| XIV | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Airliner |
| Manufacturer | Benoist |
| Designer | |
| Primary user | St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line |
| Number built | 2 |
| History | |
| Introduction date | 1914 |
| First flight | 1913 |
| Retired | 1914 |
TheBenoist XIV, also calledThe Lark of Duluth, was a small biplaneflying boat built in the United States in 1913 in the hope of using it to carry paying passengers. The two examples built were used to provide the first heavier-than-air airline service anywhere in the world,[citation needed] and the first airline service of any kind at all in the United States.[citation needed]
The firstfixed-wing scheduled airline was started on January 1, 1914. The flight was piloted by Tony Jannus[1] and flew fromSt. Petersburg, Florida, toTampa, Florida, operated by theSt. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line.[2]
The aircraft was a conventionalbiplane with equal-span unstaggered wings with smallpontoons at their tips. Theengine was mounted on a pedestal aft of thecockpit and drove a two-bladepusher propeller. Accommodation for the pilot and single passenger was side by side in an open cockpit.
The first example, given Benoist construction number 43 and namedLark of Duluth, carried joyriders over the harbour atDuluth, Minnesota through the Summer of 1913, but the endeavor was not a commercial success.The aircraft was wrecked once by Hugh Roberts, designer of the engine that powered the aircraft prior to competing in the Great Lakes Reliability Tour.[clarification needed] The repairs and paint job left the aircraft with the partial name, "of Du".[3] Later that year,Percival Fansler, a business associate of designerThomas W. Benoist, convinced Benoist to join him in establishing a scheduled air service between the Florida cities ofSt Petersburg andTampa. Their newly formed company, theSt. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line purchased theLark of Duluth and another Benoist XIV to inaugurate operations. The first scheduled flight between the two cities departed shortly before 10:00 a.m. on January 1,1914, piloted byTony Jannus and carried former St Petersburg mayorAbram C. Pheil as its passenger for the 22-mile (35 km), 23-minute flight. Regular tickets were priced at $5.00 (equivalent to $156.96 in 2024), but Pheil had paid $400.00 ($13,000 in 2024) at auction for the ticket for the first crossing.
Over the next three months of the airline's short lifetime, theLark of Duluth and her near-sisterFlorida (construction number 45) carried 1,205 passengers overTampa Bay. At the end of March, however, the city subsidy ran out, and it proved no longer profitable to continue the service. TheLark of Duluth spent the remainder of1914 carrying joyriders in several locations around the United States, including Duluth,Conneaut Lake, andSan Diego. The aircraft was damaged in a hard landing in San Diego and pronounced unsalvageable.
United StatesGeneral characteristics
Performance
