Giacomo D’Angelis, a confectioner from Messina, Italy, arrived in Madras in 1880. He ran a flourishing confectionery business, and in due course of time established Hotel D’Angelis, Madras’s finest hotel of the time, in Mount Road. Inspired by Frenchman Louise Bleriot’s flight across the English Channel in 1909, D’Angelis built a biplane, with the help of Simpson’s, entirely from his own designs. The airplane was powered by a small 12 horse-power engine. He tested his aeroplane at Pallavaram, and then arranged for a public viewing, for a fee, in March 1910. D’Angelis made the first public flight on March 26, 1910 from Island Grounds. Clearly, Madras pioneered the first flight in India, and may be in Asia as well. Subramania Bharati wrote in 1910 about the plane that was built by Tamil workers in the workshop of Simpson’s. Then, in 1914, J W Madley, the civil engineer who built Madras’s water supply system, assembled an aeroplane and flew from Island Grounds over the Red Hills water reservoir to make an aerial assessment with photographs.

The Daily ‘Old Glory’ built in 1910 in Chicago, Illinois, was an early “gull-wing” aircraft built for entry in one of the popular local air meets. The ship was motorless at the time of the photo.

The machine had the name “Old Glory” painted on the petrol tank that was mounted under the center of the drop in the upper wing. Although apparently built to completion, it is doubtful the machine was ever flown.

South African biplane of original design constructed in Johannesburg by J. H. “Harry” Cutting with the help of friends Jimmy Cloughly, Ernest Miles and Sammy Samuels. The machine was built in Cutting’s workshop out of steel tubes, aluminium, covered with linen and powered by a 12 hp air-cooled two-cylinder J.A.P. V-engine driving a locally-manufactured aluminium propeller. Construction was started on August 22, 1908, and while several attempts to fly the plane were made prior to its three month-long public exhibition commencing in December 1909, the machine, although being capable of a fair speed along the ground, would not take off owing to a lack of engine power. When the plane was displayed next to the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg it was called “Carter’s Aeroplane”. Carter claimed he was awaiting a more powerful engine and would replace the canvas with silk to lighten his machine. Herbert Carter was a boxer by profession and most likely had purchased the aeroplane, but nothing more was heard of it after the exhibition closed down on February 26, 1910.

The 1909 Cuthbertson I and II pusher biplane were designed by Cuthbertson and built by the Michigan Steel Boat Co. in the USA.

Span: 30′

The 1912 Curtiss-Beachey Speed Tractor was the first of the “modern” Curtiss biplanes, with fabric-covered fuselage, although it was flown uncovered for a while, three-point landing gear with tailskid, and double-surfaced wings, but still using trailing interplane ailerons. Used by Beachey for exhibition work. Design was used for the prototype Curtiss Military Tractor. Powered by a 90 hp Curtiss OX V-8.