J.A.D. McCurdy and the Sliver Dart on the historic day the aircraft first flew in Canada, February 23, 1909.
Image Credit: SDASM Archives
The fourth Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) design, Drome 4, named the Silver Dart, was credited to J.A.D. McCurdy who flew it first at Hammondsport, NY on Dec 6, 1908. Then after 10 more flights it was shipped to Baddeck since Bell wanted one of the AEA aircraft to fly in Canada.
On February 23, 1909 history was made when McCurdy took off from the frozen surface of Lac Bras d’Or to make his 15th powered flight and the first airplane flight in Canada and the British Commonwealth before 100 onlookers. The aircraft flew half a mile (800 m) at an elevation from three to nine meters, and a speed of roughly 65 kilometres per hour (40 mph) Then on March 10, 1909 McCurdy made a record setting 22-mile (35 km) circular flight. He was only 22 years old when he made aviation history.
When the AEA was disbanded on March 31, 1909, Bell ceding the Silver Dart to Baldwin and McCurdy and the June Bug to Curtiss and the participants went their separate ways.
Curtiss quickly incorporated an aircraft company under his own name which over the next decade became the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer by the end of the First World War.
Sadly, Selfridge was the first person to die in an airplane crash when he was a passenger in a Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright at Fort Myer, Virginia on September 17, 1908.
– Kenneth Schwartz
Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills, and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.