N. Y. To Boston Balloon Airline – 1908

     The following newspaper article appeared in The Sun, (New York, N.Y.), on July 21, 1908.

     N. Y. – BOSTON BALLOON LINE

Company Forming To Carry Freight and Passengers by Dirigibles.

     Boston, July 20. – Whipple, Sears & Ogden, at the request of Charles J. Glidden, are preparing organization papers to incorporate the American Aerial Navigation Company, to be created for the purpose of manufacturing and operating aerial devices and the establishing of aerial routes for the transportation of freight and passengers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

     Mr. Glidden anticipates that within the next eighteen months the new company will be carrying passengers and merchandise by the “air line” between New York and Boston, either by use of the dirigible, balloon, or aeroplane.  He believes that with relay stations near Springfield and New Haven the trip can be made 300 days in the year, the one from Boston to New York during daylight, and from New York to Boston in seven or eight hours.

     The first experiments will be made with small dirigibles with a capacity of one or two passengers in addition to the operator.  Stations will be established close to the street car lines on the outskirts of cities with suitable facilities to house the dirigibles and supply any loss of gas en-route.

     An inexpensive plant to manufacture hydrogen gas will be in operation at each station.  As the dirigibles will travel at an average height of 500 to 800 feet very little loss of gas should take place.

     Pending the establishment of the air lines and to familiarize people with aerial voyages, ascensions will be made from Pittsfield and North Adams in the spherical balloons.

    The people interested I the new company hold options on a large manufacturing plant for aerial apparatus and are in negotiation for the manufacture of dirigibles.  The form of dirigibles to be adopted will depend upon the success of the experiments now being carried on by the Governments of the United States and France.  “Aerial travel,” says Mr. Glidden, “will be, when thoroughly established, the cheapest and safest form of transportation.”

 

Pittsfield, MA. – July 4, 1911

Pittsfield, Massachusetts – July 4, 1911

     On July 4, 1911, aviator Charles C. Witmer was piloting a Curtiss biplane over Pittsfield when he encountered a sudden thunder and lightning storm that was producing severe winds.  A sudden gust of wind caught his airplane and capsized it in mid-air while he was at an altitude of 400 feet.  This caused Witmer to lose control, and the aircraft plunged to the ground.  Witmer was taken to House of Mercy Hospital with internal injuries, but it was reported that he was expected to recover.

     As a point of fact, Witmer did recover, and lived until 1929.  To find out more about Charles Witmer, see http://earlyaviators.com/ewitmer.htm

     Source:

     Hartford Courant, (Conn.), “Biplane Capsized; Aviator Badly Hurt”, July 5, 1911    

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