In Chap­ter XVII titled “Some of the New Designs” from “Fly­ing Machines: Con­struc­tion and Oper­a­tion,” the focus is on the inno­v­a­tive steps inven­tors are mak­ing in the realm of avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Among these inven­tors, Frank Van Anden of Islip, Long Island, emerges promi­nent­ly with his cre­ation, the Van Anden biplane, which has been sub­ject to exper­i­men­tal flights and show­cas­es an auto­mat­ic sta­bi­liz­ing device that proved its worth dur­ing a flight on Octo­ber 19th, 1909. This device marks a sig­nif­i­cant advance­ment by auto­mat­i­cal­ly cor­rect­ing the air­craft’s posi­tion after a sud­den gust of wind caused it to keel over.

The Van Anden biplane’s con­struc­tion fea­tures include 26-feet wide main biplanes coat­ed with silko­lene and var­nish, a struc­ture rein­forced with spruce ribs and struts, and the inclu­sion of a two-sur­face hor­i­zon­tal rud­der both in the front and rear, along­side a ver­ti­cal­ly hinged rud­der at the back. The air­craft incor­po­rates the Cur­tiss sys­tem for ele­va­tion and depres­sion con­trol of the main planes through the steer­ing-wheel post, with addi­tion­al con­trol for turn­ing through the steer­ing wheel itself.

Notably, the Van Anden mod­el intro­duces an auto­mat­ic con­trol for the wing tips con­nect­ed to the engine, which played a piv­otal role in sta­bi­liz­ing the air­craft dur­ing tur­bu­lent con­di­tions. This inno­va­tion estab­lish­es the machine’s dis­tinc­tive fea­ture amidst oth­er designs.

Anoth­er nov­el aero­plane high­light­ed is the Her­ring-Burgess, cre­at­ed by A. M. Her­ring and W. S. Burgess, which lever­ages an auto­mat­ic sta­bil­i­ty device for bal­ance and sports a unique method for con­trol han­dled by the avi­a­tor. This mod­el also under­scores the incred­i­ble light­ness and effi­cien­cy of its 30-horse­pow­er motor, which main­tains high per­for­mance with min­i­mal weight.

Fur­ther­more, the chap­ter men­tions the ini­tia­tive by stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, led by Lau­rence J. Lesh, who con­struct­ed an aero­plane incor­po­rat­ing new ideas like a tan­dem steer­ing gear design for a prac­ti­cal learn­ing expe­ri­ence under guid­ance. Their machine, “Penn­syl­va­nia I,” rep­re­sents anoth­er step for­ward, fea­tur­ing dual rear pro­pellers pow­ered by a Ram­sey 8‑cylinder motor and a nov­el lat­er­al con­trol sys­tem devel­oped by Lesh and Octave Chanute.

These advance­ments illus­trate a peri­od of rapid evo­lu­tion in avi­a­tion, dri­ven by a mix of estab­lished avi­a­tors and inven­tive new­com­ers, all con­tribut­ing to over­com­ing the chal­lenges of flight through tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion and exper­i­men­ta­tion.