CHAPTER IV THE BEGINNING OF THE HYDROAEROPLANE

The Albany Flight was a great stimulus to aeronautics in this country. Prizes were at once offered in several different places by several different newspapers, and a great many cities wanted to have public flights made and particularly wanted flights to be made over water.

At Atlantic City I flew over the ocean, making a record for fifty miles over water on a measured course. It was here at the same time that Walter Brookins made a world's altitude record of over six thousand feet in a standard Wright machine. Later I flew from Cleveland to Cedar Point, near Sandusky, Ohio, a distance of sixty miles over the waters of Lake Erie, and returned next day in a rain storm.

After making flights in Pittsburgh, Pa., I thought that a successful meet could be held in New York City, so I arranged to have all of our forces gathered together at Sheepshead Bay race track, near Brighton Beach, N. Y., and during the week of August 26, 1910, we had an aeroplane meet at which Messrs. J. C. Mars, Charles F. Willard, Eugene B. Ely, J. A. D. McCurdy, and Augustus Post made flights and this meet was so successful that it was continued for a second week. Mr. Ely flew to Brighton Beach and took dinner and then flew back. Mr. Mars flew out over the Lower Bay and we had all five of the machines in the air at one time on several occasions a record for New York at that time. It was here that Mr. Post made a Bronco Busting Flight over the hurdles at the Sheepshead Bay track, landing safely after putting his machine through all manner of thrilling manoeuvres.

The Harvard Aeronautical Society had arranged a meet at Boston, Mass., which followed directly after this one, and Claude Grahame-White, the famous English aviator, who was later to win the Gordon Bennett cup at Belmont Park, came over from England, bringing his fast Bleriot monoplane with him. A special race was arranged between Mr. White in his Bleriot and my racing biplane. The meet was a great success, and but a very small margin separated Mr. White's Bleriot and my machine when we tried out our best speeds.

Then came a meet at Chicago, [3] after which it was arranged that three machines should start to fly from Chicago to New York for the New York Times' prize of $25,000. A team was made up and Mr. Ely was chosen to make the attempt to fly to New York. This was a very ambitious undertaking for this period in the history of aviation in America, for the longest flight that up to this time had been made in this country was between New York and Philadelphia, one hundred and eighty miles; while the distance between Chicago and New York was fully one thousand miles and landings were very difficult to accomplish in the broken country along the way. Mr. Ely made a good attempt, but there was not sufficient time to complete the trip as flights had already been arranged at Cleveland, Ohio, and in order to go there, this attempt was given up.

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NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST While flying in the Chicago meet we had four machines in the air at once. I was a novice at flying then but entered the air while the other fellows were flying around. Circling the track I was just passing the grand stand when Willard swooped down in front of me having passed right over my head. I clung on to the steering post and held the wheel as firmly as I could while to my great consternation the machine rocked and swayed fearfully in the back draft from Willard's propeller. He kept doing the Dutch Roll and the Coney Island Dip right in front of me, which made it all the worse, as the wash of the propeller wake would strike above and below my machine as he pitched up and down in front of me. I stood it as best I could, hardly daring to breathe but holding my course and balancing with all my might, until Willard turned off, and then after a bit I made a good landing. When Willard came down he rushed up to me and grabbed me by the hand and said, "Oh, Post! will you ever forgive me for that? I ought to have known better than to back-wash you but you know I thought you were Ely, and I wanted to scare him!"–A. P.

The Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup race was the next thing to arouse the interest of patriotic Americans and the Aero Club of America had been busy with arrangements for a big meet to be held at Belmont Park, near New York. This was the largest undertaking that the club had up to this time attempted and they taxed every possible resource, with the splendid result of securing all the foremost fliers of Europe, as well as of America, to participate.

I had built a machine for the trials which I thought would be very fast and had constructed it as a type of monoplane in order to cut down the head resistance to the very least possible point. America was represented by Anthony Drexel, Jr., in a Bleriot; by the Wright Brothers, who had constructed a racing machine by putting a powerful motor in a small machine which was about one-half the size of their regular model, and by Mr. Charles K. Hamilton, who flew a Curtiss type machine, but with a large power motor of another make. Mr. Grahame-White won the race in his Bleriot, although Mr. Alfred Leblanc, representing France, made remarkable time, but on the last lap ran into a telegraph pole on one of the turns and smashed his machine and had a most miraculous escape from being killed.

I did not try out my monoplane, although my regular type was the speediest standard biplane at the meet and was very well handled by Ely, Mars, Willard, and McCurdy who flew in the contests. I had given up public flying in contests at this time.

A new line of thought or to express it more accurately, the following out of a very old one was taking my interest and a great part of my time. The experiments I had in mind involved the problem of flying from the water and alighting on the water.

The season of 1910 was now far advanced and it was time to make plans for the winter. Flying meets were to be held at Los Angeles again, and also at San Francisco, and California seemed the best place to go, for the weather there would be most favourable not only for winter flying, but also for carrying on the experiments which I had in mind. Meantime, when it seemed as if all the paths were open to the aeroplane over the land, and it was only a question of development, not of pioneering, it was suggested to me by the New York World to launch an aeroplane from the deck of a ship at sea and have it fly back to shore carrying messages.

The Hamburg American Steamship Company offered their ocean liner Pennsylvania for this test, and I sent a standard Curtiss biplane to be operated by J. A. D. McCurdy. The ship was fitted with a large platform, erected on the stern, a platform sloping downward, and wide enough to allow an aeroplane set up on it to run down so that it could gather headway for its flight. The plan was to take McCurdy and the aeroplane fifty miles out to sea on the outward voyage from New York, and then launch them from the platform.

A mishap at the last moment upset all the well-laid plans. In trying out the motor just as the Pennsylvania was about to leave her dock at Hoboken, an oil can, carelessly left on one of the planes by a mechanic, was knocked off and fell into the whirling propeller. The result was a broken propeller, and as the ship could not delay its sailing long enough for us to get another, the attempt was abandoned.

In the meantime, however, the Navy became interested in the sea experiments and offered the armoured cruiser Birmingham, then at Hampton Roads, to be fitted up with a similar platform for launching an aeroplane. This was accepted and Eugene Ely, who was flying in a meet at Baltimore and already in the vicinity of Norfolk, took his Curtiss biplane over to the Birmingham for the test, fired with enthusiasm by McCurdy's attempt. On November 14 the Birmingham, equipped with a platform for starting the aeroplane, awaited good weather for the flight. The good weather did not come and after waiting impatiently on board for some time, Ely determined to risk a start, even though there was a strong wind coming off shore carrying a heavy mist that made it almost impossible to see more than half a mile. The ship was at anchor, but starting up his motor he flew off with the greatest ease, slightly touching the water with the wheels of his machine, but quickly rising and flying straight to shore, where he landed without difficulty.

This flight attracted world-wide attention, especially among the officers of the navies of the world. It was the first demonstration of the claims of the aeronautical enthusiasts of the navy that an aeroplane could be made that would be adaptable to the uses of the service, and it appeared to substantiate some of the things claimed for it.

When I found that business would bring me to California during the winter, and probably would keep me there for several months, I decided to grasp the opportunity to do the development work I had long wanted to do, and at the same time to request the honour of instructing representative officers of the Army and Navy in the operation of the aeroplane. I believed the time had arrived when the Government would be interested in any phase of aviation that promised to increase the usefulness of the aeroplane for military service.

So, on November 29, 1910, I sent letters to both Secretary Dickinson of the War Department and to Secretary Meyer of the Navy Department, inviting them to send one or more officers of their respective departments to Southern California, where I would undertake to instruct them in aviation. I made no conditions. I asked for and received no remuneration whatsoever for this service. I consider it an honour to be able to tender my services in this connection. Other governments had already organised their aeronautical military branches and instructed men to fly, and it seemed to me that our own Government would do likewise were the opportunity afforded the officers to familiarise themselves with the aeroplane.

The invitations to the War and Navy Departments were written just prior to my departure for the Pacific Coast, and three weeks later I was notified that the Secretary of the Navy had accepted, and that they would detail officers for instruction.

It began to look, even to the doubters, as if an aeroplane could be made adaptable to the uses of the Navy, as the aeronautic enthusiasts of the service had claimed. The experiment begun would have to be completed, however, by flying from shore to the vessel, and for this opportunity we were eager. The chance came when we were all at San Francisco and another Pennsylvania, this time the big armoured cruiser, was in the bay. Rear Admiral Thomas, and Captain Pond, in command of the Pennsylvania, readily consented to assist in these further experiments. The Pennsylvania went to Mare Island to be outfitted, Ely and I going there to tell the Navy officials at the station just what would be required for such a hazardous test.

The platform was like that built on the Birmingham, but in the case of a flight to, instead of from, a ship the serious problem is to land the aeroplane on the deck and to stop it quickly before it runs into the masts of the ship, or other obstructions. The platform was built over the quarterdeck, about one hundred and twenty-five feet long by thirty feet wide, with a slope toward the stern of some twelve feet. Across this runway we stretched ropes every few feet with a sand bag on each end. These ropes were raised high enough so they could catch in grab-hooks which we placed under the main centrepiece of the aeroplane, so that catching in the ropes the heavy sand bags attached would drag until they brought the machine to a stop.

To protect the aviator and to catch him in case he should be pitched out of his seat in landing, heavy awnings were stretched on either side of the runway and at the upper end of it.

When all arrangements had been completed, and only favourable weather was needed to carry out the experiment, I was obliged to leave for San Diego, and, therefore, was unable to witness the flight. I regarded the thing as most difficult of accomplishment. Of course, I had every faith in Ely as an aviator, and knew that he would arrive at the ship without trouble, but I must confess that I had misgivings about his being able to come down on a platform but four feet wider than the width of the planes of the aeroplane, and to bring it to a stop within the hundred feet available for the run.

Ely rose from the Presidio parade grounds, flew out over the bay, hovered above the ship for an instant, and then swooped down, cutting off his power and running lightly up the platform, when the drag of the sand bags brought him to a stop exactly in the centre, probably one of the greatest feats in accurate landing ever performed by an aviator. As I have said, the platform was only four feet wider than the planes of the Curtiss biplane that Ely used, yet the photograph taken from the fighting top of the ship shows the machine touching the platform squarely in the centre. When one stops to think that the aeroplane was travelling about forty miles an hour when it touched the deck and was brought to a stop within a hundred feet, the remarkable precision of the aviator will be appreciated.

Not only was there not the least mishap to himself or to the machine in landing, but as soon as he had received a few of the many excited congratulations awaiting him, he started off again and flew back the ten miles to the camp of the 30th Infantry on the Aviation Field, where wild cheers greeted the man and the machine that had for the first time linked the Army and the Navy. For this is what, in the wars of the future, or even in the preservation of the future's peace, the aeroplane is certainly going to do, joining as nothing else can the two branches of the service.

I don't think there has ever been so remarkable a landing made with an aeroplane as Ely's, and probably never so much store put by the mere act of coming down in the right place. A few feet either way, a sudden puff of wind to lift the aeroplane when it should descend, or any one of a dozen other things, might have spelled disaster for the whole undertaking, deprived the daring aviator of a well earned success, and the world of a remarkable spectacular demonstration of practical aviation.

On the day of the test I was in San Diego and awaited news from San Francisco with a good deal of impatience. When at last the Associated Press bulletin announced that Ely had landed without mishap I first felt a great relief that there had been no accident to mar the success of the thing, and then a sense of elation that we had taken another long step in the advancement of aviation.

Early in January I went to Southern California to establish an experimental station, and at the same time to instruct the officers of the Army and Navy whom I had invited the War and Navy Departments to assign for that purpose. A part of our experiments were along the line of a new "amphibious" machine that had been on my mind ever since my first experiments in Hammondsport.

I believed that with the proper equipment for floating and attaining a high speed on the water, an aeroplane could be made to rise as easily as it could from the land. [4] I had carried these experiments just far enough in Hammondsport to convince me that the thing was feasible, when I was obliged to discontinue them to take up other business. I knew it would be safer to land on the water than on land with the proper appliances, and that it would be easier to find a suitable landing place on water, for the reason that it always affords an open space, while it is often difficult to pick a landing place on the land. So, when I made preparations for my flight from Albany to New York City, I fitted pontoons beneath the chassis of my machine and a hydro-surface under the front wheel. I wanted to be prepared for alighting on the water should anything go amiss. As a matter of fact, the river course was the only feasible one for this flight, as there were mountains and hills for almost the entire distance.

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NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST An interesting story is told of how the hydroaeroplane came to be invented. During the period when he was planning a new series of experiments, Mr. Curtiss, accompanied by Mrs. Curtiss, attended a New York theatre in which there was being presented a play much talked about just then. The curtain went up on the first act, and the noted aviator was apparently enjoying the show when, just as the scene was developing one of its most interesting climaxes, he turned to Mrs. Curtiss and said: "I've got it." On the theatre program he had sketched what ultimately became the design of the hydroaeroplane. This is like a time when Mr. Curtiss was standing one day by the side of one of his motorcycles talking with a customer. He kept turning one of the grips of the handle-bar with his fingers while talking and after finishing the conversation went into his office and developed the idea of a handle-control which had come to him while apparently absorbed in conversation.–A. P.

It was while on that trip that I decided to build an aeroplane that would be available for starting or landing on the water. I don't know that I had the idea of its military value when I first planned it; but it came to me later that such a machine would be of great service should the Navy adopt the aeroplane as a part of its equipment. I thought the next step from pontoons, to float an aeroplane safely on the water, would be a permanent boat so shaped that it could get up speed enough so the whole machine could rise clear of the water and fly in the air.

It was important to find a location where it would be possible to work along the lines I had mapped out a place where I might be free from the pressing calls of business and the hampering influence of uncertain climatic conditions. In short I wanted a place with the best climate to be found in this country, with a field large enough and level enough for practice land flights by beginners, and with a convenient body of smooth water for experiments with a machine that would start from or land upon water.

Above all, I wanted a place not easy of access to the curious crowds that gather wherever there is anything novel to be attempted; for a flying machine never loses its attraction to the curious. Mankind has been looking for it ever since the beginning of the world, and now that it is actually here he can't get away from it, once it is in sight. A machine that has actually carried a man through the air takes on a sort of individuality all its own that acts as a magnet for the inquiring mind. Once people have really seen an aeroplane fly, they want to know what makes it fly and to come into personal contact with the machine and the man who operates it.

San Diego was brought to my attention as affording every advantage for experimental work in aviation. A study of the weather bureau records here showed a minimum of wind and a maximum of sunshine the year round. I visited that city in January, 1911, and after a thorough inspection of the grounds offered as an aviation field, decided to make that city the headquarters for the winter and to carry on the experimental and instructional work there.

North Island, lying in San Diego Bay, a mile across from the city, was turned over to me by its owners, the Spreckels Company. It is a flat, sandy island, about four miles long and two miles wide, with a number of good fields for land flights. The beaches on both the ocean and bay sides are good, affording level stretches for starting or landing an aeroplane. Besides, the beaches were necessary to the water experiments I wished to make. North Island is uninhabited except by hundreds of jack rabbits, cottontails, snipe, and quail. It joins Coronado Island by a narrow sand spit on the south side, which is often washed by the high tides. Otherwise the two islands are separated by a strip of shallow water a mile long and a couple of hundred yards wide, called Spanish Bight. Thus the island on which we were to do our experimenting and training was accessible only by boat and it was a comparatively easy matter to exclude the curious visitor whenever we desired to do so. There was no particular reason for excluding the public other than the desire to work unhampered by crowds, which is always a distracting influence.

In the meantime Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson of the submarine service, then stationed at Newport News, Virginia, had been detailed by the Navy Department to report to me in California for instruction in aviation. He had joined me in Los Angeles, where, though there are all the climatic requirements, and good fields for practice flights, the ideal body of smooth water for experiments on that element was lacking. The War Department responded later, instructing General Bliss, commanding the Department of California at San Francisco, to detail as many officers as could be spared to go to San Diego for instruction in the art of flying.

There was much eagerness among the officers of the Department of California and I was informed that some thirty applications were made for the detail. Lieutenant (now Captain) Paul W. Beck, of the Signal Corps, located at the Presidio, San Francisco, and Lieutenant John C. Walker, Jr., of the 8th Infantry, Monterey, Cal., were named at once, and later Lieutenant C. E. M. Kelly, 30th Infantry, San Francisco, was added to the Army's representation. This made a list of four officers, three from the Army and one from the Navy, and with these I began work. In February, however, the Navy Department designated Ensign Charles Pousland of the destroyer Preble, at San Diego, to join Lieutenant Ellyson as a Navy pupil in aviation.

There are a dozen good landing or starting fields on North Island, but we chose the one on the south side, which gave us easy access to the smooth shallow water of Spanish Bight. A field was cleared of weeds and sagebrush, half a mile long by three or four hundred yards wide. Sheds to house the machines were built by the Aero Club of San Diego, and landings put in for the small boats that carried us to and from the city. The Spreckels Company gave us every assistance in fitting the place up, and the people of San Diego, anxious to make the island the permanent home of an aviation experimental station and school, were prompt to lend a hand and to impress upon us the climatic advantages of their city.

I have asked Lieutenant Ellyson to write his own story of the work on North Island, and it is to be found in another part of this book.