AEA Silver Dart

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AEA Silver Dart

The AEA Silver Dart in flight.
Type	Early experimental aircraft
Manufacturer	Aerial Experiment Association
Designed by	John McCurdy, et al
Maiden flight	1909-02-23
Status	Destroyed in crash
Primary user	Aerial Experiment Association
Produced	1908
Number built	1

The Silver Dart (or Aerodrome #4) was an early aircraft which was flown off the ice at Baddeck, Nova Scotia on February 23, 1909. This was the first controlled powered flight in Canada and the British Empire. The plane was piloted by one of its designers, John McCurdy. The original Silver Dart was the fruit of the Aerial Experiment Association formed under the guidance of Alexander Graham Bell.

The frame and structure of the Silver Dart was made of steel tube, bamboo, friction tape, wire, and wood. The wings were covered with rubberized silk balloon-cloth. Its engine was a reliable V-8 that developed 40 hp (26 kW) at 1000 rpm supplied by Glenn Curtiss. The aircraft had no brakes. The propeller was carved from a solid block of wood. The aircraft had what is now called a canard or an "elevator in front" design. Like most aircraft of its day it had poor control characteristics.

By the time the Silver Dart was constructed in late 1908, it was the Aerial Experiment Association's fourth flying machine. One of its precursors, the June Bug, had already broken records. It won the Scientific American Trophy for making the first official one kilometer flight in North America. But the Silver Dart outdid this when on March 10 1909, McCurdy flew the aircraft on a circular course over a distance of more than 35 km (20 mi). The first passenger flight in Canada was made in the Silver Dart on August 2 1909.

The Canadian Army was unimpressed at the headway made by the group. The general impression of the time was that aircraft would never amount to much in actual warfare. Despite official skepticism the Association was finally invited to the military base at Petawawa to demonstrate the aircraft. The sandy terrain made a poor runway for an aircraft with landing wheels about 2 inches (50 mm) in diameter. The Silver Dart had great difficulty taking off. On its fifth flight McCurdy wrecked the craft when one wheel struck a rise in the ground while landing. The career of the Silver Dart thus ended ignominiously.

There is a reconstruction of the Silver Dart at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa. The reconstruction was built by volunteers from the Royal Canadian Air Force between 1956 and 1958 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first flight. The aircraft flew on the day of the anniversary but crashed due to high winds.