. The forward wheel of the tricycle running gear was made steerable, being connected with the vertical rudder. There was no horizontal surface in the tail of this machine.
The machine was flown in August by Legagneux for 256m., winning the third prize of the A.C.F. for 200m.
September 5, 1908---Ferber flew for two mins., and on the nineteenth, 230m. On September 19 he made a flight of 500m. The machine was renamed the Antoinette III.
June 13, 1909---In a Voisin, Ferber flew five kils. at Juvisy in 5:30. On September 15, in Boulogne, he covered 9.65 kils. in nine mins. in a cross-country flight. On September 22, in BOulogne, he was killed when his machine overturned in rolling into a ditch preparatory to attempting a cross-channel flight.
September 19---He flew 500m. at Issy.
In 1909 he was flying a Voisin and became one of the world's foremost aviators.
November 16---He flew the plane at Issy 600-700m., and continued on following days.
Other flights were made through September up to 500m., when Gasnier was injured. Later, he learned to fly a Wright.
The machine was a twin-screw tractor biplane, with front elevator on outriggers, rudder aft and ailerons on wings. Other machines were built, and he made some memorable flights.
On January 9, 1909, the machine was wrecked after 250 yds. February 22, 1909---First important flight, of 1,200 ft. On May 14 he covered a mile. On August 29 he carried a passenger in three flights, and on September 8 he made a cross-country flight of about 40 miles lasting 1:03:00. The machine was wrecked and Cody injured at Doneaster meet, October 16, 1909. Cody became a naturalized subject of Great Britain. He had already become famous for his man-lifting kites with which the British Army experimented to a great extent. In 1907 Cody glided half a mile when released from a kite.
Flights were made on November 25 up to 200m., and on November 26, 300m. By December 17 he had attained 1,500m. On January 28, 1909, he made exhibition flights in Berlin. He was not, however, prominent thereafter.
December 3---Flights 500-600m.
January 17, 1909---Up to 500m.
January 28---J. C. Moore-Brabazon began learning the use of the Voisin airplane. Continuing his flying he won the Daily Mail $5,000 prize for a flight with a British Wright machine at Shell Beach on October 30, 1909.
From January 12 to February, 1909 he flew several times up to 3-5 kils.
In May, 1909 Brabazon was flying a Voisin in England. He was not prominent thereafter.