Aerial Experiment Association

Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), organization that gathered together a group of young aviators and designers for the purpose of developing heavier-than-air flying machines. It was founded in 1907 and funded for slightly longer than one year by the American inventor Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel Hubbard Bell.

Bell had conducted his earliest aeronautical experiments in 1891–92, and he was particularly impressed by the aeronautical work of his friend Samuel Pierpont Langley, who had achieved the first sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air machine in 1896. Convinced that a well-organized and cooperative effort would lead to progress in the field, Bell and his wife invited four talented young associates to join them in organizing the AEA on Sept. 30, 1907.

The members of the new association agreed to cooperate “in pursuance of their common aim ‘to get into the air’ upon the construction of a practical aerodrome driven by its own motive power and carrying a man.” In addition to the Bells (who funded the organization), the members of the AEA included F.W. (“Casey”) Baldwin and J.A.D. McCurdy, a pair of engineers from the University of Toronto; Glenn Hammond Curtiss, a motorcycle builder from Hammondsport, N.Y., who served as the AEA propulsion expert; and Thomas E. Selfridge, an officer in the U.S. Army.

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During the 15-month history of the AEA, members of the organization built and flew a series of biplanes powered by Curtiss engines. Baldwin flew the first of those aircraft, named Red Wing because of the colour of the silk covering its wings, 319 feet (97 metres) over the frozen surface of Lake Keuka, near Hammondsport, on March 12, 1908. Taking turns, the four younger members of the AEA (i.e., excluding the Bells) made a total of five flights with the next aircraft, White Wing, on May 17–23, 1908, the best of which measured 1,017 feet (310 metres) in length. Curtiss won the Scientific American Trophy on July 4, 1908, for a flight of more than 1 km (3,280 feet) aboard the June Bug. McCurdy made the first heavier-than-air flights in Canada on Feb. 23–24, 1909, piloting the Silver Dart on a 4.5-mile (7.2-km) aerial journey over a frozen pond. In addition to these achievements, the members of the AEA conducted early experiments with aircraft mounted on pontoons, and they tested a powered version of the piloted tetrahedral kite designs favoured by Bell.

At the end of January 1909, Bell offered to continue funding the work of the AEA. For a variety of reasons, however, the group had already begun to break apart. Selfridge died in the crash of an airplane flown by Orville Wright at Ft. Myer, Va., on Sept. 17, 1908. Eager to begin building aircraft for sale in the spring of 1909, Curtiss established a partnership with another experimenter, Augustus M. Herring. Without Curtiss and his shop facilities for the construction of airframes and engines, the other members of the group saw little point in continuing. The AEA officially terminated its activities on March 31, 1909.

While it was short-lived, the AEA had a major impact on the early history of flight and provided each of its surviving members with a solid foundation of experience in the design, production, and operation of aircraft. Baldwin and McCurdy combined forces to form the first aircraft company in Canada. They were the first to build a successful airplane in Canada, and the first Canadians to export an airplane.

There can be no doubt, however, that Curtiss was the most distinguished veteran of the AEA. Less than five years after leaving the group, he had established himself as the most successful of all American producers of aircraft and a world leader in the production of flying boats.

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