PROGRESS IN AVIATION CHANUTE. 157 



flights. Subsequently Mr. Curtiss won the grand prize at the Brescia 

 meet by flying 31 miles in 49 minutes and 24 seconds. He had previ- 

 ously won twice the Scientific American trophy in this country, once, 

 July 4, 1908, by a flight of 5,090 feet at Hammondsport, N. Y., and 

 again, July 24, 1909, by a flight of 25 miles in 52 minutes and 30 

 seconds. 



This was the direct outcome of the labors of the Aerial Experiment 

 Association, organized in 1908 by Alexander Graham Bell, upon the 

 suggestion of Mrs. Bell, who generously contributed the funds. Dr. 

 Bell had been experimenting with groupings of tetrahedral kites, 

 which exhibited extraordinary steadiness in the air. He hoped to 

 develop them into an efficient flying machine of automatic stability, 

 and had been well served in his experiments by two young Canadian 

 engineers, Mr. F. W. Baldwin and Mr. J. A. D. McCurdy. In order 

 to give these faithful men a chance to test their own ideas the Aerial 

 Experiment Association was organized by taking in (besides the 

 three named) Lieut. Selfridge and Mr. Curtiss, the latter then being 

 a manufacturer of motor cycles and motors at Hammondsport, N. Y., 

 where the experiments were first started. The association built four 

 flying machines — the Red Whig, the White Wing, the June Bug, and 

 the Silver Dart — all of double-bowed shape, shown in plate 17, figure 

 2, and equipped with Curtiss motors. With these some very prom- 

 ising flights were made, both at Hammondsport and at Baddeck, 

 Nova Scotia, to which the association removed and where Mr. 

 McCurdy made flights of 16 miles and over. 



I have memoranda of many more flights that have been made 

 by other aviators, but I think they will be of less interest than the 

 moving pictures about to be shown. 



[Editor's Note: The talk was illustrated by many beautiful and 

 interesting scenes, exhibited by the stereopticon, which are virtually, 

 though not necessarily exactly, the engravings printed in this paper. 

 At the close of the address, some beautiful and wonderful views of 

 different machines in. flight were shown by the aid of a moving- 

 picture machine installed that evening for the purpose. The illustra- 

 tions on plates 1, 4, 5 ; figs. 1 and 3 on pi. 8 ; fig. 1, pi. 10 ; fig. 1, pi. 14 ; 

 and fig. 2, pi. 15 are from Victor Lougheed's " Vehicles of the Air," 

 kindly loaned by the Reilly & Britton Co., publishers.] 



Appendix I. 



The following account of flights with the Bleriot Machine No. 5 (the Langley 

 type) referred to by Mr. Chanute on page 154 is translated from Bullettino 

 della Societa Aeronautica Italiana, August, 1907. 



