Futile Experiments in Kansas Aviation

A Kansas Portrait

Kansas provided American aviation with some of its greatest pioneers in the early years of the 20th century. Cessna, Longren, Martin, Stearman and Beech gained fame in the Sunflower state, but some other aeronautical innovators were less successful.

A lot of experimentation went on in the years immediately following the Wright brothers' triumph. Although Kansas was not unique to the Sunflower state, a good number of strange looking aircraft were produced in Kansas. These planes were built in small towns, and if one of these products had been successful Girard, Jetmore, or Goodland might have rivaled Wichita as the "air capital of the world."

It has been claimed that Girard's Aerial Navigation Company was the first airplane builder west of the Mississippi. Promoted by a Topeka lawyer named Henry Call, the company did business from 1908 to 1912 and built eight or nine planes, of which the first six never flew. The seventh flew for less than a mile before cracking up. Its pilot survived, his only injury a black eye.

Call used the mailing list of the Appeal to Reason, one of the nation's leading socialist newspapers to try to sell stock in his capitalist venture. He lost $85,000 before he filed bankruptcy at the end of 1912.

At about the same time there were two efforts made in aircraft production on the High Plains. In 1910, A. E. Hunt, Jetmore blacksmith, built a "rotary aeroplane"-a helicopter of sorts. It was constructed of pipe and angle iron but the principle of using rotors to move and hold up the craft was one utilized today. All Hunt proved was that the rotors could lift 400 pounds. Since the pipe and the iron weighted more than three tons he had a long way to go.

Hunt was credited with being far ahead of his time when it came to his engineering experimentation, but the rotors suffered too much power loss. If today's lightweight materials had been available he might have had more success.

At Goodland two inventors named Purvis and Wilson came up with a two-story vehicle. They sold stock and they had good publicity, but they did not fly. They built a model that flew, but the full-sized product was supposed to "rise, remain stationary, descend, be propelled and guided." It never left the ground.