1908: A “Highly Satisfactory” and First-of-a-Kind Flight Takes Place Above Keuka Lake in New York

March 12, 1908

The first public demonstration of a powered aircraft flight in the United States took place near the village of Hammondsport, New York. “First Public Trip of Heavier-than-air Car in America,” announced a headline in the next day’s edition of the Washington Post.

The aircraft used for that pioneering flight was the Red Wing. This single-seat biplane, which was named after the bright red color of its silk wings, had been designed by U.S. Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge and built by the Aerial Experiment Association. (A little over months after the Red Wing made aviation history, Selfridge would become the first person to die in a plane crash; he was killed while traveling as a passenger in an aircraft piloted by Orville Wright at Fort Myer, Virginia.)  

The Red Wing, initially gliding just above New York’s frozen Keuka Lake, covered a distance of about 200 feet (61 meters) before rising to an elevation of approximately 10 feet (3.1 meters). The Red Wing stayed aloft at that height while flying over the lake for another 319 feet (97.2 meters) and at 25 to 30 miles (40.2 to 48.3 kilometers) per hour before coming back down after a section of the aircraft’s tail gave way. 

The Washington Post reported that “the experiment . . .  was declared to be highly satisfactory in every way except for the minor accident to the tail.” The pilot for this flight was the Toronto-born aviation trailblazer Frederick W. Baldwin. His flight that day, as a matter of fact, also marked the first one by a Canadian pilot.

Image Credit: Public Domain

For more information on the flight of the Red Wing on March 12, 1908, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEA_Red_Wing