Early Flying Machines

Canada's first successful heavier-than-air flying machine is the Silver Dart.

The story of the Silver Dart began in 1907, when the world-famous inventor of the telephone, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, and four promising young men interested in aviation formed the Aerial Experiment Association (A.E.A). Bell had previously performed aerodynamic experiments with kites, but he was already in his 60th year, past the age for experimenting aboard untested and frail flying machines.

The younger members of the A.E.A included Glenn Curtiss, an American designer of internal combustion engines; Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge of the U.S. Army; and two Canadians, John A.D. McCurdy and Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, both recent engineering graduates from the University of Toronto.

The A.E.A.'s purpose was an ambitious one - no less than the construction of a "practical aerodrome or flying machine driven through the air by its own power and carrying a man." The Association operated alternately out of Hammondsport, New York, where Curtiss had a machine shop, and Bell's estate at Baddeck, a tiny Maritime village on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

The A.E.A. was extremely successful, building and flying four airplanes in rapid succession. The last of these was the Silver Dart, designed by John McCurdy and considered one of the more advanced airplanes of its day. On February 23, 1909, McCurdy made the first airplane flight in Canada in the Silver Dart, taking off from the ice of Baddeck Bay and flying for about 800 metres.

After 46 successful flights in the Silver Dart, some covering a distance as great as 32 km, McCurdy and Baldwin attempted to raise funds for further experiments by demonstrating the airplane before military authorities at Camp Petawawa, Ontario, on August 2,1909. Unfortunately, on the landing of the fourth flight of the day, the Silver Dart flipped over and was smashed beyond repair.

That same year Louis Blériot made the first airplane flight across the English Channel and, in France, the first international aviation meet took place.

The French flyer who set the distance record at that first meet was Maurice Farman, the designer of the "Shorthorn." Many Canadians learned to fly in "Shorthorns," the basic trainers of their day. The name came from the wooden skids that stick out in front of the wheels. They stopped the aircraft from nosing over on landing -- there were no brakes in those days.

The network of control and bracing wires gave the aircraft the nickname "cage à poules" or "chicken coop." People who have experience with the aircraft said that, to check the rigging, you put a sparrow between the wings -- if it flew out a wire was missing. With their controls exposed to natural hazards and later enemy weapons, these aircraft were very vulnerable.

Many other Canadians tried their hand at building and flying airplanes before World War I. But the museum's only original airplane from Canadian aviation's pioneer period - in fact, the only surviving Canadian aircraft from this period anywhere, is the McDowall Monoplane. Built by Robert McDowall, a municipal engineer from Owen Sound in Ontario, it completed a few "hops," but never flew successfully. Nevertheless, it remains a fascinating example of the efforts of early aviation enthusiasts.

Looking at these early birds made of wood, wire and cloth, even the propellers are wood, it is hard to believe that only 60 years later we would land on the moon.

After the crash at Petawawa, McCurdy, Baldwin, and even Bell himself made repeated appeals to the government in Ottawa for financial support for aviation. But to no avail. Canada went into World War I without an air service, and our main contributions were the provision of men and the manufacture of training aircraft.