AEA Cygnet
The
Cygnet (or
Aerodrome #5) was an extremely unorthodox early aircraft, with a wall-like "wing" made up of 360 tetrahedral cells. It was a powered version of the Cygnet kite designed by
Alexander Graham Bell in
1907 and built by the newly-founded
Aerial Experiment Association.
On
December 6,
Thomas Selfridge piloted the aircraft as it was towed into the air behind a motorboat, eventually reaching a height of 168 ft (51 m). While demonstrably able to fly as a person-carrying kite, it seemed unpromising as a direction for research into powered flight. It was difficult to control, and was in fact destroyed when it hit the water at the end of the flight.
The following year, a smaller copy of the design was built as the
Cygnet II, now equipped with wheeled undercarriage and a Curtiss
V-8 engine. Attempts to fly it at
Baddeck, Nova Scotia between
February 22-
24 1909 met with failure.
Rebuilt again as the
Cygnet III with a more powerful engine, it finally flew on
March 1 1912 at
Lake Bras d'Or,
Nova Scotia, piloted by
John McCurdy.
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List of experimental aircraft
