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.