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This article appeared in Discovery Magazine 1998. |
Harry
Ginter flying his Strobel 
First in the Air in British
Columbiaby Peter Corley-Smith
The first manned "flight" recorded in British Columbia was an ascension in an unpowered hot-air balloon by Professor LeClaire. On June 9, 1880, LeClaire rose from the Skinner Street show grounds in Nanaimo and landed in the harbour less than two kilometers away. Nearly 30 years passed before the first controlled flight occurred when, on October 14, 1909, Harry Ginter flew a Strobel dirigible at the Provincial Exhibition grounds in Queen's Park, New Westminster. The dirigible was a powered and controllable sausage-shaped balloon filled with hydrogen. Its gas bag was covered by a net. Cords from this net supported a triangular frame of spruce. This frame, typically 11 m (36 ft) long and 76 cm (30 in) high was hung apex up about 1.5 m (five ft) below the bag. A five-horsepower motorcycle engine was mounted on the frame about a third of the way from the front and connected to a front propeller by a long hollow steel shaft. The rudder, mounted aft, was built of bamboo fish poles covered with unbleached muslin and operated by a long, endless line of sash cord. When ready, the pilot sat astride the three centimeter (inch-and-a-quarter) spruce pole of the frame, his feet on two similar poles. The bag was filled with just enough hydrogen for buoyancy. The pilot started the engine and, when it was running smoothly, slid back along the frame, told the handlers to let go and the propeller would pull the dirigible up until it was high enough for the pilot to slide forward again, level off and use the rudder to steer. To land, he reversed the process until low enough, shut off the engine, and reached up to pull a rope attached to a valve to vent gas and settle to the ground. These exhibitions provoked a good deal of local interest, but it was the advent of the aeroplane that brought a genuine hope of fulfilling the enduring dream of flying like a bird. And although on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made what is generally conceded to be the first controlled, powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine, it took more time for the news to spread before people realized that this was the real thing. But when they did, they were genuinely excited and seized by the desire to see this magic for themselves. Preparing
for the first flight 
In British Columbia, they had to wait until
an early spring day in 1910. On March 25, an American pilot, Charles K.
Hamilton, demonstrated in a small Curtiss pusher biplane - state of the
art for the times - that the dream really had come true. Hamilton had learned
to fly at the Glenn Curtiss flying school in Hammondsport, New York, leased
a machine from Curtiss and joined the exhibition circuit.
Charles
Hamilton in the air 
In his Canadian debut, he took off from a race
track: the Minoru Park track in Richmond. Finding a surface smooth enough
for the unsprung, bicycle-wheel undercarriages of those days was not easy,
and a race track usually provided an acceptable surface - besides which,
it invariably had a grandstand from which spectators could marvel in comfort
and, no doubt, secretly hope for something as dramatic as a crash.
By this time, many in the United States had grown tired of just watching aircraft fly. Charlie responded with what was then daredevil stuff. People were convinced that if the engine stopped, the machine would crash; the idea of gliding was still only vaguely comprehended. One of Hamilton's first and very successful stunts was to climb to some 460 m (1,500 ft) above the exhibition ground and cut his engine. Then he would dive steeply, pull out - as the newspapers invariably claimed - at the last possible moment then land. Spectators, convinced that he was diving to destruction, displayed gratifying reactions. Strong men shouted in dismay and, all over the grounds, if the newspapers are to be believed, young women fainted. On some occasions, pilots emulating Hamilton did fail to pull out, but there were ample incentives to take risks because exhibitions were very rewarding financially. A pilot could earn as much as $10,000 for two or three flights of 10 or 15 minutes duration - a great deal of money in 1910 dollars. Hamilton gave two demonstrations on the first day, the first ending in slight damage to his undercarriage which was repaired in two hours, after which, according to the Vancouver Daily News-Advertiser, "...the aviator justified his reputation for courage of the kind seen only in men who play with the clouds. Vaulting into his seat, Hamilton gave the front planes the slant which could catch the air, and then like a giant sea gull the machine rose to the accompaniment of deafening cheers." Charles
Hamilton, centre, flanked by 
On the day after this account was published,
Hamilton made a much more significant flight. He took off and followed the
north shore of the Fraser River until he reached New Westminster, 16 km
(10 mi) away, returning safely to the race track after 30 minutes in the
air - a considerable accomplishment for those days. Later, he took on a
racehorse, a local favourite called Prince Brutus in a 1.6-kilometer (one-mile)
race. Unfortunately, he spotted the horse too much of a handicap, allowing
it and its rider, Curley Lewis, a start of five-eighths of the course. Hamilton
lost, much one suspects, to the delight of the reactionaries in the audience.
In any event, the exhibition was a resounding success. To transport the several thousand spectators who attended from Vancouver, the BC Electric Railway added to its normal schedule a number of flat cars equipped with seats, as well as several observation cars borrowed from the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was front page news in all the Vancouver newspapers and the prose verged on the purple: "Like a huge bird with outstretched wings, rushing to the defence of her brood, the biplane came sweeping down the track upon its tiny wheels and in front of the grandstand the aviator caused it to rise. When the amber-coloured machine stands upon the ground with its power shut off, it looks benign in a cumbersome sort of way, but as soon as it leaves the earth it seems to have entered its natural element. Its ascent, as controlled by Mr. Hamilton, is as gradual and graceful as the rise of an unstartled pheasant and its every move is marked by flashing swiftness and by beautiful design." For the pilots who survived those early years, it was a heady experience. Apart from the financial rewards, they enjoyed the sort of adulation now only bestowed on pop music stars. Screaming young women tried to break down fences to get at them; and, if they succeeded, to tear off parts of their clothing - even hanks of hair - for souvenirs. There were numerous, sometimes snide comments in the press that pilots never lacked for young and attractive female companions in the evenings. Sadly, these conditions no longer prevailed when I became a pilot. Peter
Corely-Smith: helicopter 
About Peter Corely-SmithPeter Corely-Smith, a man who studies the past, has an interesting history of his own. He has had careers as a Special Operations Executive (parachuting equipment and agents to the resistance movement in Europe during WWII), a miner and surveyor along the Gold Coast, a commercial helicopter pilot and an English instructor at BCIT. For 12 years, he was history curator at the then-BC Provincial Museum and is currently an RBCM research associate. Corely-Smith has also written eight books - five of them on aviation history, including Barnstorming to Bush Flying: British Columbia's Aviation Pioneers, 1910-1930; Bush Flying to Blind Flying: British Columbia's Aviation Pioneers, 1930-1940 and Helicopters in the High Country (co-authored with D. Parker) to be reprinted this winter.
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