The Next Big Idea 10 concepts that could - University of Toronto ...

Undaunted, the associates came up with a flap at the end
of each wing, which could be lifted or dropped to compensate
for wind gusts. These balancing devices – which a French
aviator named “ailerons” (meaning, “little wings”) – remain
in use to this day. They were applied to Baldwin’s plane, the
group’s second, the White Wing, which debuted in the spring
of 1908. Although the plane proved more maneuverable in
the wind, its lifespan was also short. On his maiden flight,
McCurdy flew it at a height of 20 feet for almost 200 yards,
but crashed it so severely that everyone was surprised he
walked away. The plane was beyond repair.
Then, in the summer of 1908, came Curtiss’s plane, the
June Bug. When watching it fly on Independence Day, one of
Bell’s daughters expressed the sense of wonder common
among mechanized flight’s first witnesses: “In spite of all that
I had read and heard, and all the photographs I had seen, the
actual sight of a man flying through the air was thrilling to a
degree I can’t express. We all lost our heads and shouted, and
I cried and everybody cheered and clapped.”
Putting his crash behind him, McCurdy got back in the
cockpit and in this craft really learned how to fly, using the
ailerons to become the first pilot ever to carve a figure eight
in the sky.
In the fall, McCurdy returned from Hammondsport to
Baddeck with his plane, the Silver Dart, with the idea of showing
his friends and neighbours how it could fly – and, with an
eye to history, of piloting the first flight in the British Empire.
He took off in February of 1909 from the frozen surface of
Bras d’Or Lake, and remained aloft for three-quarters of a
mile, flying at about 40 miles an hour. He wanted to go right
back up, but the always cautious Bell prevented him. “You
can fly her again tomorrow if you like, but that’s all for today.”
The British aviation authorities recognized McCurdy’s
achievement by ultimately awarding him the first pilot’s
licence in the Empire.
With this, all four men had completed the task Mabel Bell
had set for them (and funded) – “to get into the air.” But the
triumph was tinged with sadness. A few months earlier, the
U.S. government had asked Selfridge to be an observer on a
test flight piloted by Orville Wright near Washington. While
the plane was up in the air, there was a crack like a pistol shot,
a piece of the propeller blade fell off and the craft plummeted
to earth. Wright survived, but his passenger Selfridge died.
Mrs. Bell wrote the remaining three: “I can’t get over Tom’s
being taken. He was so quiet, it seems strange how large the
place is he has left vacant.... I am so sorry for you in this breaking
of your beautiful association.” It meant the end of their
group, and the close of a period of extraordinary invention
and camaraderie.
McCurdy believed the plane would
play a role in future war,
and in exhibition he would drop orange,
which he called bomb, on targets
identified as battleships to prove his point
A
fter
the breakup, the U of T chums Baldwin and
McCurdy decided they would put their hard-earned
aeronautical knowledge to use and set up an airplane
factory in Baddeck. With Bell’s help, they
sought to convince the Canadian government that planes
could assist in national defence. A demonstration flight of the
Silver Dart was scheduled at Camp Petawawa in Ontario in
August of 1909. As cadets, officers and defence department
officials watched, McCurdy made the plane float, turn and bob
through the air satisfactorily, at 50 miles an hour and 50 feet
above the earth. But when he brought the plane down, the
wheels dug into the sandy runway and the plane tumbled over
on its nose, splintering into pieces. No government orders for
planes would be forthcoming.
Baldwin chose to help Bell on his experiments with hydrofoils,
while McCurdy decided to join Curtiss on the then
nascent barnstorming circuit – doing exhibition flights for
money across the U.S. The young pilots on this circuit were
the idols of their generation. Humans had always dreamed of
soaring like the birds and now, as a result of careful science
and engineering and devil-may-care bravery by the first test
pilots, the impossible had become possible.
McCurdy joined what they called the “aeronautical circus,”
and did shows (for $500 each) in almost every major city east
of the Mississippi – in D.C., he circled the Washington Monument;
in Brooklyn and Palm Beach, he became the first pilot
to transmit and receive wireless signals on board; in Ontario,
he won a race from Hamilton to Toronto against another member
of the flying fraternity by cutting over the lake. Accidents,
many fatal, abounded on the circuit and McCurdy had his
share of close calls. In Chicago, his plane caught fire after coming
into contact with live wires. In Allentown, Pennsylvania,
44 WWW.MAGAZINE.UTORONTO.CA