APPENDIX V
During the past two years Glenn H. Curtiss, who, more than any other experimenter, has been given to developing the aëroplane for various uses, has experimented with floats for his biplane that would enable it to rise from the surface of the water. Something over a year ago he succeeded in developing a speed of about twenty miles an hour on the water, but this was insufficient to rise from the surface.
At the beginning of the new year Mr. Curtiss moved to the Pacific Coast and set about endeavoring to develop suitable floats which would make it possible for his machine to rise from the surface of the water. These experiments have been carried on at San Diego, where Mr. Curtiss is instructing several naval and military officers in the art of flying.
In his first experiments on the Pacific Coast Mr. Curtiss followed the successful experiments of this sort made by M. Henri Fabre at Marseilles, France, about a year ago, as far as the design of his floats was concerned. He constructed one large float six feet wide, five feet from front to rear, and one foot thick at its central point, and placed this under the center of the machine. The bottom of this float was perfectly flat and arranged at an incline of ten or twelve degrees. Some distance forward of the main float, at about the position of the front wheel in the land machine, another float six feet wide, by one foot from front to rear, and six inches deep, was placed; while at the extreme front end of the machine, on a special outrigger, was mounted a small elevating hydroplane six feet wide by eight inches in a fore-and-aft direction, and one and one-half inches thick. This hydroplane was fixed at an angle of about twenty-five degrees and was intended to lift the front part of the machine. A spray shield was fitted back of it, as shown in the diagram, [page 333].
The first experiments were made with these new floats on January 26th last; and although they made a considerable disturbance in the water, especially at low speed, the aviator was enabled to get up a speed on the surface of about forty-five miles an hour. He found that at as low a rate as ten miles the hydroplanes (which normally were submerged) rose to the surface, while as the speed increased only the rear edges of the two main planes were required to support the machine. The aëroplane readily attained sufficient speed to rise in the air, for as the speed increased and the floats emerged from the water, the head resistance of the floats diminished and there was only the skin friction of the water on a few inches of the rear edge of these floats, plus the air resistance, to be overcome.
At the first try-out, while traveling over the water at high speed, Mr. Curtiss found himself suddenly nearing the shore, and to avoid running aground he turned his horizontal rudder sharply upward, with the result that the machine rose from the water with perfect ease. He soon alighted again, and in the second flight he made a circle and remained in the air a minute and twenty-one seconds. Two other experimental flights were made the first day, and on January 27th he made a three-and-one-half-minute flight and stated, upon alighting, that he found no difficulty in remaining aloft as long as he pleased. The machine showed a speed of fifty miles an hour in the air as against forty-five miles an hour when skimming over the surface of the water.
PLATE XXXII.
CURTISS STARTING FROM THE WATER.