Chapter I: Part 1

_The Story of_
AMERICAN AVIATION
_by_ JIM RAY

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

The thrilling story of
how the airplane grew
and the part it has played
in the war and peace-time history of the United States of America

OVER 150 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
OF AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS AIRPLANES--OLD AND NEW

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA · TORONTO

_Copyright, 1946, by_

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

Copyright in Great Britain and in
The British Dominions and Possessions

Copyright in the Philippines

FIRST EDITION

MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOREWORD

In the following pages, Jim Ray, talented in his work of presentation and a conscientious student of aviation, presents a chain of highlights in the progress of American aëronautics. The work as a whole is directed toward a sound conception of the steps which have been taken in aircraft development. In so far as possible, without being exhaustive, Mr. Ray has portrayed the engineering advancement which underlies the structure of our swiftly developing air age. The reader who thoroughly digests the text and illustrations of this book will find that it is an orderly and faithful guide.

GILL ROBB WILSON

_Aviation Editor, New York Herald Tribune Director of Aviation State of New Jersey_

INTRODUCTION

It is difficult to believe that, just a little over thirty years ago, I was a high-school student watching the pilots at the Wright Brothers’ exhibition of the world’s first flying machine. That machine weighed about eight hundred pounds. Its engine developed thirty horsepower. It flew at the then astounding speed of forty-two miles an hour, which is equal to the landing speed of our slowest light plane today. High-school students now are accustomed to the sight of giant airplanes whose weight is measured in tons and whose horsepower mounts to the thousands.

December, 1945, marks the forty-second anniversary of the first flight of an airplane. The progress of aviation since that first flight still seems unbelievable, even to one who has followed its development closely. The purpose of this book is to trace the progress of aviation in America and to tell the story of the men and machines that have given this country supremacy in the air.

In telling the story of American aviation from Kitty Hawk to the present day, I have been able to touch only the high spots in its dramatic progress. Space limitations prevent me from giving personal credit to the hundreds of pioneer airmen, engineers, and mechanics who have contributed so greatly to the progress of American aviation. Lack of space also makes it impossible to give the complete story of the great Government research organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aëronautics, whose work has been most fruitful in the advancement of civil and military aëronautics in the United States.

As we look over the record of the astounding progress of American aviation in forty-two years, let us salute our military leaders who have visualized the need for air power; the men who have designed and built our great engines and airplanes, and the leaders of commercial aviation who have made air travel fast, safe, and economical.

JIM RAY

_Ottsville, Pennsylvania, 1945_

CONTENTS

The Beginnings of American Aviation 6

Aviation in America in Its Early Days 9

First Army Airplane 23

America Becomes Air-Minded 24

The Army and Navy Spread Their Wings 28

United States Military and Naval Aviation, World War I 32

The First Transatlantic Flight 34

Men and Machines, World War I 36

The First Air Mail 38

Precision Bombing Is Born 40

The U. S. Navy’s First Aircraft Carrier 41

The First Flight Around the World 42

Air Progress 44

America’s First All-Metal Transport 46

Better Power for America’s Airplanes 49

Record-Making Fokker Tri-Motor Transport Plane 50

Air Transport Grows 52

Donald Douglas’ Dream Comes True 54

Safety in Flight 56

Luxury Airliners and Skysleepers Make Air Travel an Accepted Fact 58

Pan American Clippers Conquer Pacific Skies 60

Pan American Clipper Inaugurates America’s First Transatlantic Air Transport Service 62

Private Planes 64

Superchargers and Super-Airliners 65

Air Power for World War II 67

Naval Aviation, 1922-1935 68

Shipboard Fighters 69

Battleship of the Air 70

Naval Aviation Gets Ready 72

The U. S. Navy’s First Long-Range Flying Boats 74

Technical Progress in the U. S. Army Air Corps in the Thirties 76

Army Attack Aviation and Training 80

Superfighter 82

Man-Made _Thunderbolts_ Rip Wide a Path to Victory 84

Superfortress 86

Naval Aviation in the Early Months of World War II 88

The U. S. Navy’s Deadliest Fighter Plane 90

Dive-Bomber 93

Our Flying Navy 94

Aërial Armada 96

Postwar Aviation 100

Index of Persons 103

THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN AVIATION

THE DREAMERS

The idea of human flight has excited man’s imagination for thousands of years. From stories and legends handed down through the years, we know that even from earliest times people dreamed of flying. There are visions of conquering the air in the colorful legends of winged men and beasts found in ancient folklore. The winged statuary of the Egyptians was no doubt inspired by the desire to imitate the flight of birds. In Greek mythology Hermes, the messenger of the gods, is clothed with winged sandals and helmet.

Historians have unearthed stories in cuneiform writing of man’s attempts to fly. Some of these inscriptions date back more than five thousand years, to 3500 B.C. Perhaps the most famous of these stories is the ancient Babylonian tale of the shepherd boy, Etana, who rode on the back of an eagle.

The story of Dædalus and Icarus also tells us that man believed flying was somehow possible. Dædalus was a very clever man who lived with his son Icarus on the Island of Crete. The king of this island requested Dædalus to build a labyrinth or maze for him. Dædalus constructed the labyrinth so cleverly that only the king, who had the clue to the winding passages, could find his way out. One day the king became very angry at Dædalus and threw both him and his son Icarus into the labyrinth, intending that they should perish. Dædalus, who had been dreaming of flying, fashioned wings from wax and feathers, with which he and Icarus could fly to freedom. He cautioned Icarus that he must not fly too high or the sun would melt the wax in his wings. Icarus, impatient to escape, scarcely listened. Like birds the two flew into the air, quickly leaving the walls of the labyrinth. Dædalus, flying low, safely crossed the sea and reached Sicily. Icarus, unfortunately, failed to heed his father’s warning. Flying was so much fun that he rose higher and higher. Suddenly feathers began to drop one by one. Too late Icarus realized that the sun had melted the wax in his wings. Down, down he fell into the sea.

Another ancient myth of flying concerns Pegasus, the winged horse. Bellerophon, a Corinthian hero, rode Pegasus and with his help killed a horrible monster called the Chimera.

Not only did men of long ago dream of flying--some of them firmly believed it could be done. Archimedes, a great Greek mathematician born in 287 B.C., was one. In the year 1250 an Englishman, Roger Bacon, had the idea that a large hollow globe of thin metal could be made which, when filled with an ethereal air or liquid fire, would float on the air like a ship on water.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian artist and scientist, who lived in the fifteenth century, spent years experimenting with the idea of flying. He made a number of sketches of wings to be fitted to the arms and legs of man. His plan for a parachute was soundly worked out and his idea that the wings of a flying machine should be patterned after the wings of the bat found expression in the doped fabric covering of our early airplanes.

Aviation today is such an accepted fact that we sometimes forget how men from different parts of the world had to work, suffer hardships, face ridicule, and even give their lives that flying might become possible.

In 1678, Besnier, a French locksmith, constructed a curious flying machine consisting of two wooden bars which rested on his shoulders. At the ends of the bars he attached muslin wings, arranged to open on the down stroke and close on the up stroke. The wings were operated by moving the arms and legs. Although Besnier failed to realize that no man had sufficient muscular strength to fly as the bird flies, he did sense part of the truth--that gliding with the air currents was possible. During his experiments he is said to have jumped from a window sill, glided over the roof of a near-by cottage, and landed on a barge in the river.

In 1799 an Englishman, George Cayley, conceived the idea that a kite could be built large enough to carry him up into the air. Instead of a string to hold the kite against the wind he decided to use the weight of his own body. He built a huge kite with a sustaining surface of three hundred square feet. When he held on to it and ran against the wind, the kite did indeed lift and carry him some distance through the air. Cayley’s kite was the first glider and also the very beginning of the modern airplane.

Wonderful though it may have seemed to him, no one paid any attention to Cayley’s discovery until 1867, when F. H. Wenham, also an Englishman, came to the conclusion that if a glider were attached to a propeller driven by an engine, it would fly. Wenham was right, of course, but he left his fine logic for other men to use. He did, however, leave something else by which we may remember him. He coined the word _aëroplane_. He took the Greek _aëro_, meaning air, and joined to it the Latin _planus_, meaning flat. The British still use the world _aëroplane_, but we in America use the simpler form _airplane_.

The first successful attempt to fly was made in France on June 5, 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers demonstrated their hot-air balloon. It rose to the height of one thousand feet and remained aloft for ten minutes. Benjamin Franklin, then in France, witnessed a flight of the Montgolfier balloon and referred to it in his chronicles. (As this book tells the story of the airplane, we shall not describe in detail the free balloon.)

In Germany, another man interested in flying was experimenting. Otto Lilienthal, in the year 1890, built for himself a queer-looking glider which resembled nothing so much as a bat with huge wings. Remember Leonardo da Vinci’s idea? To his bat wings Lilienthal attached a tail-like rudder for steering. For his own support on the glider he provided a pair of struts similar to the arm rests of crutches. Lilienthal would run down a hill into the wind with his glider. When sufficient speed had been attained, the glider and Lilienthal would rise triumphantly into the air. He learned to travel fair distances and was fired with the ambition to put an engine on his glider. He did design a 2½-horsepower engine, weighing ninety pounds and mounted on a biplane. Before trying his new machine, Lilienthal decided to make a short flight in his old glider. Somehow the glider stalled, one wing dropped off, and the whole thing fell to the ground, carrying Lilienthal to his death. His powered machine was never tried. Other men, however, believed that Lilienthal had been correct in his idea of flying, and his death did not stop their experiments.

About this time in America, a young man, just out of college, built a glider patterned after a sea gull. This young man was a Californian, John J. Montgomery. He worked alone and was so timid that he tried out his glider from a near-by hill at three o’clock in the morning. He was afraid that onlookers would laugh at him if his glider failed. It did not fail. He made a flight of six hundred feet--the first of many successful flights. Montgomery solved many of the problems of flight with little or no funds or encouragement. Because he worked alone and was until recently almost unknown, few written records of his work are available.

All through the nineteenth century men continued their experiments in order to bring to a reality the dream of human flight. With each generation, they moved ever closer to the fringe of the secret but never quite grasped it.

In 1842 an Englishman, W. S. Henson, was optimistic enough to patent his monoplane _Ariel_ for a flight from Britain to India. Though his design had a cambered, or slightly curved, wing, tricycle landing gear, and excellent bracing, it never got beyond the model stage. Another Englishman, John Stringfellow, worked for four years on his steam-driven monoplane. It also did not progress beyond a few model flights. In 1876, a young Frenchman, Alphonse Penaud, read an article that ridiculed man’s presumptuous attempts to fly. This angered the boy and he determined forthwith to conquer the air. Though lack of money balked his ambition, he constructed a number of models which contained many features found in present-day airplanes. Incidentally, Penaud was the first to use an elastic band to propel his model, as boys do. Laurence Hargrave, an American, was the first man to make a study of the cellular or box-kite type of wing construction. He confined his efforts to building models. His ideas influenced the work of Lilienthal, who incorporated them in the powered airplane he was building at the time of his death.

AVIATION IN AMERICA IN ITS EARLY DAYS

The story of the heavier-than-air machines that flew really begins in the United States in the early 1890’s. Octave Chanute, born in France and reared in America, was one of the first men to make a scientific approach to the problem of flying machines. A thorough scientist, he had followed the progress of all flight experiments the world over. He built gliders with one, two, and even five pairs of wings and tested all of them on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. His most successful glides were made with a biplane glider. In 1894, he published a book called _Progress of Flying Machines_, which covered all the efforts of men like himself who had experimented with man-carrying gliders and flying machines. This book, without doubt, was responsible for bringing to this country the honor of being the birthplace of the first successful, man-carrying, power-driven, flying machine. A copy of Octave Chanute’s book fell into the hands of two ambitious and enterprising young bicycle makers of Dayton, Ohio--Orville and Wilbur Wright.

At the time when Octave Chanute was experimenting with his gliders on the Michigan sand dunes, another aviation pioneer was hard at work in his laboratory in Washington, D. C. This man was Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In this position he had the opportunity to pursue his studies in the aëronautical side of physics.

After much study and experimentation, he succeeded in building a tiny, steam-powered model which flew for six seconds. Langley was so much encouraged by the performance of his first model that he built a larger one. This model, weighing 26 pounds and powered with a one-horsepower steam engine, made a flight of three thousand feet in 1896.

After this flight Professor Langley felt that he had proved his theory of flight. The public became interested and the government appropriated $50,000 for Langley’s use in the construction of a full-size airplane.

Langley built his plane without much difficulty, but could not find anyone to make an engine large enough for it. Finally, Charles Manley, an expert engineer, asked for permission to build the engine. Manley’s engine was a five-cylinder, radial gasoline engine that developed 51 horsepower and was far ahead of its time. It was years before American radial engines were used successfully in airplanes.

Professor Langley called his machine the _Aerodrome_, and by October, 1903, the plane was ready for its test flight, with Manley to guide it. The _Aerodrome_ was to be launched from a catapulting platform built on the roof of a houseboat. The houseboat was anchored on the Potomac River near Washington. As it left the platform the machine crashed into the river, and the trial was a dismal failure. The newspapers and the public ridiculed Langley, but he and Manley, who was unhurt in the crash, repaired the machine for another trial. This test took place on December 8, 1903, and again the _Aerodrome_ crashed into the river. Manley once more escaped injury, but Langley and the government were abused by the public for wasting money. Langley was out of money himself, the government could not furnish funds for further trials, so the experiments were ended. The professor, discouraged and brokenhearted, gave up.

THE DREAM FULFILLED

Out in Dayton, Ohio, there were two small brothers, who dreamed, as countless other children before them had dreamed, of flying like birds through the air. Their dreams were heightened by a small toy given to them by their father, the pastor of a local church. This toy was to lead to an idea which had a profound effect on the world. You would probably call it a flying propeller. It consisted of a wooden propeller which slipped over a notched stick. By placing a finger against the propeller and rapidly pushing it up the notched stick, the propeller was made to whirl up off the end of the stick and fly into the air. The brothers, young as they were, never quite forgot this little toy as they continued to dream of flying like birds through the air.

Though the brothers continued to dream of flying, they were not the kind of lads who spent all their time in dreaming. They made kites which flew a little better and a little higher than those made by the other boys in the neighborhood. They built a press to print their own little newspaper, and they dabbled in woodcuts. To carve out porch posts for their father’s home they built an eight-foot wood-turning lathe. Indeed, they were the sort of boys who caused the neighbors to say, “What will they think of next?”

Small town pastors in the early 1890’s did not receive princely salaries. The brothers knew that if they ever wanted to see their dreams come true they must earn their own capital. In the early nineties America was in the midst of the bicycle craze. Everyone who could possibly afford to do so owned a bicycle of some sort and belonged to a cycle club. Being mechanically minded, the brothers did the logical thing. They set themselves up in a small bicycle shop in Dayton, next door to their home.

The bicycle shop in Dayton prospered, for the brothers were careful and expert mechanics, and cyclists in need of repairs made their way to the Wright Brothers’ shop.

The two boys who had never forgotten the little toy helicopter which their father had given them years before, were Orville and Wilbur Wright. Although their bicycle shop prospered the brothers continued to dream of flying. Unlike others, who, all over the world, had been dreaming of the same thing, the dreams of the Wright Brothers persisted. They read everything that had been written about experiments in flying. Every spare moment of their time was spent in thinking about flight.

Soon after Octave Chanute’s book _Progress of Flying Machines_ was published in 1894, Orville and Wilbur Wright read a copy. Although they had long discussed the idea of flight, it was not until they read Chanute’s book that they were able to consider seriously any experiments of their own.

Chanute’s book did not give the answers to the questions in the minds of the Wright Brothers. It was primarily a record of man’s attempts to fly and of his failures. However, it served its purpose because it created many more questions in the minds of Orville and Wilbur Wright. They wrote to Chanute for further information on what man had to do in order to fly.

The noted scientist answered the questions of the Wright Brothers as best he could and sent them a set of tables derived from his studies of air pressure in relation to wing surfaces. The Wrights saw in these figures a possible clue to the mysteries of flight, and in 1900 they built an experimental glider based on the information they had received from Chanute. What followed this first glider experiment is the key to the problem of why the Wright Brothers eventually succeeded while other men failed. When the glider they constructed on the principle of the then most perfect data failed to fly, they were capable of realizing that the scientific research--and not their own efforts--had been at fault.

The Wright Brothers were not only inspired mechanics (as many people still believe today) but serious scientists, working along the soundest lines. In their keen desire to know what air pressure on wings really was, they cleared a corner of their bicycle shop and built a small wind tunnel with spare lumber and an old electric fan. They built small wing sections of various shapes and experimented with them in their wind tunnel. The electric fan was used to create the moving air around the wing section. By attaching the wing sections to a supporting frame and connecting the frame with a pointer and dial, they were able to keep a record of the effect of moving air on each experimental wing section. Through their wind tunnel research the Wright Brothers discovered the four forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: _lift_, _thrust_, _weight_, and _drag_. They found that a slight curve or camber in the wing section would cause the moving air to travel farther over the top of the wing surface than along the under side. This made the air pressure greater under the wing, gave a suction effect above the wing, and caused it to rise, creating _lift_. They discovered that a wing section of the proper camber would counteract the _weight_ of gravity. Thus, a wing must be so designed that, with a certain amount of air flowing around it, it would lift a certain _weight_. They also discovered that air flow against any surface attached to the wing would cause a resistance or _drag_. Hundreds of experiments in their wind tunnel with various types of wing shapes gave the Wrights a series of tables from which to design a wing that would create the _lift_ for a designed weight.

LIFT

TRUST DRAG

WEIGHT]

Then, after testing more than 200 wing designs and plane surfaces in their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers found out how to figure correctly the amount of curve, or camber, that was essential to weight-carrying wings. They discovered, too, that before man could be flown through the air, he must have his wings attached firmly to a body or platform which was firm and controllable. The Wrights in their earliest experiments had realized that to be practical their machine must be built not only to fly in a straight line, but also in order that it could be steered to the right or to the left. One day, Orville was twisting a cardboard box in his hand when Wilbur noticed it. Immediately he saw the solution to the problem of steering their airplane. The result was a design which changed the _lift_ of either end of the wing by warping its surface. If one end of the wing was warped to give it more _lift_, the machine would _lift_ on that side and fall off into a turn. Thus the problem of steering was solved by the Wrights.

FIRST FLIGHT

After a year of exhaustive study and experiments with models in their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers were ready to experiment with a man-carrying glider. With the thoroughness that was typical of every move of the Wrights, the brothers asked the government to let them have information on meteorological conditions all over the country. By studying the weather charts they were able to find a locality where there was a continual flow of wind. This would be nature’s wind tunnel where they could test their glider day after day. Through their study of the charts they found that the wind conditions at Kitty Hawk, on the North Carolina coast, seemed to offer the best possibilities for their glider test.

Orville and Wilbur Wright began their experiments with a small man-carrying glider at Kitty Hawk in 1900. From that time until 1903 they made hundreds of successful glider flights and kept accurate records of each flight. They recorded wind velocity, angle of flight, duration of flight, time of day, temperature, humidity, and sky conditions overhead with the typical Wright attention to detail. Each year the Wrights constructed new gliders which embodied principles they had discovered for themselves during their flights at Kitty Hawk. Each glider was larger and had longer and narrower wings than the one before. During the fall of 1902 the brothers recorded nearly a thousand flights in a glider with a wingspan of thirty-two feet. It had a front elevator and a vertical tail which helped to maintain lateral stability.

By 1903 the Wright Brothers were ready to build a powered man-carrying flying machine. Their experiments had shown them just how much moving air was necessary to create lift in such a machine. To create the needed thrust, an engine having eight horsepower and weighing not over 200 pounds had to be fitted into the machine. Such an engine was not available, so the Wrights built one in their shop at Dayton, Ohio. They were ready to ship their airplane to Kitty Hawk, N. C., in the fall of 1903.

WINGSPAN 40 FEET LENGTH 19 FEET

THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRPLANE WAS THE FIRST HEAVIER-THAN-AIR
MACHINE THAT WOULD REALLY FLY UNDER ITS OWN POWER.

ONE 4-CYLINDER 16-HP. GAS ENGINE

IT WAS POWERED WITH A 4-CYLINDER WATER-COOLED ENGINE, DESIGNED AND
BUILT BY THE WRIGHT BROTHERS.

ONE HOUR 30½ MILES

THE FIRST WRIGHT AIRPLANE HAD A TOP SPEED OF ABOUT 30 MILES PER
HOUR.

RANGE 120 FEET

THE LONGEST FLIGHT IT MADE ON THE FIRST DAY’S TRIALS WAS 120 FEET,
LESS THAN THE WINGSPAN OF OF THE MODERN _SUPERFORTRESS_.

CEILING 20 FEET

IT FLEW AT LOW ALTITUDES. MOST OF THE FLIGHTS WERE AT ALTITUDES OF
FROM TWELVE TO TWENTY FEET.

ONE PERSON

IT CARRIED BUT ONE MAN, THE PILOT.

ALTHOUGH THE FIRST FLIGHTS OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS WERE NOT
SPECTACULAR FROM A POINT OF SPEED, HEIGHT OR DISTANCE, THEY DID
PROVE THAT MAN COULD FLY AND THAT THE WRIGHTS HAD DISCOVERED THE
SECRET. FROM THAT TIME FLIGHT HAS BEEN BASED ON THEIR ORIGINAL
IDEAS.]

A cold wind whipped across those buff stretches of Kitty Hawk on Thursday, December 17. A coin was tossed into the air between Orville and Wilbur Wright. Orville won the toss, climbed up and stretched prone on the wing of the flying machine. He clutched the controls.

There were no cheering crowds; a mere handful of people were there. Running along its launching track, the 750 pounds of plane, engine, and passenger shot up into the air so fast that Wilbur, at the wing-tip, could not keep up. For three and one-half seconds the plane was in the air. It came to rest 105 feet from the take-off. Powered flight was born!

WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRPLANE

Three more flights were made on that epochal day at Kitty Hawk. The last flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, proved to be a breath-taking adventure. For fifty-nine seconds the roaring, white-winged craft pitched and rolled in the fitful wind. Flying low with its pilot tense at the controls, it covered a distance of 852 feet. There was no question now in the minds of Orville and Wilbur. They had proved conclusively their theory and were anxious to get back to their shop to continue improving their first flying machine.

Except for the handful of spectators who were present, the world treated the first powered flight coldly. Only a few days before the first flight of the Wright Brothers the highly publicized Langley _Aerodrome_ had crashed into the Potomac for the second time. People just would not believe that the Wrights actually had flown. The newspapers refused even to print the story. Had not most newspaper editors just proved conclusively from Langley’s disaster that the heavier-than-air flying machine could never work? Most scientists agreed with the newspaper editors, and the Wright Brothers were ignored by both press and public.

Immediately after their initial flight, the Wrights offered their invention to the government. The criticism aroused by the government’s investment of $50,000 in the disastrous Langley experiment was too fresh in the minds of the authorities, and no encouragement was given to the brothers’ offer. The Wrights returned to Dayton, where they housed their machine in a closed barn on the flat land a few miles east of the city. They admitted that they had flown, but they were among the first to state that they had only uncovered the barest physical facts associated with flight.

The brothers continued to make flights over the flat lands. They made 105 flights during the year 1904 and gained a considerable amount of experience and skill. They mastered the art of flying in a complete circle and landing the plane in the same field from which it had taken off.

THE WINGS ARE DESIGNED FOR LEVEL FLIGHT. WHEN THE LEADING EDGE RISES, THE WING HAS A GREATER LIFT. THIS MAKES THE PLANE CLIMB. WHEN THE LEADING EDGE IS LOWERED THE WING LOSES _LIFT_ AND THE PLANE DESCENDS.

WHEN THE WING IS WARPED IT LOSES SOME OF ITS _LIFT_ AREA (A). THE LOSS OF _LIFT_ CAUSES THE WING TO DROP. THIS MAKES THE PLANE TO TURN TOWARD THE LOW SIDE.

THE RUDDERS ARE MOVABLE SURFACES THAT REACT TO MOVING AIR. WHEN THEY ARE SWUNG INTO THE AIRSTREAM OF THE MOVING PLANE, THE AIR STRIKING THEIR SURFACES TURNS THE PLANE TO THE RIGHT OR LEFT.]

Early in the winter of 1905 the Wrights began work on a new machine, incorporating many improvements resulting from their flying experience. They continued to work quietly, and the only news of them that reached the world came from the reports of farmers who lived near the flat-land flying field. Confirmed reports showed that the Wrights had now covered a distance of twenty-four miles in thirty-eight minutes.

THE FIRST AIRPLANE

Many people speak of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane as a flimsy contraption of sticks, cloth, and wire. Although it was indeed built of wood, cloth and wire, it was, like everything else the Wrights built, thoughtfully and painstakingly constructed. Its wings were efficient lifting surfaces and the entire airplane was sound structurally. The main force that went into it was the result of years of sound research in aëronautical science. Orville and Wilbur Wright had solved all the fundamental problems of flight before they built their first powered, man-carrying airplane. They discovered the basic forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: _lift_, _thrust_, _drag_, and _weight_. Today, little more than forty years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk, those _four forces_ discovered by the Wright Brothers still control the design of every airplane built.

Equally important was their solution of the problem of controlled flight. Their knowledge of the effect of air on the surfaces of the wings helped the Wrights solve the problem of control. By warping the wings they were able to turn the plane to the right or to the left. When a wing-tip was warped downward it increased the lift of the wing, causing it to rise. The opposite wing-tip warped upward lost lift and the plane would fall off toward the low side. The effect was that of dragging one oar of a boat in the water. To aid in turning the plane, the machine was provided with a vertical rudder attached to the lateral control. When the wings were warped, the rudder automatically swung to enforce the turn.

The pilot’s right hand was on the lever which controlled the wing warping and rudder. His left was on the lever which raised and lowered the elevators. The lever at the extreme left also was attached to the elevators, providing dual control. All movements of the controls were in the direction of the desired attitude of the plane.

The story of American aviation began in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. It continued in the shop of a daredevil motorcycle racer and gasoline engine builder at Hammondsport, New York.

While the Wright Brothers were quietly flying their plane on the flat lands in Ohio, another self-taught, young Yankee was combining bicycles and gasoline engines to create speedy motorcycles. Speed fascinated this young man. He had started to build motorcycle engines of his own design in order to win races and break speed records.

It was not long before the name of this young mechanic began to appear repeatedly in connection with new motorcycle speed records. His name was Glenn H. Curtiss, and he won race after race. His prize money was not spent foolishly, but put into his experiments with gasoline engines.

In 1904, the pioneer American dirigible balloon builder, Captain Tom Baldwin, saw a Curtiss motorcycle in California. One look at the engine sent him scurrying to Hammondsport, New York, where he begged Glenn Curtiss to build him an engine for a new dirigible he was building. Curtiss built the engine, the first Curtiss engine to function in the skies. He also flew Tom Baldwin’s dirigible, but he was not enthusiastic over the idea of flying. “Not bad sport,” he remarked the first time he flew the dirigible, “but there’s no place to go.” Curtiss had heard of the flights of the Wright Brothers, but he was skeptical.

Before long Glenn Curtiss had another visitor. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had long been interested in the problems of flight, and had organized the Aërial Experiments Association to encourage aëronautical efforts in this country. After talking for hours, Dr. Bell converted Curtiss to a belief in the future of flying and persuaded him to join the experimental group.

WINSPAN 40 FEET LENGTH 20 FEET

GLENN H. CURTISS WAS THE NEXT AMERICAN TO FOLLOW THE WRIGHT BROTHERS IN BUILDING SUCCESSFUL AIRPLANES.

POWER ONE 4-CYLINDER 40-HP. ENGINE

CURTISS’S EXPERIENCE IN BUILDING MOTORCYCLE ENGINES LED HIM TO DESIGN AMERICA’S BEST AIRCRAFT ENGINES.

SPEED ONE HOUR 40 MILES

RANGE 1,000 FEET

CEILING 500 FEET

PAYLOAD ONE PERSON

CURTISS WAS ABLE TO STUDY THE WORK OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS, AND AS HE WAS A NATURAL MECHANIC, HE BUILT SUCCESSFUL PLANES FROM THE START. HIS ENGINES WERE WELL BUILT AND HE SOON BEGAN TO TAKE THE LEAD IN MAKING SPEED RECORDS. CURTISS USED BAMBOO FOR THE FRAMEWORK OF HIS EARLY AIRPLANES. HE WAS THE FIRST TO DEVELOP A TRICYCLE LANDING GEAR, USING WHEELS INSTEAD OF SKIDS.

FROM THE TIME OF HIS FIRST FLIGHTS CURTISS WAS A LEADER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN AVIATION. HIS FIRST GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENCE OF FLIGHT WAS THE INTRODUCTION OF THE INTER-WING LATERAL CONTROL SURFACES, THE FORERUNNER OF THE AILERONS.]

In November, 1907, Glenn H. Curtiss, in company with two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy of Dr. Bell’s group, and an official Army observer, Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, started to work on a new airplane. Using all of the available existing flight research and the ingenuity of Glenn H. Curtiss, the group finished their first plane in March, 1908. On March 12 Baldwin flew it 300 feet. Curtiss then designed an improved plane, the _June Bug_. With it he won the _Scientific American_ contest by flying over a measured kilometer course on July 4.

AMERICA’S SECOND PLANE

In 1909, Glenn H. Curtiss, in a plane of his own design, again won the _Scientific American_ award, by flying 24.7 miles over a closed course. The plane he flew was built on order for the New York Aëronautical Society. This was the first airplane order ever received by an American aircraft manufacturer.

On July 25, 1909, a Frenchman, Louis Bleriot, flew his monoplane twenty-five miles to cross the English Channel. Immediately there was furor in Europe and golden prizes were posted for new airplane developments and designs. The first big air race, the James Gordon Bennett Cup race, was held at Rheims, France, in 1909. Glenn Curtiss flew his machine against the pick of foreign pilots including Bleriot, whom he beat by six seconds to win the Cup. His speed was forty-six miles an hour.

CLIMB BANK TURN ELEVATOR RUDDER ELEVATOR AND RUDDER CONTROLS AILERON AILERON CONTROL YOKE]

Glenn Curtiss had the benefit of the aëronautical research of the Wright Brothers to aid him in designing his first airplanes, but he could not use the wing warping method of control invented by them. This was thoroughly protected by patents. As a result, Curtiss was forced to work out a new system of lateral controls. He developed the aileron method of control for use in turns or circular flight. He did this by mounting small winglike planes on the rear struts of the plane, between the upper and lower wings. These ailerons were hinged to swing up or down and were attached by cables to a yoke which encircled the pilot’s shoulders. The banking of the plane was produced by the movement of the flier as he leaned against the yoke, pushing it in the direction of the desired bank. Vertical motion was achieved by a fore and aft pressure on the control column by the flier. The wheel on the control column was attached to the vertical rudder by cables. Right or left steering was produced by turning the wheel in the desired direction. To make a climbing turn to the right, the flier would lean against the yoke, pushing to the right. At the same time he would turn his wheel gently to the right and pull the control slightly toward himself. Curtiss’ method of control led the way to the modern type of wing aileron and the general system of control was basically the same as that in use today.

POWER FOR THE AIRPLANE

Going back to the four forces that govern the flight of a plane, we find _thrust_ pulling the plane forward. _Thrust_ is the force that keeps the plane in the air; without it the airplane could not leave the ground for sustained flight. _Thrust_ is created by the propeller. The propeller blades function in the same manner as the wings. Just as the wing of a plane bites into the air to cause _lift_, the propeller blades, patterned after wing camber, bite into the air to create _thrust_. Their action on the air is similar to a screw biting its way into wood.

The propeller is whirled by the engine. Without the engine to whirl it the propeller is useless, for without _thrust_ we would have no _lift_. That makes the engine the governing factor in flight. _Weight_ also is a serious force in flight, and the Wrights and Curtiss found from the beginning that the four-cycle gasoline engine would give greater power for its weight than would a steam or electric engine.

The principle of the airplane engine is the same as the one used in the automobile engine. However, weight always has been a problem to aircraft designers. The automobile engine always has been too heavy for use in a plane. When the Wrights built their first plane, automobile engines weighed 25 to 35 pounds per horsepower. The Wrights built one that weighed 13 pounds per horsepower and produced 12 horsepower. They used this engine in 1903 to power their first plane. Since that time all practical airplanes have been powered with gasoline engines, designed specifically for use in heavier-than-air machines. Since the first flight, engineers constantly have strived to produce engines with greater power and less weight per horsepower. How well they have succeeded is proved by the progress of the airplane.

FOUR MOVEMENTS PRODUCE THE ENGINE’S POWER STROKE

1. Valve (1) opens for the INTAKE of gasoline and air vapor, and
the piston sucks it into the cylinder.

2. Valve (1) closes and the piston pushes up, producing a
COMPRESSION of the gas vapor in the cylinder.

3. Valves are closed and an electrical spark from the sparkplug
explodes the gas, forcing the piston down in the POWER stroke that
turns the crankshaft. This whirls the propeller.

4. Valve (2) opens and the piston rushes up, forcing out the
EXHAUST gases.]

It was in 1905 that the Wright Brothers had first offered to the Army a license to use their patents; but nothing came of it. Reports coming from Dayton during the next two years, concerning their flying activities, caused the newspapers to publish a number of articles about them.

Theodore Roosevelt, then our President, was a diligent reader, and several articles about the Wrights attracted his attention. One day he clipped one of these articles from a newspaper and scribbled across it one word: “Investigate!” He passed it along to his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. In a short time the almost forgotten Wright Brothers had a call from Brigadier General James Allen, U. S. Army Signal Corps. In the autumn of 1907 Wilbur Wright appeared in Washington to confer with the War Department.

A few months later, in July, 1907, an aëronautical division was established in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army. In December of that year the Army asked for bids on the construction of an airplane. The specifications called for a machine that could carry a weight of 350 pounds. It had to be able to remain in the air continuously for one hour with two passengers. During the flight the machine was required to remain under perfect control and to be capable of being steered in all directions. Its speed should be 40 miles per hour. The machine had to be built so that it could be taken apart and packed for transportation in army wagons. Then it had to be reassembled and put in flying condition in one hour.

By this time inventors everywhere were working on flying machines, but the Wright Brothers were the only ones who put in an appearance with an airplane for the Army trials in September, 1908.

Unfortunately the trial was a failure. The huge crowd gathered at Fort Meyer, Virginia, was horrified to see a propeller fly off and the machine crash, killing Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, the Army observer, and injuring Orville Wright. Tom Selfridge thus became the first American air martyr, and the future dimmed for the Wright Brothers and the airplane.

WINGSPAN 36 FEET LENGTH 28 FEET

THE 1909 WRIGHT BIPLANE BOUGHT BY THE UNITED STATES ARMY WAS THE WORLD’S FIRST MILITARY AIRPLANE.

POWER ONE 4-CYLINDER 30-HP. IN-LINE ENGINE

THE WRIGHTS DESIGNED AND BUILT THE FOUR-CYLINDER, VERTICAL, IN-LINE, WATER-COOLED ENGINE THEMSELVES.

SPEED ONE HOUR 44 MILES

RANGE 75 MILES

CEILING 3,000+ FEET

PAYLOAD A PILOT AND ONE PASSENGER, TOTAL WEIGHT 350 LBS.

THE WRIGHT ARMY PLANE OBTAINED ITS _THRUST_ FROM TWO OPPOSITE-TURNING, EIGHT AND ONE-HALF-FOOT PROPELLERS. ITS FRAME WAS CONSTRUCTED OF SPRUCE WOOD AND WAS COVERED WITH UNDOPED FABRIC. THE GROSS WEIGHT OF THE WRIGHT MACHINE WAS 1,200 POUNDS. THE PLANE WAS OF THE FINEST WORKMANSHIP AND ITS PERFORMANCE EXCEEDED THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE ARMY OFFICERS WHO OBSERVED ITS RIGID TESTS.

THAT THE U.S. ARMY WAS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD TO OWN A MILITARY AIRPLANE WAS DUE TO THE LONG AND PAINSTAKING WORK OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS. THEIR SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS OF FLIGHT AND THEIR CAREFULLY DEVELOPED PLANS GAVE THE WORLD A PATTERN FOR THE FUTURE OF AVIATION.]

FIRST ARMY AIRPLANE

Fortunately, the Army considered the crash a result of material failure rather than a basic fault of the airplane. A year later, in July, 1909, Army trials again were held at Fort Meyer, with only the Wrights appearing on the scene. On July 30, Orville Wright, accompanied by Lieutenant (now Brigadier-General, retired) Frank Lahm, as the Army’s observer, flew around the course, and fulfilled with ease the Army’s speed and endurance specifications. The Army had its first plane, and on August 2 formal acceptance was made--just six years after man had first flown in a heavier-than-air machine. Thus the U. S. Army was the first in the world to own a military airplane.

AMERICA BECOMES AIR-MINDED

The United States Navy also had been giving an occasional glance toward the airplane. It had been represented at the Army trials by Lieutenant G. C. Sweet and Naval Constructor William McIntee. These observers were enthusiastic and reported: “The Navy must have airplanes.”

Another interested spectator was a young midshipman who had robbed his savings bank in order to witness the Army airplane trials. The young man was Donald Douglas. He, too, was most enthusiastic, but he left the trials with a vision, not of Army planes, but of giant passenger planes flying all over the world. We will hear more of him later.

On the day after the Army trials at Fort Meyer another young man far away in California headed his homemade airplane into the wind and took off on his first flight. This young fellow was Glenn L. Martin who, with the help and encouragement of his mother, had built a plane in an abandoned church in Santa Ana, California. He not only designed and built his airplane but, in addition, taught himself to fly. We will also hear more of Glenn.

As the summer of 1910 rolled around, the flights of F. W. Baldwin and Glenn Curtiss, as well as the recognition accorded the Wrights by the Army, kindled at last the public imagination. All over the country people started clamoring for a chance to see an airplane in action. As a result the Wrights and Curtiss were swamped by requests from daring young men who wanted to fly. People even wanted to buy airplanes for sport.

For the first time in its history, America had become air-minded.

The conservative Wright Brothers at last realized that the only way in which the public could be taught to understand the possibilities of the airplane was through seeing it perform. They picked a group of intelligent young daredevils and formed a flying team. This Wright flying team and a similar group under the banner of Glenn Curtiss toured the county fairs and brought aviation to the American public. In California, the twenty-year-old Glenn Martin was giving flying exhibitions to earn money with which to build bigger and better airplanes. Truly 1910 was a great year for aviation.

On May 29, 1910, Glenn Curtiss won the _New York World_ prize of $10,000 for the first flight from Albany to New York City. He flew 137 miles at a speed of 54.8 miles per hour. In August another chapter in aërial history was written by the sending of a wireless message to the ground from an airplane in flight.

In September, 1910, 20,000 Bostonians had their first sight of the airplane in action when the Harvard Aëronautical Society sponsored a great aviation exhibition at Squantum, Massachusetts. The prizes, amounting to $100,000, attracted the largest group of pilots and planes ever to assemble in the United States. Claude Graham-White, the Englishman, flew a French Farman biplane and a speedy Bleriot monoplane. Another Englishman, A. V. Roe, who today builds the Avro-Lancaster, exhibited his big triplane, and the spectators were thrilled as the daring Wright and Curtiss pilots demonstrated America’s best planes.

The Boston air meet was followed by an equally successful one at Belmont Park, N. Y., in October, 1910. Here daring pilots flew their planes in rain and wind, and tried many new stunts.

Ralph Johnstone, a daring Wright pilot, thrilled the crowds when he turned his plane sidewise to an almost vertical angle and then descended in a tight spiral. Walter Brookins, another Wright flier, performed his famous “short turn” in which he stood his plane vertically in the air and revolved about one wing as on a pivot. Though these pilots constantly endeavored to create new thrills for the crowds, they unconsciously were testing the capabilities of their airplanes. They also were creating the technique of flying. These early meets were the testing laboratories of aviation.

The meetings at Boston and Belmont Park served another purpose in addition to thrilling the crowds and testing the airplanes. They paved the way for the beginning of United States naval aviation. Lieutenant Charles A. Blakely, U.S.N., was ordered by the Navy Department to attend the Boston meet as an official observer. He not only observed, but he flew with Charles Willard in a Curtiss airplane. His report on the possibilities of the airplane was so enthusiastic that the Navy ordered Captain Washington Irving Chambers to keep the Navy Department informed concerning the progress of aviation in relation to its use in naval tactics.

Many of the older naval officers of that period were aligned against the airplane. They could not visualize a land airplane being used in connection with a sea-going Navy. Captain Chambers was interested in engineering and, furthermore, he was somewhat of a dreamer. But his dreams were practical. He came away from the Belmont Park air meet with the firm conviction that the airplane was satisfactory once it was in the air, and that it could be of great value to the Navy for scouting, gunfire observation, and bombing. However, to be of any great value, the airplanes must go to sea with the fleet. The airplane would offer the captain of a ship or the admiral of the fleet a magic power capable of revealing to them what lay beyond the horizon. This was Captain Chambers’ dream. The Navy was fortunate in having such a farseeing officer.

As there was available at that time no airplane capable of operating from the water, the Navy was forced to adopt the idea of using a landplane. There had been considerable talk in 1910 of flying a landplane off the deck of an ocean liner for the purpose of speeding transoceanic mail delivery. In fact, arrangements were then being completed for such a test from a Hamburg-American ocean liner in New York. But Captain Chambers was not a man to allow the United States Navy to come in second in such an experiment. If an airplane could be flown from the deck of a vessel, let it be a Navy ship. The cruiser U. S. S. _Birmingham_ was placed at the Captain’s disposal and he went to work immediately preparing for the first attempt to fly an airplane from the deck of a ship. He had a temporary platform erected on the fore deck of the _Birmingham_. It was built of planks, was eighty-three feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, and sloped downward toward the bow of the ship.

As the Navy had no pilots, a civilian flier, Eugene Ely, was lent for the test by Glenn Curtiss, whose plane was being used. On Monday, November 14, 1910, in the most unfavorable weather, Ely rolled across the platform into the rain and mist. At the end of the platform his plane dived toward the water. Ely pulled up on his elevators and flew on. He landed on a sand bar after a flight of two and one-half miles, and another chapter in naval history was made.

THE ARMY AND NAVY SPREAD THEIR WINGS

Although successful, Eugene Ely’s flight from the deck of the _Birmingham_ had little effect on the Navy’s conservative attitude toward aviation. At times, as the skeptical comments of naval officers continued, it appeared that Captain Chambers was being dared to prove the value of the airplane to the Navy. It was fortunate for the United States that the Captain was an officer willing to accept the challenge.

Captain Chambers asked for funds to purchase several of the existing types of airplanes for the purpose of training navy personnel in the art of flying. As no money was available, the Captain had to continue his experiments in co-operation with aircraft manufacturers and civilian fliers. Spurred by the successful flight of Ely, Glenn Curtiss willingly aided Captain Chambers. Curtiss was so enthusiastic about the future of naval aviation that he approached the Navy Department with the offer to train, without cost to the service, an officer to fly. After considerable discussion in the Department, Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson, U. S. Navy, was ordered to join Curtiss.

Curtiss moved his flying activities to San Diego, California, in 1910, and it was there that Lieutenant Ellyson became the first American naval officer to learn to fly. This was eight years after the first flights of the Wright Brothers.