Early aircraft of Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association that made the first powered flight in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Silver Dart<\/strong><\/em> (or Aerodrome #4<\/strong><\/em>) was a derivative of an early aircraft<\/a> built by a Canadian\/U.S. team, which after many successful flights in Hammondsport, New York<\/a>, earlier in 1908, was dismantled and shipped to Baddeck, Nova Scotia<\/a>. It was flown from the ice of Baddeck Bay, a sub-basin of Bras d’Or Lake<\/a>, on 23 February 1909, making it the first controlled powered flight in Canada<\/a>. The aircraft was piloted by one of its designers, Douglas McCurdy<\/a>. The original Silver Dart<\/em> was designed and built by the Aerial Experiment Association<\/a> (AEA), which had been formed under the guidance of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From 1891, Bell had begun experiments at Baddeck and Hammondsport to develop motor-powered heavier-than-air aircraft. By 1908, the success of the AEA was seen in a series of ground-breaking designs, culminating in the Silver Dart<\/em>. By the time the Silver Dart<\/em> was constructed in late 1908, it was the Aerial Experiment Association’s fourth flying machine. One of its precursors, the June Bug<\/em><\/a>, had already broken records. It won the Scientific American<\/a><\/em> Trophy for making the first official one mile (1609 m) flight in North America.[N 1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n The frame and structure of the Silver Dart<\/em> were made of steel tube, bamboo<\/a>, friction tape<\/a>, wire and wood. The wings were covered with rubberized, silvery balloon cloth provided by Capt. Thomas Scott Baldwin of Hammondsport; hence the name the “Silver Dart”. Its Kirkham engine, supplied by Glenn Curtiss<\/a>, was a reliable V-8<\/a> that developed 50 horsepower (37 kW) at 1,000 RPM<\/a>. The propeller<\/a> was carved from a solid block of wood. The aircraft had what is now called a canard<\/a> or an “elevator in front” design. Like most aircraft of its day the Silver Dart<\/em> had poor control characteristics; likewise, it had no brakes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Early aircraft of Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association that made the first powered flight in Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2116,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"_axp_brands_pos":"","_axp_links_pos":"","_axp_special_pos":""},"tags":[],"aircraft_manufacturer":[],"aircraft_category":[],"aircraft_country":[],"experimental_era":[475],"class_list":["post-5272","experimental","type-experimental","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","experimental_era-pioneers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/experimental\/5272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/experimental"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/experimental"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5272"},{"taxonomy":"aircraft_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aircraft_manufacturer?post=5272"},{"taxonomy":"aircraft_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aircraft_category?post=5272"},{"taxonomy":"aircraft_country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aircraft_country?post=5272"},{"taxonomy":"experimental_era","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfmwebsie.xyz\/my_website2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/experimental_era?post=5272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}