8 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
even though the men and craft will be eventually used 
for land flying only. 
In the spring of 1913 the first Burgess flying boat 
was completed and after passing a most strenous test 
exacted by the United States army, was delivered to 
them for active service. 
during the summer from Gloucester to Marblehead, 
over 150 flights being taken in it. Two officers were 
taught to run it. This craft was the nearest to an 
acrial sporting vehicle yet produced, either in the 
United States or abroad. The aeroplane has been 
looked on by most people as a machine for profes- 
sionals to operate; the Burgess company has done 
much to make it an ideal vehicle in which to enjoy a 
comparatively harmless sport. 
The craft attracted a number of sportsmen, among 
them Robert J. Collier of New York, who bought the 
largest aviation motor ever built, containing twenty 
cylinders and with 220 h. p. He contracted with Mr. 
Burgess to put it into one of his new erafts. His 
specifications required that the flying boat could con- 
tain a speed of at least 75 miles per hour, whereas up 
{9 that time no marine machine had ever exceeded 65. 
This, however, did not daunt the Marblehead designer, 
and early in August the new craft might have been 
seen shooting up like an arrow at the enormous speed 
of 80 miles per hour. 
To give one an idea of the size and power of the 
machine a few details will be of interest. The motor 
itself is so large that it is impossible to start it by 
hand. <A 15h. p. electric motor with storage batteries 
is required to put the propellers in motion. The power 
plant complete weights 968 pounds, or about twice as 
much as any heavier-than-air machine. The planes 
were at a spread of 50 feet, with a depth of about 514 
feet. The boat on which the machine was mounted was 
29 ft. long with a 214 ft. beam, and one step a little 
after amidships. The total gross weight carried in the 
air was nearly a ton and one-half. 
It was really a wonderful sight to see Frank C. 
Coffyn, Mr. Collier’s aviator, climb from the Burgess 
float into the comfortable cock-pit, push an electric 
button, setting in motion the enormous mahogany pro- 
nellers—then the craft would plung forward, throw- 
ing white spray about it and would immediately climb 
upon the foaming waves, and there gliding for a few 
seconds, leave the water to ruch madly along its course, 
smoothly, if not quietly. Aeroplanes have always been 
know as noisy craft, worse than motor boats. Mr. Bur- 
gess was the first to install motors with an efficient 
muffler and his machines are always so equipped. 
Little has heen said here regarding Mr. Burgess’s 
cevelopment of the aeroplane for land use. Suffice it 
to say that an aeroplane completed and delivered in 
1911 to the United States navy resulted in an order for 
2, Just Leaving the Water. ‘‘Inherently Stable.’’ 
This boat was a common sight. 
3. Gliding Through the Air—Clifford S. Webster Flying 
With hands off the Lever. ‘‘It Flies Itself.’’ 
a fleet of three machines for 1913, in anticipation of 
trouble with Mexico. 
Despite the fact that no one has ever been injured 
even in the slightest degree with the Burgess ‘planes 
in flying about North Shore waters, still it becomes in- 
creasingly evident to those interested in flying that 
until a flying machine can be produced which will be 
inherently stable or to use a cruder phrase, not to tip 
over, flying will be a profession rather than a sport. 
While Mr. Wright was spending his time in the at- 
tempt to perfect the mechanical device for stability, Mr. 
Burgess had his weather-eye open for the production 
ot a machine, which, on account of form, should be 
capable of balancing itself. By almost a strange coin- 
cidence a type which had been experimented on for six 
years, was recognized in 1913 as the first real solution 
of the problem. Dunne of the English army was so 
enthused with the idea that inherent stability must 
precede the development of flying machines as a com- 
mercial product, that he left the army some year ago 
to devote time to the development of his idea. While 
fiying successfully for years ill health prevented popu- 
larizing his machine to any extent, until last year, when 
a French aviator happened to call on him to see his ma- 
chine. Dunne took a short flight with him in the after- 
noon. On the following day Count Felix, the French 
aviator, flew from London to Paris over the English 
channel through a rain storm, and as he approached 
the calmer air thousands of feet above the French side 
of the channel he found the machine flying absolutely 
hy itself. So enthusiastic was he that he dropped his 
controlling levers, threw his head back and shrieked 
with joy. Then, like the Frenchman that he was, he 
got out his flask of wine, with his little lunch and had 
his dejeuner without worry, while the machine raced 
swiftly on of its own accord. 
Immediately after, Mr. Burgess obtained the sole 
license to manufacture this machine in America. The 
Dunne machine had never been equipped for water use, 
but he wished to adapt the hydro-aeroplane for the sea 
as well as to perfect its design. This type is quite 
different from anything yet seen in American flying. Tt 
has no rudders, neither fore nor aft, and steers itself 
bv the use of ailerons placed on the wing tips; whereas 
wines have always been built straight across at right 
angles with the line of flight, these are joined to the 
body of the machine and are at an angle of 60 degrees. 
Instead of having the regular curved surface they form 
a curved spiral running from the flat surface near the 
center to a very distinct curve near the tips. The 
body of the machine is something like a bird, with the 
operator in front, having an extended view in every 
direction, the wings bothering him not at all. The 
stability is obtained by the angle at which the wings 
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