H.King Aeromarine Origins (Putnam)

By late 1908 Glenn Curtiss, in America, was himself at work upon the water. Experiments were reported in the first issue of Flight, dated January 2, 1909, as follows:
   'The "June Bug" has now been slightly remodelled and mounted on pontoons... During some recent tests upon Lake Keuka at Hammondsport, N.Y., the machine, now known as the "Loon", covered 2 miles (1 mile with and one against a wind of 5 or 6 miles an hour) at an average speed of 27'06 miles per hour, but this was not sufficient to enable the apparatus to completely rise from the water. Further experiments are now being conducted with hydroplane hulls of various types.'
   This was over two years before Curtiss finally succeeded in taking off from water. His Loon was primitive, but the basic features of flying boats that were to follow many years later were discernible in the monoplane built by Major August von Parseval, 'for approval of the German War Office' and subjected to 'preliminary trials' during September 1909. It was intended to carry a crew of three and had a body of tubular steel. The engine was a Daimler of 100 h.p.

A.Andrews. The Flying Machine: Its Evolution through the Ages (Putnam)

Curtiss then built, with the speed characteristic of those days, a third machine, June Bug, and on 4 July 1908 he won a trophy offered by the magazine Scientific American for the first public and officially measured flight of over a kilometre. Seven weeks later it was coaxed to fly for two miles, and it also achieved one circular flight.

Журнал Flight

Flight, May 1, 1909.

PRESENT STATUS OF MILITARY AERONAUTICS.
By GEORGE O. SQUIER, Ph.D., Major, Signal Corps, U.S. Army.

REPRESENTATIVE AEROPLANES OF VARIOUS TYPES.

The "June Bug" (Fig. 25).

   The "June Bug" was designed by the Aerial Experiment Association, of which Alexander Graham Bell is president. It has two main superposed aerosurfaces with a spread of 42 ft. 6 ins., including wing tips, with a total supporting surface of 370 sq. ft.
   The tail is of the box type. The vertical rudder above the rear edge of the tail is 30 ins. square. The horizontal rudder in front of the main surfaces is 30 ins. wide by 8 ft. long. There are four triangular wing tips pivoted along their front edges for maintaining transverse equilibrium. The vertical rudder is operated by a steering wheel, and the movable tips by cords attached to the body of the aviator.
   The motor is a 25-h.p., 8-cyl., air-cooled Curtiss. The single wooden propeller immediately behind the main surfaces is 6 ft. 2 ins. in diameter, and mounted directly on the motor-shaft. It has a pitch angle of about 17°, and is designed to run at about 1,203 r.p.m.
   The total weight of the machine, with aviator, is 650 lbs. It has a load of about if lb. per sq. ft. of supporting surface. Two pneumatic-tyred bicycle wheels are attached to the lower part of the frame.
   With this machine, Mr. G. H. Curtiss, on July 4th, 1908, won the Scientific American trophy by covering a distance of over a mile in 1 min. 42 2/5 secs, at a speed of about 39 m.p.h.