From the Archives: San Diego farmer invents flying machine in 1909
In 1909 Donald H. Gordon started the motorcycle engine on his biplane and made first documented powered flight in San Diego County. Less than six years after the Wright brothers’ historic first flight, it was one of the first power flights west the the Mississippi River. Gordon built and flew a glider and three motorized planes on his on his father’s ranch in Bostonia in the El Cajon Valley before World War I.
From The San Diego Union, Tuesday September 28, 1909:
BOSTONIA FARMER INVENTS FLYING MACHINE
Makes Successful Flight in View of Number of Invited Guests
HAS MANY NEW IDEAS
Will Equip Glider With Engine and Ascend Under Power
Don Gordon, a young man of 25, who resides with his father, D.G. Gordon, at Bostonia, has constructed an original aeroplane with which he has already had much success. He is now, fitting the flying machine with a gasoline motor and soon expects to make more practical and more extended flights.
A week ago, starting from a rail near the ground, and with no other impetus than that given by comrades in pushing the machine, Gordon made a flight of 150 yards, balancing the aeroplane well in the air and landing safely and easily at the end of this flight.
Professor Pearson, principal of the El Cajon valley union high school, was one of the interested spectators who had been invited to witness the trial flight, and was surprised to notice the ease with which the machine was handled in the air.
Young Aviator Pleased
At the end of the flight the young aviator announced that he was well sataisfied with the progress that he has made with the plane as a “glider” and that he would at once take steps to install a gasoline motor and begin extended flights with the machine under its own power.
Aside from being an inventor, Gordon has full charge of the grape ranch of his father at Bostonia, and he has only the spare moments which are free from ranch work to devote to his machine. Because the harvest season is now at hand he has been unable to complete the installation of the motor and does not expect to be able to make flights with power for a week or more.
Gordon will use a twin cylinder, six horsepower Curtis motor taken from a motorcycle to furnish power for the propeller, which is also under construction. The flying machine itself is of the bi-plane order, with planes four and a half to five feet wide and twenty-six feet long.
Has Original Features
Gordon has several new ideas in regard to airship construction which he has been anxious to have kept secret and for this reason he has attempted for some time past to prevent the knowledge that he was experimenting with an aeroplane from being known. Although all who witnessed the flight of a week ago were requested to maintain silence in regard to what had been done, the news of the success of the undertaking spread fast and many inquiries were made of the aviator and his family.
Gordon will not at the present disclose the new features which he will incorporate into his machine, but expects to be able to actually demonstrate that he has secured the secret of aerial navigation soon.
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