CHAPTER V DEVELOPING THE HYDROAEROPLANE AT SAN DIEGO–THE HYDRO OF THE SUMMER OF 1912

January had nearly passed before the first machine was ready. Although this proved unsuccessful, I was not discouraged and learned a good deal about what sort of a float was necessary to support the aeroplane and how it acted when under way over the water. Nearly every day for over two weeks we dragged the machine down to the edge of the water, launched it on the smooth surface of San Diego Bay, and drew it out again after testing out some new arrangement of floats and surfaces. We kept it in a hangar, or shed, on the beach, and there we would sit and study and change and plan how to improve the float.

We were in the water almost all day long; no thought was given to wet clothing and cold feet. We virtually lived in our bathing suits. The warm climate aided us, but there were some chilly days. Discomfort and failure did not deter the Army and Navy officers, who watched and worked like beavers, half in and half out of the water.

On the 26th of January the first success came. That day the aeroplane first rose from the water and succeeded in alighting gently and without accident after the flight. A page was added to aviation history, which extended its domain and opened the lakes, rivers, and seas to the hitherto land-locked flying machine. It was no more a land bird, but a water fowl as well.

The machine was crude, and there remained many things to be improved, but the principle was correct. We kept adjusting the equipment, adding things and taking them off again to make some improvement; perhaps the float was too heavy, or leaked, or the spray would fly up and chips would be knocked out of the whirling propeller, which the drops of water would strike like shot out of a gun. The least projection on the floats would send up spray while travelling at such high speed as was made through the water. The balance of the machine was as troublesome as anything, because the push of the propeller would give it a tendency to dive if the floats were not properly adjusted.

When we brought the machine out on the 26th day of January I felt that we ought to get some results. There were no crowds of people present and there was no announcement of what was about to happen. I had not expected to make a flight, but climbed into the aviator's seat with a feeling that the machine would surely rise into the air when I wished, but that I would only try it on the water to see how the new float acted. Lieutenant Ellyson spun the propeller and I turned the machine into the wind. It ploughed through the water deeply at first, but gathered speed and rose higher and higher in the water and skipped more and more lightly until the float barely skimmed the surface of the bay. So intent was I in watching the water that I did not notice that I was approaching the shore and to avoid running aground I tilted the horizontal control and the machine seemed to leap into the air like a frightened gull. So suddenly did it rise that it quite took me by surprise.

But I kept the machine up for perhaps half a mile, then turned and dropped lightly down on the water, turned around and headed back to the starting point. The effect of that first flight on the men who had worked, waited, and watched for it was magical. They ran up and down the beach, throwing their hats up into the air and shouting in their enthusiasm.

I now headed about into the bay, in the direction of San Diego, and rose up into the air again even more easily than the first time. I flew for half a mile and turned twice to see how the machine would act in the air with the clumsy-looking float below it. The naval repair ship Iris caught sight of me as I went flying by and sent its siren blast far out over the water, and all the other craft blew their whistles, until it seemed as if all San Diego knew of the achievement. Satisfied that it was all right, I landed within a few yards of the shore, near the hangar.

We made flights nearly every day after this, taking the Army and Navy officers as passengers. I found the machine well adapted for passenger work and it became very popular. While experimenting we kept changing things from day to day, adding and taking off, lightening the machine, or adding more surface. We tried putting on an extra surface, making a triplane, and got remarkable lifting power. We changed the floats and finally made one long, flat-bottomed, scow-shaped float, twelve feet long, two feet wide, and twelve inches deep. It was made of wood, the bow being curved upward the full width of the boat and at the stern being curved downward in a similar manner. This single float was placed under the aeroplane so that the weight was slightly to the rear of the centre of the float, causing it to slant upward, giving it the necessary angle for hydroplaning on the surface of the water.

I will confess that I got more pleasure out of flying the new machine over water than I ever got flying over land, and the danger, too, was greatly lessened.

I then decided upon a test which I had been informed the Navy regarded as very important. In fact, I had been told that the Secretary of the Navy regarded the adaptability of the aeroplane to navy uses as depending very largely on its ability to alight on the water and be hoisted aboard a warship. With the hydroaeroplane I had developed, I had no doubts about being able to do this, without any platform or preparation on board the vessel.

So, on February 17, at San Diego, I sent word over to Captain Charles F. Pond, commanding the armoured cruiser Pennsylvania, then in the harbour, that I would be pleased to fly over and be hoisted aboard whenever it was convenient to him. He replied immediately, "come on over." The Pennsylvania is the ship that Ely landed on at San Francisco in his memorable flight, and it was Captain Pond who at that time gave over his ship and lent every assistance in his power to make the experiment the success it was. He lent his aid to this second experiment as willingly as he did to the first.

There were no special arrangements necessary for this test. All that would be needed to get the aeroplane and its operator on board would be to use one of the big hoisting cranes, just as they are used for handling the ship's launches.

The hydroaeroplane was launched on Spanish Bight, and in five minutes I was on the way. The machine skimmed over the water for a hundred yards and then rose into the air. In two or three minutes I was alongside the cruiser, just off the starboard quarter. There was a strong tide running and when I shut off the propeller the aeroplane drifted until a rope thrown from the ship was made fast to one of the planes by Lieutenant Ellyson of the Navy. It was drawn in close to the side of the ship, where a boat crane was lowered and I hooked it in a wire sling attached to the top of the planes. I then climbed up on top of the aeroplane and slipped my leg through the big hook of the crane, not caring to trust too much weight to the untested sling.

In five minutes from the time I landed on the water alongside the ship, the hydroaeroplane reposed easily on the superstructure deck of the big cruiser, just forward of the boat crane. It had been the easiest sort of work to land it there, and thus one more of the problems that stood in the way of a successful naval aeroplane was overcome.

The rest of the experiment was performed with equal promptness and ease. After a stay of ten minutes on the cruiser, the aeroplane was dropped overboard by the big boat crane, the propeller was cranked by one of the military pupils in aviation, and I got under way for the return trip to the island. Two minutes later I brought the hydroaeroplane to a stop a few yards away from the hangar on the beach. The entire time taken from the moment I left North Island for the cruiser to the moment I landed on the water at the hangar on my return was less than half an hour, and yet within this brief space had been written one of the most interesting chapters in the history of naval aviation.

I regard this experiment as one of the most interesting, from my idea of a military experiment, that had been attempted up to that time, for the reason that no special equipment was needed on board the ship. Obviously the objections to the landing of an aeroplane on deck from a flight had to be overcome, and this could be done with a machine that could land on the water and be picked up. For a flight from the ship, all that was necessary was to drop it over the side and watch it rise from the water into the air. Such a machine could be "knocked down" and stored in a very small space when not in use; and when wanted for a flight, it could be brought out and set up in a short time on deck.

An aeroplane sent from a scout ship on a scouting flight must, to be efficient, be able to carry a passenger, especially if it be sent for any purpose other than as a messenger, where speed would be the first consideration. But if sent to seek information as to an enemy's position, to take observations and make maps of the surrounding country, or with any of a dozen other objects in view where a trained observer would be necessary, it seems to me it should be equipped to carry at least two, and possibly three, persons the aviator and two passengers. There were many machines capable of carrying one or more passengers on land flights, so I set about equipping one to carry passengers on water flights.

This I first succeeded in doing on February 23, when I took up Lieutenant T. G. Ellyson of the Navy, in the hydroaeroplane. We rose from the water without difficulty, flew over San Diego Bay and returning, alighted on the water with perfect ease.

This was all very well and good where a flight was to be made from the water and back to the water; but I believed we should go further and provide a machine that would be able to go from one to the other from water to land and land back to water before it could be said that all the difficulties of making the aeroplane adaptable to both Army and Navy uses had been overcome. This was of comparatively easy accomplishment, and on Sunday, February 26, I made the first flight from water to land and from land back to water. Starting from North Island, on the waters of Spanish Bight, I flew out over the ocean and down the beach to a point near Coronado Hotel, where I came down on the smooth sand of the beach. Returning, the machine started from the beach and came back to the water on Spanish Bight whence I had started.

With these achievements it seems to me the aeroplane has reached the point of utility for military purposes either for the Army or Navy. It now seems possible to use it to establish communication between the Navy and Army, when there are no other means of communication. That is, a warship could launch an aeroplane that can fly over sea and land and come to earth on whichever element affords the best landing. Having fulfilled its mission on shore it could start from the land, and, returning to the home ship, land at its side and be picked up, as I was picked up and hoisted aboard the Pennsylvania at San Diego.

Here let me call attention to the splendid field that California offers for the development of aviation, with its climate, permitting aviation to be pursued all the year, and its large winter tourist population with wealth and leisure to devote to furthering the art of flight. In California even the legislature recognises the increasing popularity of flying, and it has given careful attention to the formation of laws to protect the aeroplane and the aviator.

There remained one thing further to accomplish complete success with the hydroaeroplane, and that was to devise a method of successfully launching the machine from a ship without touching the water and without resorting to any cumbersome platform or any other launching apparatus that would interfere with the ship's ordinary working. To accomplish this would solve the principal obstacle that stood in the way of using the hydroaeroplane at sea.

Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson, of the United States Navy, had been working out a plan for doing this and it was not until September, 1911, that the experiment was finally completed at Hammondsport, where operations were continued after breaking up the camp at San Diego, late in the spring.

A platform sixteen feet high was erected on the shore of Lake Keuka and a wire cable two hundred and fifty feet long was stretched from the platform to a spile under water out in the lake. The hydroaeroplane was set on this wire cable near the platform on which the men stood to start the propeller. A groove was made along the bottom of the boat in which the cable fitted loosely, to guide it as it slid down, until sufficient headway was obtained to enable the wings of the aeroplane to support the weight of the machine. A trial of this method of launching was entirely successful. The machine started down the cable gathering headway and we all watched it gracefully rise into the air and fly out over the lake. This launching from a wire is the last step in the development of handling the aeroplane and it is hardly possible to foresee all the many important applications which will be made in the future of this type of machine, since a cable can be easily stretched from the bow of any vessel, which can then steam into the wind, easily enabling an aeroplane to be launched in almost any weather, while it can without difficulty land under the lea of the vessel and be hoisted on board again.

As the wireless has almost revolutionised ocean navigation by furnishing a means of constant communication between steamers, perhaps the hydroaeroplane will be able to bring passengers back to shore or take them from shore to a ship on the high sea, or enable visits to be made between ships that pass on the ocean. Great, powerful hydroaeroplanes may be able to cross the ocean itself at high speed, and they will no doubt add greatly to the safety of ocean travel, as well as furnish the Navy with an arm of destruction much more far-reaching than its most effective guns or torpedoes.

Frank Coffyn in May, 1912, took a belated passenger from the Battery, New York City, out to a steamer as it was steaming out of the lower bay and landed him safely aboard a hint of future possibilities.

We had a curious opportunity to prove how the hydroaeroplane can be an arm of preservation as well as destruction, when at the Chicago meet of 1911. Simon, dashing over the lake, dropped in his machine. Hugh Robinson had been putting a hydroaeroplane through its evolutions, to the great interest of the crowd, who evidently thought it a sort of freak machine, but when Simon fell Robinson was after him instantly, and for the first time in the history of the world, a man flew through the air from dry land, alighted on the water beside a man in distress, and before anything else could get there, invited him to fly back to shore with him. As there were boats close at hand, the offer was not needed, but the value of the land-air-water machine had been proved, for it had left its hangar and flown a mile from shore in a little more than a minute.

The hydroaeroplane can already fly sixty miles an hour, skim the water at fifty miles, and run over the earth at thirty-five miles. Driven over the surface of the water the new machine can pass the fastest motor boat ever built and will respond to its rudder more quickly than any water craft afloat. Its appeal will be as strong to the aquatic as to the aerial enthusiast.

Flying an aeroplane is thrilling sport, but flying a hydroaeroplane is something to arouse the jaded senses of the most blase. It fascinates, exhilarates, vivifies. It is like a yacht with horizontal sails that support it on the breezes. To see it skim the water like a swooping gull and then rise into the air, circle and soar to great heights, and finally drop gracefully down upon the water again, furnishes a thrill and inspires a wonder that does not come with any other sport on earth.

The hydroaeroplane is safer than the ordinary aeroplane, and for this reason is bound to become the most popular of aerial craft. The beginner can take it out on his neighboring lake or river, or even the great bays, and skim it over the water until he is sure of himself and sure that he can control it in the air. He can fly it six feet above the water for any distance, with the feeling that even if something should happen to cause a fall, he will not be dashed to pieces. The worst he will get is a cold bath.

The hydroaeroplane may compete with motor boats as a water craft, or in the air with the fastest aeroplane. It can start from the land on its wheels, but launch itself on the water where there is lack of room for rising from the land.

Its double qualities as a water and air craft make possible flights that could not be attempted with the aeroplane.

At Cedar Point, Ohio, I had to fly the new machine when a strong gale was blowing across Lake Erie, kicking up a heavy surf. However, I determined to make the attempt under what were extremely trying conditions, and so started it on the beach and under the power of the aerial propeller, launched it through a heavy surf.

Beyond the surf I found very rough water, but turning the machine into the wind, I arose from the water without the least difficulty, and circled and soared over the lake for fifteen minutes. I landed without trouble on the choppy water a few hundred yards off shore, and after guiding the hydroaeroplane up and down the beach for the inspection of the great crowd, made a second flight of ten minutes' duration, and landed safely upon the sandy beach. That was the hardest test I have ever given the hydroaeroplane, and I think a very severe one. I am satisfied that it can be used in more than ordinarily rough water, if it is properly handled.

There is no question that in this particular line of aeronautics, America is now leading the world; but the hydroaeroplane contests recently held at Monte Carlo and the experiments made in France by the Voisin Brothers' "Canard," which was erroneously hailed by the French press as being the first occasion when a machine had risen from the water with two men, show that the French are not far behind us.

Other experiments have been made in Europe by Fabre, who was the first to achieve any degree of success in this line, and by the Duf aux Brothers on the Lake of Geneva, to say nothing of the flights made by Herbster, the old Farman pilot, on an Astra-Wright at Lucerne, and if the American aeronautic industry does not awaken to the immediate possibilities along this line, it will once more be overtaken by Europeans.

There are thousands of men throughout the country who would gladly take up a new mechanical sport as a successor to motor boating and motoring if they felt they could do so with a reasonable degree of safety to themselves, and adequate assurance that the life of their machine would be commensurate to the price paid for it.

Followers of the sport of motor boating, which has made thousands of converts during the past few years, are already turning to the hydroplane, which skims over the water at much greater speed and less power. The next step will be the hydroaeroplane, which can skim over the water in exactly the same way and has the further enormous advantage of rising into the air whenever the driver so desires. The sport should develop rapidly next summer and be in full swing in a few years. Several improvements of detail will have to be made. Ways of housing the craft–of stopping the engine–of muffling the roar of the motor, will be devised; while more comfort for the pilot and passengers will be arranged.

If a cross-country flight is too dangerous to attempt because of the rough character of the land, the hydroaeroplane can follow a river course with perfect safety. Or, if there is no water course and the country is level, it can take the land course with equal safety.

In short, it matters little whether an aerial course takes one over land or water, the hydroaeroplane is the safest machine for flight. With the "Triad," as we called the machine from its triple field–air, land, and water–the Great Lakes offer no impassable obstacle to a long flight, and it is within the vision of him who watches the trend of things, that an over-sea flight is not far in the future.

NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST

THE "FLYING BOAT"

At San Diego, on Jan. 10, 1912, a new type of Curtiss hydroaeroplane, or "flying boat," was given its first trial on the bay. It had been designed and constructed under strict secrecy at Hammondsport. The public knew nothing as to the details of this craft until it was taken out on the bay in order to test its balance and speed on the water.

This craft, which was equipped to carry a passenger, was driven by a sixty horse-power motor. In contact with the water, it went at over fifty miles an hour; and lifted off the water, it travelled at more than sixty miles an hour in the air. It differs in many respects from the hydroaeroplane now in use by the United States Navy officers who, by the way, were present and witnessed the test. There were two propellers instead of one and these were driven by clutch and chain transmission. They were really "tractors," being in front of the planes; the motor had a new automatic starter, and there was also a fuel gauge and bilge pump. The transmission has since been changed to direct drive.

The boat, or hydro equipment, contained a bulkhead fore and aft, was twenty feet long, with an upward slope in front and a downward slope in the rear. The hydro equipment, which was more like a boat than anything yet designed, was able to withstand any wind or wave that a motor boat of similar size could weather. The aviator sat comfortably in the hull with the engine not behind him, but forward in the hull in this model.

THE "FLYING FISH"

A "No. 2 flying boat," just built by Mr. Curtiss, and successfully tested on Lake Keuka, Hammondsport, in July, 1912, is the "last word" in aviation so far. An illustration in this book, made from photographs taken in mid-July, 1912, shows fully the bullet-shape of the "flying fish."

It is a real boat, built with a fish-shaped body containing two comfortable seats for the pilot and passenger or observer, either of whom can operate the machine by a system of dual control, making it also available for teaching the art of flying.

All the controls are fastened to the rear of the boat's hull, which makes them very rigid and strong, while the boat itself, made in stream-line form, offers the least possible resistance to the air, even less than that offered by the landing gear upon a standard land machine. Above the boat are mounted the wings and aeroplane surface. In the centre of this standard biplane construction is situated the eighty horse-power motor with its propeller in the rear, thus returning to the original practice, as in the standard Curtiss machines, of having a single propeller attached direct to the motor, thus doing away with all chains and transmission gearing which might give trouble, and differing from the earlier model flying boat built in San Diego, California, last winter (1911-12), which was equipped with "tractor" propellors propellers in front driven by chains.

The new flying boat is twenty-six feet long and three feet wide. The planes are five and a half feet deep and thirty feet wide. It runs on the water at a speed of fifty miles an hour, and is driven by an eighty horse-power Curtiss motor. At a greater speed than this it cannot be kept on the water, but rises in the air and flies at from fifty to sixty miles per hour.

The boat itself is provided with water-tight compartments so that if any one compartment should be damaged the flotation afforded by the other would be sufficient to keep the craft afloat. It is also provided with wheels for making a landing on the shore; these wheels fold up, thus not interfering in the slightest with its manoeuvres over the water. The boat is so strongly built that it can be readily beached even through a high surf and handled the same as a fisherman would handle his dory, or it may be housed afloat like a motor boat or anchored to a buoy like a yacht.

In rough water the spray-hood with which this type of boat is provided protects the navigators from getting wet and enables the craft to be used very much as you might use a high speed motor boat, with the added excitement of being able to rise above other crafts or fly over them if they get in the way. It looks very much like a flying fish in the air and although designed to skim close to the surface of the water at high speed it can rise to as high an altitude as the standard land machine.

Mr. Curtiss states: "My idea was to provide a machine especially adapted for the requirements of the sportsman, one that would be simple to operate and absolutely safe. During the tests which we have made with this flying boat it carried three people with ease and the boat rose without difficulty with the extra passenger, although it is only designed to accommodate two people."

With the hydroaeroplane a safe landing can always be made, and if, through inexperience or carelessness of the driver, a bad landing is made, no injury to the operator or passenger can occur other than what may result from a "ducking."

This boat shows how directly aeroplane-builders are turning to air craft available for amateur sport–not for exhibition "stunts." Such boats will have ample protection for the passenger and be able to carry a large quantity of fuel together with wireless apparatus and provisions, so that long overwater journeys may be made in comparative comfort, and also well within the radius of communication by wireless. And most of all they are safe!–A. P.

THE NAVY ON THE HYDRO (AUGUSTUS POST)

Captain Washington Irving Chambers, head of the Aeronautical Bureau, United States Navy, in a speech delivered at the Aeronautical Society's banquet in New York, said:

"The hydroaeroplane is the coming machine so far as the navy is concerned; in fact, it has already come. [5] The navy machine built by Glenn Curtiss has had several tryouts and has proved itself a success. I recently had a flight with Mr. Curtiss in this machine, the 'Triad,' at Hammondsport, N. Y.

"With two passengers seated side by side, the control can be shifted from one to the other easily while in the air. When we had gone a mile Curtiss yelled to me to take the control. The levers had been explained to me on the ground, but I had not familiarised myself with them for the purpose of handling the machine under way. I turned on a notch and the front plane tilted up, bringing the machine off the water to a level of four feet in the air. We kept this level for another mile or two, when Curtiss took the control again. He turned the plane lever another notch and we rose to a ten-foot level and encircled the lake several times without changing from this level more than a foot or two, lower or higher."

As a justification of Captain Chambers' remarks, the Aero Club of America, at their annual banquet held on January 27, 1912, awarded the "Collier Trophy" to Mr. Curtiss for his successful development and thorough demonstration of the hydroaeroplane, the terms of the deed of gift stating that "it shall be awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been demonstrated by use during the preceding year."

The trophy is a group in bronze by Ernest Wise Keyser of New York, representing the triumph of man over gravity and other forces of nature. The trophy was donated by Robert J. Collier, president of the Aero Club of America.–A. P.