The Aerial Experiment Association was formed at Hammondsport, NY, in September 1907, at the Canadian home of Dr Graham Bell (leader) and Mrs Bell (prime mover and financier in the amount of $30,000), Glenn Curtiss and three others. McCurdy and his friend, Frederick “Casey” Baldwin, two young graduates from the University of Toronto, decided to spend their summer vacation in Baddeck Nova Scotia, Canada. McCurdy had spent his youth there and his father was the personal secretary of Dr. Bell. Discussing the field of aviation and some of Bell’s aeronautical ideas, Bell’s wife, Mabel, suggested they form an association to exploit their collective ideas. She agreed to fund the fledgling organisation.
Aerial Experiment Association Article
Dr. Bell also invited Glenn H. Curtiss, to participate in the venture. As an American motorcycle designer and manufacturer, he had acquired considerable experience with light-weight gasoline engines. The United States government took interest in some of the AEA’s ideas and proposed that it should have an observer participate in the plans and discussions. Thus, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge joined the group. US Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, who was appointed by US President Theodore Roosevelt after Bell requested some aid. Selfridge, by the way, would be the first ever airplane fatality, when he flew aboard a Wright Bros. plane in September of 1908.
Initial plans were to build four flying machines, and for each member to personally oversee at least one project. The first of these was to be Bell’s kite, equipped with one of Curtiss’ motors. It took shape by December of that year.
With no shortage of ideas, the group built three prototypes in sequence, each building on the experience of its predecessor. These were the Red Wing, the White Wing and the June Bug. The June Bug with Glenn Curtiss at the controls broke several aviation records and won the Scientific American award for the first official one-kilometre flight in the United States of America.
The AEA’s fourth effort was the Silver Dart, designed and piloted by McCurdy.
By the beginning of 1909, AEA was showing signs of fading out. Selfridge had died in the Orville Wright crash at Fort Myers, Mrs Bell’s funding was running out, and both Baldwin and Curtiss were dedicating more time to their own projects. By then thoroughly refocused on aviation, Curtiss made exhibition flights with the “June Bug,” and even tried to fly it as a boat from Lake Keuka, but with no success. There was talk of the four surviving members forming a commercial company, but nothing came of it, and on March 31, 1909, the Aerial Experiment Association was unceremoniously disbanded, with commercial rights to its designs and patents assigned to Glenn Curtiss.
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