Thepioneer era of aviation was the period ofaviation history between thefirst successful powered flight, generally accepted to have been made by theWright Brothers on 17 December 1903, and the outbreak of theFirst World War in August 1914.
Once the principles of powered controlled flight had been established there was a period in which many different aircraft configurations were experimented with. By 1914 thetractor configurationbiplane had become the most popular form of aircraft design, and would remain so until the end of the 1920s. The development of theinternal combustion engine—primarily from their use inearly automobiles even before the start of the 20th century—which enabled successful heavier-than-air flight also produced rapid advances in lighter-than-air flight, particularly in Germany where theZeppelin company rapidly became the world leader in the field ofairship construction.
During this period aviation passed from being seen as the preserve of eccentric enthusiasts to being an established technology, with the establishment of specialist aeronautical engineering research organizations and university courses and the creation of major industrial aircraft manufacturing businesses, and aviation became a subject of enormous popular interest. Flying displays such as theGrande Semaine d'Aviation of 1909 and air races such as theGordon Bennett Trophy and theCircuit of Europe attracted huge audiences and successful pilots such asJules Védrines andClaude Grahame-White became celebrities.
Although the Wright brothers made their first successful powered flights in December 1903 and by 1905 were making flights of significant duration, their achievement was largely unknown to the world in general and was widely disbelieved. After their flights in 1905 the Wrights stopped work on developing their aircraft and concentrated on trying to commercially exploit their invention, attempting to interest the military authorities of the United States and then, after being rebuffed, France and Great Britain. Consequently, attempts to achieve powered flight continued, principally in France. To publicize the aeronautical concourse at the upcoming World's Fair in St. Louis,Octave Chanute gave a number of lectures at aero-clubs in Europe, sharing his excitement about flying gliders. He showed slides of his own glider flying experiments as well as some of the Wrights glider flying in 1901 and 1902. All these talks were reproduced in club journals. The lecture to members of theAéro-Club de France in April 1903[1] is the best known, and the August 1903 issue ofl'Aérophile carried an article by Chanute that included drawings of his gliders as well as the Wright glider and a description of their approach to the problem, saying "the time is evidently approaching when, the problem of equilibrium and control having been solved, it will be safe to apply a motor and a propeller". Chanute's lecture movedErnest Archdeacon one of the founder members of the Aéro-Club, to conclude his account of the lectures:[2]
Will the homeland of Montgolfier have the shame of allowing this ultimate discovery of aerial science–;which is certainly imminent... to be realised abroad? Gentleman scholars, to your compasses! You, the Maecenases; and you too, the Government; put your hands in your pockets–;or else we are beaten!
In October 1904 theAéro-Club de France announced a series of prizes for achievements in powered flight, but little practical work was done:Ferdinand Ferber, an army officer who in 1898 had experimented with a hang-glider based on that ofOtto Lilienthal continued his work without any notable success, Archdeacon commissioned the construction of a glider based on the Wright design but smaller and lacking the provision for roll control which made a number of brief flights atBerck-sur-Mer in April 1904, piloted by Ferber andGabriel Voisin (the longest of around 29 m (95 ft), compared to the 190 m (620 ft) achieved by the Wrights in 1902):[3] another glider based on the Wright design was constructed byRobert Esnault-Pelterie, who rejected wing-warping as unsafe and instead fitted a pair of mid-gap control surfaces in front of the wings, intended to be used in a differential manner in place of wing-warping and in conjunction to act as elevators (as what are known today aselevons): this is the first recorded use ofailerons, theconcept for which had been patented over a generation earlier byM. P. W. Boulton of the United Kingdom in 1868. This was not successful and Esnault-Pelterie was later to use its failure to support the position that the Wright Brothers claims were unfounded. However, his design was not an exact copy of the Wrights' glider, particularly in having a greatly increased wingcamber. Ferber's copy was likewise unsuccessful: it was crudely constructed, withoutribs to maintain the wing camber, but is notable for his later addition of a fixed rear-mounted stabilising tail surface, the first instance of this feature in a full-size aircraft.[4] Archdeacon abandoned the 1904 glider after the first attempts and commissioned a second glider, which was constructed by Gabriel Voisin in 1905; this broke up in mid air when towed into the air behind a car, fortunately carrying sandbags in place of a pilot. Voisin then constructed another glider, mounted on floats and introducing thebox kite-like stabilising tail which was to be a characteristic of his later aircraft: this was successfully towed into the air behind a motor-boat on 8 June 1905, and Voisin's glider and a second similar aircraft built forLouis Blériot were tested on 18 July, the flight of Blériots aircraft ending in a crash in which Voisin, the pilot, was nearly drowned.[5] Voisin and Blériot then constructed a poweredtandem wing biplane, which was subjected to a number of modifications without any success.
Full details of the Wright Brothers' flight control system was published inl'Aérophile in the January 1906 issue,[6] making clear both the mechanism and its aerodynamic reason. Nevertheless, the crucial importance of lateral control in making controlled turns was not appreciated, and the French experimenters instead aimed to construct inherently stable aircraft.
In the late summer and autumn of 1906Alberto Santos Dumont made the first successful powered heavier-than-air flights in Europe in his14-bis, culminating in a flight of 220 m (720 ft) on the grounds of the ParisianChateau de Bagatelle on 12 November, winning an Aéro-Club de France prize for a flight of over 100 m. Initially relying on pronounceddihedral to provide stability, by the November flight, octagonal-planform interplaneailerons - as a possible "first-use" (if notthe first) of Boulton's 1868 patent on anengine-powered airframe - somewhat like Esnault-Pelterie's design for his own glider; had been fitted to Santos-Dumont's aircraft for its own concluding flights, before its own imminent retirement.
Earlier that yearGabriel Voisin had established an aircraft construction company atBoulogne-Billancourt: his first successful aircraft, which lacked any provision for roll control, was theDelagrange No.1 biplane, named after its ownerLeon Delagrange. This was first flown by Voisin on 30 March 1907.[7] and in February 1908 a second example flown byHenri Farman won the Archdeacon-de la MeurtheGrand Prix d'Aviation for the first officially observed closed-circuit flight of over a kilometer. Among the most persistent French experimenters was Louis Blériot, who after a brief partnership with Gabriel Voisin, had establishedRecherches Aéronautiques Louis Blériot and produced a series ofmonoplane designs. On 16 November 1907 he successfully flew hisBlériot VII, a monoplane with tail surfaces moved differentially for roll control and in unison for pitch control. This aircraft, which is recognised as the first successful monoplane, was soon wrecked in a crash, but was quickly followed byhis eighth design, the first aircraft ever to essentially have the original form offlight control setup used to this day.[8]
In North America, the Canadian-AmericanAerial Experiment Association was founded byAlexander Graham Bell, who had made a number of earlier experiments withtetrahedral kites, andJohn McCurdy and his friendFrederick Walker Baldwin, two recent engineering graduates of the University of Toronto, on 30 September 1907. The AEA produced a number of fundamentally similar biplane designs, greatly influenced by the Wright's work, and these were flown with increasing success during 1908. Baldwin flew their first design,Red Wing on 12 March 1908, flying 97 m (318 ft) before crashing and being damaged beyond repair: its successor,White Wing, equipped with ailerons, made three flights in May, the best of 310 m (1,020 ft), before being destroyed in a crash. On 4 July 1908 their next aircraft, theJune Bug piloted byGlenn Curtiss, won theScientific American trophy for the first officially observed one kilometer flight in North America. After the AEA's disbandment at the end of March 1909,one of its American members went on to start agrowing US-based aviation firm.
In 1908 Wilbur Wright finally visited Europe and in August made a series of flight demonstrations which convincingly demonstrated the superiority of their aircraft, particularly its ability to make controlled banked turns, to the European aviation community. The first flight only lasted 1 minute 45 seconds, in which two circles were flown, but the effect was profound, Louis Blériot saying "I consider that for us in France, and everywhere, a new era in mechanical flight has commenced. I am not sufficiently calm after the event to thoroughly express my opinion. My view can be best conveyed in the words, 'It is marvellous!' "[9] Leon Delagrange simply said "We are beaten". Following these demonstrations, Henri Farman fitted his Voisin biplane with ailerons in order to achieve the full controllability demonstrated by Wilbur Wright: following a falling-out with Gabriel Voisin he then started his own aircraft manufacturing business. His first design, theFarman III (the Farman I and II were Voisin designs that he owned) was one of the most successful aircraft designs of the pioneer era, and was widely copied by other manufacturers,includingone soon-to-be-prominent British firm.
1909 can be regarded as the year in which aviation came of age.[10] At the end of 1908 the first exhibition devoted to aircraft was held in theGrand Palais in Paris, and this was followed by the first London Aero Exhibition atOlympia in May 1909. The Aéro-Club de France issued its first pilot's licences in January, awarding them to a select few pioneer aviators including the Wright Brothers. The first British magazine to be devoted to the subject,Flight published its first issue in January. (Aviation matters had previously been covered byThe Automotor Journal.) The BritishDaily Mail newspaper had offereda number of prizes with the intention of encouraging aviation: in 1906 it had offered a prize of £10,000 for the first flight betweenLondon andManchester. This was met by widespread derision; the satirical magazinePunch responded by offering a similar prize for a flight to Mars.[11] On July 25, 1909Louis Blériot won their £1,000 prize for the first flight across theEnglish Channel. One contemporary newspaper led its account of the event with the headline "Britain is no longer an island", and the flight caused a reassessment of Britain's strategic reliance on the Navy for defence. Blériot became world-famous, and the publicity resulted in over a hundred orders for copies of his design within a few weeks.
The year also saw theGrande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne atRheims, attended by half a million people, includingArmand Fallières, the President of France; theKing of Belgium and senior British political figures includingDavid Lloyd George, who afterwards commented "Flying machines are no longer toys and dreams; they are an established fact"[12] A second aircraft exhibition held in October at the Grand Palais in Paris attracted 100,000 visitors.[13] In America, Wilbur Wright made two spectacular flights overNew York Harbor, flying fromGovernor's Island. On 29 September he made a short flight circling theStatue of Liberty, and on 4 October he made a 34 km (21 miles) 33-minute flight over the Hudson witnessed by around a million New Yorkers.
The lightweight power source provided by the petrol engine also revolutionised the prospects forairship development. Alberto Santos Dumont achieved celebrity status on 19 October 1901 by winning a prize for making a flight fromParc Saint Cloud to theEiffel Tower and back. In GermanyGraf (Count)Ferdinand von Zeppelin pioneered the construction of largerigid airships:his first design of 1900–01 had only limited success andhis second was not constructed until 1906, but his efforts became an enormous source of patriotic pride for the German people: so much so that when his fourth airshipLZ 4 was wrecked in a storm a public collection raised more than six million marks to enable him to carry on his work. Using Zeppelins, the world's first airline,DELAG, was established in Germany in 1910, operating pleasure cruises rather than a scheduled transport service: by the outbreak of war in 1914, 1588 flights had been made, carrying 10,197 fare-paying passengers.[14] The military threat posed by these large airships, greatly superior in carrying power and endurance to heavier-than air machines of the time, caused considerable concern in other countries, especially Britain. Germany was alone in constructing rigid airships, and airship development elsewhere concentrated onnon-rigid andsemi-rigid designs. The only British attempt to construct a large rigid airship,HMA No. 1, broke its back before making a single flight and was abandoned, and the single French-built rigid was not much more successful.
Pre-1910, most aircraft builders were aviation enthusiasts, many from wealthy families. Blériot had financed his experiments out of the profits of his successful business manufacturing car headlights.In Great BritainFrederick Handley Page established an aircraft business in 1909 but was largely reliant on selling components such as connecting sockets and wire-strainers to other enthusiasts, while theShort Brothers, who had started in business manufacturing balloons, had transferred their interests to heavier-than air aviation and started licence production of the Wright design as well as working on their own designs. 1910 saw the involvement of people who saw aviation purely as a business opportunity. In January 1910Sir George White, the chairman of Bristol Tramways, established theBristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company, investing £25,000 in the business. The same year the silk brokerArmand Deperdussin established theSociété de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin, bearing the soon-to-be-famous SPAD acronym. In 1911 the armaments giantVickers established an aircraft department. However, most aircraft manufacturing during the period was on a small scale, and very few designs were produced in any quantity.
A good indication of the progress during the era is provided by the annualGordon Bennett races. The first competition, held in 1909 during the Grande Semaine d'Aviation at Reims, was over a distance of 20 km (12 mi) and was won byGlenn Curtiss at a speed of 75.27 km/h (46.77 mph).[15] By 1913, the last pre-war contest, the race was over a distance of 200 km (120 mi) and the winner's speed was 200.8 km/h (124.8 mph).[16] At the end of 1909 the record for distance flown was 234.30 km (145.59 mi) and for altitude 453 m (1,486 ft):[17] by the end of 1913 the record for distance was 1,021.19 km (634.54 mi) and the altitude record was 6,120 m (20,079 ft)[18]
Most pioneer era aircraft were constructed from wood, using metal sockets to joint members and making use ofpiano wire or strandedsteel cable for bracing. Although aircraft of the era are often described as constructed of sticks and canvas their construction was of considerable sophistication. Wooden construction typically involved several different types of timber, with careful use of different woods according to their mechanical properties;ash andspruce were the most commonly used, althoughhickory,mahogany andpoplar were among the other timbers employed. Struts were frequently hollow members formed by spindling out two pieces of wood and then glueing them together, usually using atongue in groove joint to strengthen the joint. Wing spars were also often composite members, and the wingribs were complex structures. When flying replicas of the 1910Bristol Boxkite were made for the 1966 filmThose Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, a modern stress analysis was performed, and concluded that the airframe was close to conforming to modern requirements.[19]
The use of metal for airframe construction was by no means uncommon:Robert Esnault-Pelterie used steel tubing to construct the fuselage of his aircraft as early as 1907, andLouis Breguet was another notable pioneer of metal construction, using steel channel sections for fuselage construction, steel tube for wing spars, pressedaluminium for wing ribs andaluminium sheeting for fuselage covering[20] – this would not be improved uponuntil the second half of 1915.
The era also saw the first use ofmonocoque construction, first seen inEugene Ruchonnet'sAero-Cigare and notably used in theDeperdussin Monocoque of 1912, which won the Gordon Bennett race in both 1912 and 1913. Another structurally advanced and influential (although unsuccessful) concept aircraft designs was theAntoinette Monobloc, which was the first monoplane design concept to have acantilever wing without any external bracing wires.
Early aircraft were covered in a variety of fabrics including rubberised cotton and varnished silk. The development ofaircraft dope in 1911 was a major technical development, and its use was quickly adopted by all manufacturers. This performed a number of functions, proofing the fabric against oil and petrol contamination, and also tightening the fabric.
At the 1909 Grand Semaine d'Aviation the competing aircraft were of two different basic configurations:tractor configuration monoplanes such as the two types flown by Blériot and the Antoinette; andpusher configuration biplanes with a forward-mounted elevator, represented by the Voisin, licence-built copies of the Wright Brother's aircraft, Glenn Curtiss'No. 2 biplane and the Farman III. All the competing aircraft with the exception of the Voisin biplanes had roll control, using either ailerons or wing-warping[21] The Wright design differed from the others in having no rear-mounted horizontal stabilising surface. Constructors of pusher biplanes almost universally adopted the use of a rear-mounted horizontal stabiliser and designs began to appear in which the front elevator was removed: the Wright Brothers adopted this configuration for theirModel B of 1910. The tractor monoplane and the pusher biplane were the dominant configurations for the next couple of years, although designers experimented with various other configurations.
One of the most successful pusher biplanes was theFarman III, developed by Henri Farman following a falling-out with Gabriel Voisin: he retained the basic layout of the Voisin, but incorporated ailerons (as added to his Voisin), modified the undercarriage by adding skids to prevent the aircraft nosing-over on landing and modified the structure, eliminating thenacelle in which the pilot sat and mounting the forward elevator on outrigger booms. This design was copied by many constructors, and was so influential that whenMervyn O'Gorman created a scheme for classifying the products of theRoyal Aircraft Factory according to their configuration such aircraft were classified as "F.E" for "Farman Experimental. All tractor aircraft were designated "B.E" for "Blériot Experimental", although all the B.E. designs produced were biplanes, unlike the designs for which Blériot was known.
The tractor biplane, which would become the dominant aircraft configuration until the 1930s, was a later development. The first aircraft of this type was theDe Pischoff biplane which was built in 1907 but was not successful. The first aircraft of this type to fly was theGoupy No.2, flown in March 1909: the design was described by flight as "somewhat unusual",[22] and Breguet described hisType III tractor biplane as a "double-surface monoplane". The configuration did not become widespread until 1911,[23] with the production of theAvro 500 and theRoyal Aircraft Factory BE.2. The Avro 500 was developed into theAvro 504, which continued in use until the 1930s. Avro also produced the first aircraft with fully enclosed crew accommodation, theAvro Type G of 1912. (TheBlériotAero-Taxi of 1911 had enclosed accommodation for the four passengers but an exposed pilot's position)
Other configurations were experimented with. The tail-firstcanard configuration used by the Wright brothers and also notably employed by Santos Dumont in the 14-bis was used byHenri Fabre for hisHydravion canard monoplane, the first successfulseaplane in 1910. Other canard designs of the period include theVoisin Canard and theASL Valkyrie monoplanes, and the configuration was thought promising enough to be used for the first aircraft designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory, theS.E.1, but the configuration was generally discarded. Examples of other configurations such as theannular wing and thetandem wing were also constructed, but with little success.
Early aircraft had a variety of control arrangements. The use of ajoystick to control roll and pitch had been patented byRobert Esnault-Pelterie in 1907 and a similar arrangement was used by Blériot, but the Antoinette monoplanes were controlled by a pair of wheels, one on either side of the cockpit, one operating the wing-warping (or ailerons, as with theAntoinette IV) and the other the elevator[24] and the Wright Model A had one lever to control wing-warping and rudder and a second to control the elevator.[25] The first design to have the roll and pitch controls connected to a single joystick, with the yaw control operated with one's feet, was Blériot'sType VIII design of 1908–09, pioneering the basis for the modernaircraft flight control system still in use in the 21st century.[26]
With very few exceptions aircraft of the pioneer era were relatively small designs powered by a single engine and designed to carry at most two or three people. Early multiple-engine designs were produced by the Short Brothers, who constructed anumber of variants of their Farman-type Improved S.27 design. However, the intention of using a pair of engines in these aircraft was to safeguard against engine failure rather than to permit a larger machine, and even a large aircraft such as theVoisin Aero-Yacht, intended to carry six people and with a wingspan of 22.5 m (73 ft 10 in), was powered by a single engine. The first large multi-engined aircraft wasIgor Sikorsky'sBolshoi Baltisky, first flown in May 1913 with two engines and later equipped with four.
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Early aircraft development was heavily reliant on the development of theinternal combustion engine, and the problem of staying in the air was largely a matter of having an engine which was not only sufficiently powerful but was also lightweight and reliable. Most early engines were neither powerful nor reliable enough for practical use, and the development of improved engines went hand-in-hand with improvements in the airframes themselves.
The Wright Brothers had been unable to find a satisfactory engine and, with the help of their mechanic, had manufactured their own. They used a single flight[clarification needed] engine, a 12 hp water-cooled four-cylinder inline type with five main bearings and fuel injection.
The first internal combustion piston engine design to be widely used for powering aircraft was theAntoinette water-cooledV8 engine, believed to be the very first V-form eight-cylinder internal combustion engine ever placed in production, designed by the FrenchmanLéon Levavasseur. TheAntoinette 8V incorporated manifold fuel injection, evaporative water cooling and other advanced features, weighed 95 kg (209 lb) and produced 37 kW (50 hp). Introduced in 1906, these engines were used by, among others, Santos Dumont, the early Voisin aircraft and Samuel Cody. American aviation engine designers quickly picked up on the V-8 engine concept from 1906 onwards as the era progressed, with bothGlenn Curtiss' firm designing a series of liquid-cooled V-8 aviation engines culminating in theCurtiss OX-5 by the early years of World War I—another major American engine manufacturer,Hall-Scott, had their A-2[27] and A-3 overhead valve, liquid-cooled V-8s in production as early as 1908.
The BritishGreen C.4 of 1908 followed the Wright's pattern of a four-cylinder inline water-cooled design but produced 52 hp (39 kW). It powered many successful pioneer aircraft including those ofA.V. Roe.
Horizontally opposed designs were also used with some success. Santos-Dumont'sSantos-Dumont Demoiselle No. 20 monoplane used first the 18 kW (24-hp output Dutheil et Chalmers liquid-cooled opposed twin engine, later replaced by a 22 kW (30 hp)Darracq-built engine of the same layout. The four-cylinder water-cooledde Havilland Iris achieved 45 hp but was little used, while the successful two-cylinder Nieuport design achieved 28 hp (21 kW) in 1910.
1909 sawradial engine forms rise to significance. The air-cooledAnzani 3-cylinder semi-radial or fan engine of 1909 (also built in a true, 120° cylinder angle radial form) developed only 25 hp (19 kW) but was much lighter than the liquid-cooled Antoinette, and was chosen by Louis Blériot for his cross-Channel flight. A major advance came with the introduction of the Seguin brothers'Gnome Omega seven-cylinder, air-cooledrotary engine, exhibited at the Paris Aero Salon 1n 1908 and first fitted to an aircraft in 1909. This radial-configuration engine was constructed in such a way that the entire crankcase and cylinder assembly rotated around a stationary crankshaft, itself fastened securely through the engine's rear attachment to the airframe, ensuring an adequate flow of cooling air over the cylinders even when the aircraft was not moving. Although this type had been introduced as long ago as 1887 byLawrence Hargrave and built two years later by Hargrave for compressed-air power—with an experimental five-cylinder internal combustion rotary engine used by French inventorFélix Millet that same year to power an early motorcycle design — improvements made to the Seguin brothers' Gnome series of engine designs created a robust, relatively reliable and lightweight design which revolutionised aviation and would see continuous development over the next ten years. Fuel was introduced into each cylinder direct from the crankcase meaning that only an exhaust valve was required. Producing 37 kW (50 hp) for a dry weight of 75 kg (165 lb), this engine soon became one of the most widely used powerplants; the company went on to produce a number of similar engines producing more power, first by increasing the engine capacity and also by producing two-row variants. The larger and more powerful nine-cylinder. French-madeLe Rhone 9C 80 hp rotary was introduced in 1913 and was widely adopted for military use.
Inline and vee types remained popular, with the German companyMercedes producing first a small number of water-cooled inline four-cylinder engines, then a series of water-cooled six-cylinder models. In 1913 they introduced the highly successful range of 75 to 120 kW (101 to 161 hp),SOHC-valvetrain design engines: theD.I toD.III series.
Another area of advance was the development of specialist manufacturers ofpropellers. Although the Wright Brothers had developed their own highly efficient propellers andHiram Maxim had also carried out research on propeller design, much of this work was unknown, and the early pioneers such as Voisin and Santos Dumont had used inefficient propellers with flat aluminium blades mounted on a steel tube. The first truly efficient European propeller design was produced byLucien Chauvière, who had studied the theory of propeller design while a student at theÉcole des Arts et Métiers inAngers. Chauvière pioneered a sophisticated construction technique using laminations ofwalnut. A Chauvière propeller was used by Blériot in his flight across the English Channel, and the importance of Chauvière's contribution was recognised by his being awarded a silver medal by the Aero-Club de France.
The achievement of powered flight led to the establishment of centres for aeronautical research in many countries. In 1907Ludwig Prandtl, who had joined theUniversity of Göttingen university in 1904, founded theModellversuchsanstalt für Aerodynamik der Motorluftschiff-Studiengesellschaft [society for testing aerodynamic models of powered airships ]. The University of Göttingen would become a world leader in aerodynamic research.[28] In 1909 Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe endowed a department devoted to aeronautics at the University of Paris[29] In France the famous engineerGustave Eiffel performed a series of experiments to investigate the effects of wind resistance on moving bodies by dropping test apparatus down a wire suspended from theEiffel Tower: he later built a wind tunnel at the base of the Tower, in which models of many pioneer French aircraft were tested and carried out pioneering work onaerofoil sections.
Many of the pioneer constructors started their own flying schools. Pilot training was rudimentary: although theWright Model A used by the Wright Brothers for training in Europe had been fitted with dual control,[30] dual-control aircraft were not generally used, and aspiring pilots would often simply be put in charge of a machine and encouraged to progress from taxying the aircraft then short straight line flights to flights involving turns. Sometimes ground handling experience was built up using special short-span machines that were incapable of flight, such as theBlériotPinguin. Most flight training was done early in the morning or in the evening when winds tend to be low, and the time taken to qualify for a licence was greatly dependent on the weather.
Santos-Dumont's airship flights had already made him a celebrity, and while ballooning remained a popular activity for the wealthy, heavier-than-air aviation quickly became a popular spectator sport, and the major centres of aviation such asIssy-les-Moulineaux,Brooklands andHendon Aerodrome attracted crowds of curious onlookers. The first aviation meet was held inJuivisy in May 1909 and was followed by the Grand Semaine d'aviation in August: later in the year aviation meetings were held in England atDoncaster andBlackpool, and exhibition flights were made in many European cities, includingBerlin,Vienna andBucharest.
The first public flying display at Brooklands, already established as a motor-racing circuit, was made at the end of October 1909 by Louis Paulhan: around 2,000 spectators watched him fly to a height of 720 feet.[31] Brooklands soon became one of Britain's major centres of aviation activity, with several flying schools. In 1910Louis Paulhan andClaude Grahame-White competed to win theDaily Mail prize for a flight between London and Manchester, attracting Major long-distance aeroplane races, such as theCircuit of Europe and theAerial Derby began in 1911 - and also attracted enormous crowds; while in the same year in the United States, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois had an important aerodrome-format aviation site dedicated inCicero, IL that operated for several years[32] before its closure and relocation in 1916.[33]
The military use of balloons was already widespread: balloons had been employed in theAmerican Civil War – whereFerdinand von Zeppelin had his first exposure tolighter-than-air flight[34] – and theBoer War. Many military traditionalists refused to regard aeroplanes as more than toys, but these were counterbalanced by advocates of the new technology, and both the US and the major European nations had established heavier-than-air aviation arms by the end of 1911.
France had the most air-minded army. The balloon school atChalais-Meudon had long been a centre of innovation, and in December 1909, the French Department of War began to send army officers and NCOs for pilot training at civilian schools. In March 1910, theÉtablissement Militaire d'Aviation was created to conduct experiments with aircraft, and on 22 October 1910 theAéronautique Militaire was created as a branch of the Army. In February 1912 the French military estimates set aside twelve million francs (equal to nearly half a million pounds) for aviation, and claimed to have 208 aeroplanes, with the intention of increasing that number to 334 by the end of the year,[35] At this time the British government planned to spend £133,000 on aviation, of which £83,000 was for heavier-than-air machines.[36]
In England experiments with heavier-than-air flight had been made atArmy Balloon Factory atFarnborough under ColonelJohn Capper. In October 1908Samuel Cody had flown theBritish Army Aeroplane No.1 for a distance of 424 m (1,391 ft) andJ. W. Dunne had made a number of successful gliding experiments, performed in great secrecy atBlair Atholl in Scotland, but in 1909 the British War office had stopped all official funding of heavier-than-air aviation, preferring to spend its money on airships. In an effort to rationalise aeronautical research theSecretary of State for War,Richard Haldane established theAdvisory Committee for Aeronautics and appointedMervyn O'Gorman, an electrical engineer of great managerial skill, as director of the balloon factory:
In 1911 the War Office established the Air Battalion, formed of the No. 1 (Airship) Company at Farnborough and the No 2 (Aeroplane) Company at Lark Hill onSalisbury Plain. The first military pilots had to learn to fly at their own expense, many doing so at the Bristol school, established in 1910 at Lark Hill. TwoBristol Boxkites from the school participated in the 1910 army manoeuvres of Salisbury Plain, one of them equipped with a radio transmitter. In late 1910Francis McClean offered to loan two aircraft to the Admiralty to be used to train naval officers to fly andGeorge Cockburn offered to act as a flight instructor. Four officers were selected for flight training atEastchurch, reporting for training on 1 March 1911 and gaining their licences (wings) in six weeks. In October 1911, the Royal Navy purchased the two aircraft and established the Naval Flying School at Eastchurch. In 1912 a contract was given toVickers to produce the first aircraft specifically designed for aerial combat, theExperimental Fighting Biplane No.1. Previously, Voisin had exhibited an aircraft impractically fitted with a heavymitrailleuse at the 1911 Paris Aero Salon, and the French had also experimented with fitting machine-guns to existing types.
In the United States the Wright Brothers had, after many attempts, managed to attract the serious attention of the Army, and in December 1907 the U.S. Army Signal Corps issued a specification for a military aircraft. Orville Wright made a successful demonstration to the Army on 3 September 1908.
On 17 September 1908 a flight was made with LieutenantThomas Selfridge on board as an official observer. A few minutes into the flight at an altitude of about 100 feet (30 m), a propeller split and shattered, sending the Flyer out of control. Selfridge suffered a fractured skull in the crash and died that evening in the nearby Army hospital, becoming the first person to die in an aeroplane crash. Orville was also seriously injured.Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal CorpsThe American military pioneered naval aviation, with the first take-off from a ship being made on 14 November 1910 byEugene Ely using a Curtiss biplane flown from a temporary platform erected over the bow of thelight cruiserUSSBirmingham. Two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed on a platform on thearmoured cruiserUSSPennsylvania.
The earliest recorded use of explosive ordnance of any type from an aircraft occurred on November 1, 1911, when Italian pilotGiulio Gavotti dropped several, grapefruit-sizedcipelli grenades onOttoman positions in Libya – Gavotti's raid caused no casualties, functionally only resulting in the earliest known case of air-deliveredharassing fire—but marked the first known use of an aircraft for military combat purposes.[37]
The first actual use of aircraft in a war was carried out by Italy during theItalo-Turkish War of 1912, where aircraft were used for reconnaissance (including taking aerial photographs of enemy positions) and bombing. Aircraft were also used in theBalkan Wars of 1912–1913.
The second great aeronautical event of 1911 around Chicago was the establishment by the A.C.I. of a top-notch flying field named "Cicero Flying Field" (or simply "Cicero") within the township limits of Cicero (bounded by 16th St., 52nd Ave., 22nd St. and 48th Avenue..At some point during May, the A.C.I. was given a five year lease on the Cicero property by the Grant Land Association, Harold F. McCormick's property holding company. At the conclusion of the 1911 Aviation Meet, the hangars in Grant Park were moved to the southern edge of the 2-1/2 sq. mi. lot in Cicero.
On April 16, 1916, when "Matty" Laird took off from Cicero Flying Field, at the controls of his self-designed and self-built Boneshaker biplane and flew to the new Partridge & Keller aviation field at 87th St. and Pulaski Road, in Chicago, Cicero Flying Field ceased to be. The next day, the Aero Club of Illinois (A.C.I.) officially opened its new 640 acreAshburn Field on land purchased by A.C.I. President "Pop" Dickinson for the A.C.I.. Ashburn was located at 83rd St. and Cicero Avenue, about 7-1/2 miles almost due south of Cicero. All of the hangars and buildings at Cicero had been moved to Ashburn Field some months earlier.
