Building and Flying an Aeroplane / A practical handbook covering the design, construction, and operation of aeroplanes and gliders

by Charles B. Hayward

AMATEUR AVIATORS

It will probably come as a surprise to the average reader to learn that at the end of 1910, there were more than a thousand amateur aviators in this country, though all the flights which form the subject of newspaper reports have been the work of not more than a dozen flyers and doubtless half the population has not as yet seen an aeroplane in flight. The desire to fly, whether it be to satisfy one's desire to soar above the world in seeming defiance of natural laws, or merely to obtain the financial reward that is won by successful flight, attracts a great many from all stations and walks of life. This is particularly true among older boys who look on aviation as an advanced form of kite-flying. An example of rather serious work along this line may be cited of two high school boys of Chicago, Harold Turner and Fred Croll, who built a monoplane weighing 125 pounds, Fig. 52. This machine, although too small for a motor, was equipped with rudder and other operating planes and levers, the elevating plane and ailerons being automatically operated by an electrical device. On one of its flights the machine, carrying a 120 pound operator, was started and propelled by attaching it to an automobile; it rose to a height of 15 feet, and remained in the air 43 seconds.

Contrary to all precedent, the average amateur is bent upon achieving what the skilled professional considers as beyond even his talent and resources—that of building his own flying machine. With every other mechanical vehicle, the amateur learns to drive first and the majority are content with that achievement—for example, very few chauffeurs have any great ambition to build their own automobiles. With flying machines (one of the most difficult of mechanical contrivances), nearly all amateurs want to construct new types for themselves and all confidently expect to fly with no more knowledge than that gained in constructing them. We all have to be apprentices before becoming masters, so all aviators necessarily have to be learners and "grass cutters" before being professionals. Charles K. Hamilton was an exception, but he was already an expert pilot of dirigible balloons, and he did not try to build his own aeroplane. Willard, Mars, and Ely, all Curtiss pupils, flew after a very short training, but they did not attempt to construct aeroplanes for themselves. This is also true of Clifford B. Harmon, the champion amateur.

Fig. 52. What an Amateur Aviator Can Do in Building an Aeroplane

Classes of Amateurs. Inventors. Generally speaking, amateurs are of two classes. Those of the first class believe they have conceived some entirely new system or invention, or an improvement on some machine that has previously proved a failure; they think they have discovered the secret which other inventors who preceded them failed to grasp. They expend their meager capital in trying to realize high hopes. A comparatively small number ever get as far as completing the machine and one trial on the field is usually sufficient to put a quietus on those who do, as it is disappointing, to say the least, to see the result of a number of months' work undone in a twinkling without the machine having shown the least disposition or ability to get off terra firma.

Would Be Performers. The second class finds its chief incentive in the munificent reward to be gained with what appears to be comparatively little effort or expenditure, and the amateur who is seeking financial returns has no alternative except to build his own machine, or enter either the Wright or Curtiss school of flying and secure a berth with one of these companies.

Wright and Curtiss Patents. This is the result of conditions at present obtaining in the field of aviation. The only generally successful types of American aeroplanes are the Wright and Curtiss, and the acquirement of a biplane of either type means the expenditure of at least $5,000 for the machine alone, and they are sold only to individuals on the express condition that the machines are not to be used for exhibition or as a means of profit to the owner. The manufacturers have expert flyers of their own who attend meets and fairs throughout the country. It would make their monopoly impossible to allow outsiders to fly their aeroplanes publicly or to exhibit them. By this restriction the price of the machines is kept up and large returns are gained by exhibitions and flying.

To break this monopoly by importing European machines is not possible. All the successful aeroplanes made abroad such as the Farman, Cody, and Sommer biplanes; and the Bleriot, Antoinette, and Grade monoplanes are fitted with devices of control or stability, or both, covered by the Wright patents and can not be flown in this country without legal trouble. The numerous foreign aviators who brought over their machines in the fall of 1910 to compete at the International Meet, did so only on being granted a concession by the Wright Company to the effect that they would not be considered as infringers and sued. Similar arrangements were made at subsequent meets and this handicap will always be present where foreign machines are used.

Evasion by Invention of New Types. But when he thinks of the unprecedented sums paid professionals for simply exhibiting their machines and making short flights, the amateur is anxious to obtain a share of the profits. No thought is given the fact that were he and all his kind permitted to fly, the achievement would soon be commonplace and the aviator's golden age would be over. There are accordingly hundreds of would-be aviators in this country today who are striving to evade the Wright basic patents by either devising entirely new types of aeroplanes, or by inventing new methods of control and stability that will not infringe. Others, reasoning that the old aeroplanes built before the advent of the Wright machine cannot be held as infringements owing to priority, propose to develop Maxim, Langley, and Ader machines, though the dictum in the New York Court of Appeals decision referred to under the head of "Legal Status of Wright Patent," which states that a prior machine which had never been known to fly would not be considered an anticipation of a modern successful machine, may prove a stumbling block in their case as well. Thus, a round of the workshops of these enthusiasts reveals a host of heavier-than-air machines of every conceivable type and shape, every one of which, according to its builder, is an aeroplane that will fly. Mineola and Garden City, Long Island, harbor a score of these little shops the year round, but the same scenes are being enacted on a smaller scale in almost every state in the Union, and particularly in California, Ohio, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Arizona, in addition to which there are many who are carrying their experiments on in secret. Each believes deep in his heart that he will succeed where a master failed.