Aerial Experiment Association
The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) was a Canadian aeronautical research group formed on 30 September 1907, under the tutelage of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell.[1] According to Bell, it was a "co-operative scientific association, not for gain but for the love of the art and doing what we can to help one another."[2]
The AEA came into being when John Alexander Douglas McCurdy and his friend Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, two recent engineering graduates of the University of Toronto, decided to spend the summer in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. McCurdy had grown up there, and his father was the personal secretary of Dr. Bell. He had grown up close to the Bell family and was well received in their home. One day, as the three sat with Dr. Bell discussing the problems of aviation, Mabel Bell, Alexander's wife, suggested they create a formal research group to exploit their collective ideas. Being independently wealthy, she provided a total of US$35,000 (approximately $910,000 in current dollars[3]) to finance the Association, with $20,000 made available immediately by the sale of property.[4][5]
Glenn H. Curtiss, the American motorcycle designer and manufacturer and recognized expert on gasoline engines, was recruited as a member of the association. Curtiss had visited the Wright Cycle Company to discuss aeronautical engineering with Wilbur and Orville Wright, and wrote offering them use of a 50-hp engine, but Wilbur cordially declined, assuring him that a motor of their own development met their power needs, unaware that the AEA was about to become a serious competitor in powered flight. Bell wrote to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to have an interested young officer who had volunteered his help, US Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, officially detailed to Baddeck. Selfridge was detailed to the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps on August 3, 1907, two days after its formation, and sent to Nova Scotia. A year later he became the first person killed in an airplane accident while flying with one of the Wright Brothers on September 17, 1908.
The AEA collaboration led to very public success. Casey Baldwin became the first Canadian and first British subject pilot on 12 March 1908 flight of Red Wing.[2] Its successor, White Wing was the first plane to have Bell's ailerons. One of their planes, the June Bug, won the Scientific American Trophy by making the first official one kilometer flight in North America, although, the Wrights had already accomplished this in 1904. Their fourth flying machine, the Silver Dart, constructed in 1908, made the first controlled powered flight in Canada on 23 February 1909 when it was flown off the ice of Bras d'Or Lake near Baddeck by McCurdy, who had been one of its designers.[6]
On 10 March 1909, McCurdy set a record when he flew the airplane on a circular course over a distance of more than 32 km (20 mi), a feat that the Wrights had already accomplished in 1905. The Association made the first passenger flight in Canada on 2 August, also in the Silver Dart. Much development also took place in Hammondsport, New York where experimentation was done on development on Curtiss' pioneering seaplane experiments, before Henri Fabre in France successfully flew the first powered seaplane in history, the Fabre Hydravion, in March 1910. The AEA organisation disbanded on 31 March 1909.
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[edit] Aircraft designed and constructed
- Aerodrome 1 Red Wing (1908) Single-seat single-engine biplane
- Aerodrome 2 White Wing (1908) Single-seat single-engine biplane
- Aerodrome 3 June Bug (1908) Single-seat single-engine biplane
- Aerodrome 4 Silver Dart (1909) Single-engine biplane
- Aerodrome 5 Cygnet (1912) Single-engine single-seat aircraft with unorthodox wing
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ Milberry, 1979. p 12-13.
- ^ a b Milberry, 1979. p 13.
- ^ Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–2008. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
- ^ Rannie Gillis. Mabel Bell Was A Focal Figure In The First Flight of the Silver Dart, Cape Breton Post, 29 September 2008. Retrieved from First Airplane Flight In Canada website, 2 April 2010.
- ^ Toward, Lilias M. Mabel Bell: Alexander's Silent Partner, Methuen, Toronto, 1984, pp.141-155, ISBN 0-458-98090-0, ISBN 978-0-458-98090-1.
- ^ "Selfridge Aerodrome Sails Steadily for 319 Feet. At 25 to 30 miles an Hour. First Public Trip of Heavier-than-air Car in America". Washington Post. 13 May 1908. "Professor Alexander Graham Bell's New Machine, Built After Plans by Lieutenant Selfridge, Shown to Be Practicable by Flight Over Keuka Lake. Portion of Tail Gives Way, Bringing the Test to an End. Views of an Expert. Hammondsport, New York, 12 March 1908. Professor Alexander Graham Bell's new aeroplane, the Red Wing, was given its test flight over Lake Keuka today by F. W. Baldwin, the engineer in charge of its construction. The machine was built by the Aerial Experiment Association for Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, U.S.A."
- Bibliography
- Milberry, Larry (1979). Aviation in Canada. McGraw-Hill Ryerson. ISBN 0-07-082778-8.
[edit] Further reading
- "A Most Noble Experiment". http://www.aerofiles.com/aea.html. Retrieved 19 May 2005.
- "The Aerial Experiment Association". http://www.yesmag.bc.ca/focus/flight/aea.html. Retrieved 17 March 2006.
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