Chap­ter XXVI-Fly­ing Machines Con­struc­tion And Oper­a­tion offers a focused look into the evo­lu­tion of ear­ly avi­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the grad­ual but notable shift in Amer­i­can air­craft design. While biplanes had dom­i­nat­ed the scene for years, inter­est in mono­planes began to rise, espe­cial­ly fol­low­ing the suc­cess of Cur­tiss and oth­ers at the 1910 Inter­na­tion­al meet at Bel­mont Park. Though Amer­i­can entries in the mono­plane class were lim­it­ed, Cur­tis­s’s own sin­gle-wing cre­ation drew con­sid­er­able atten­tion. His air­craft, along­side those flown by Moissant and Drex­el, demon­strat­ed that the mono­plane had more than just novelty—it had poten­tial. These ear­ly designs laid the foun­da­tion for grow­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion and grad­ual main­stream accep­tance in the Unit­ed States. Mono­planes offered aero­dy­nam­ic advan­tages, and their com­pet­i­tive per­for­mance at pub­lic meets proved they could rival or even sur­pass the tra­di­tion­al biplane mod­els in both speed and agili­ty.

The chap­ter presents a detailed break­down of mono­plane struc­tures, offer­ing side-by-side com­par­isons of machines like the Ble­ri­ot, Antoinette, and Cur­tiss mod­els. Moissant’s Ble­ri­ot, for instance, was described as 23 feet long with a wingspan of 28 feet, dri­ven by a 50-horse­pow­er, 7‑cylinder Gnome engine—an effi­cient and pow­er­ful set­up for its time. The Antoinette also show­cased advanced engi­neer­ing, fea­tur­ing clean lines and refined con­trols, while Curtiss’s entry reflect­ed the Amer­i­can push for inno­va­tion in home­grown designs. These vari­a­tions revealed not only the mechan­i­cal diver­si­ty with­in mono­plane con­struc­tion but also the tri­al-and-error meth­ods shap­ing avi­a­tion progress. With each mod­el bring­ing new ideas to lift, sta­bil­i­ty, and propul­sion, the chap­ter illus­trates how the ear­ly 1900s were a dynam­ic peri­od of learn­ing and adap­ta­tion in flight. This tech­ni­cal pro­gres­sion under­scored the grow­ing real­iza­tion that flight was more than spectacle—it was becom­ing a sci­ence and, even­tu­al­ly, a reli­able form of trans­port.

Pub­lic con­tests played a key role in val­i­dat­ing these emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, and mono­planes proved their val­ue at events like Bel­mont Park. Despite their lim­it­ed pres­ence, they secured strong fin­ish­es and earned com­pet­i­tive prizes, shift­ing per­cep­tion from unproven designs to seri­ous con­tenders in both civil­ian and poten­tial mil­i­tary use. Beyond raw per­for­mance, the San­tos-Dumont, Antoinette, and Ble­ri­ot air­craft earned rep­u­ta­tions for their dis­tinc­tive engi­neer­ing fea­tures. The San­tos-Dumont, for instance, favored sim­plic­i­ty, while the Antoinette excelled in aes­thet­ic design and smooth oper­a­tion. These machines were not just about being first or fastest—they rep­re­sent­ed ear­ly aviation’s will­ing­ness to explore mul­ti­ple design philoso­phies. By exam­in­ing these air­craft in detail, the chap­ter cap­tures a peri­od of cre­ative diver­gence, where no sin­gle solu­tion to flight had yet been uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed.

As inter­est in mono­planes grew, atten­tion also turned toward more com­plex con­fig­u­ra­tions like tri­planes and biplane vari­ants. The Steb­bins-Geynet Co. intro­duced an inno­v­a­tive con­vert­ible air­craft capa­ble of shift­ing between tri­plane and biplane for­mats depend­ing on per­for­mance needs. This con­vert­ible design aimed to offer pilots flex­i­bil­i­ty in lift and maneu­ver­abil­i­ty with­out entire­ly com­mit­ting to one for­mat. Such inno­va­tion high­lights the broad­er exper­i­men­tal ener­gy of the time. Builders were not mere­ly copy­ing suc­cess­ful designs—they were invent­ing new forms alto­geth­er, test­ing what com­bi­na­tions might yield the best results in speed, con­trol, and ease of con­struc­tion. This era was less about refin­ing the known and more about explor­ing the pos­si­ble.

Fur­ther into the chap­ter, read­ers are intro­duced to the Cody biplane, which fea­tured one of the ear­li­est forms of auto­mat­ic control—a bold attempt to reduce pilot work­load and improve sta­bil­i­ty. While prim­i­tive by today’s stan­dards, such fea­tures sig­naled the begin­ning of flight automa­tion. The Pressey con­trol sys­tem also appears, offer­ing anoth­er approach to mechan­i­cal sta­bi­liza­tion, help­ing to make ear­ly air­craft more for­giv­ing and safer. In par­al­lel, the Sell­ers mul­ti­plane pushed lim­its in anoth­er direc­tion, focus­ing on achiev­ing con­trolled flight using min­i­mal horse­pow­er. Its light­weight struc­ture and intri­cate wing lay­er­ing demon­strat­ed how some engi­neers pri­or­i­tized effi­cien­cy over brute strength. These projects empha­sized that the quest for flight was not mere­ly about power—it was about mas­ter­ing con­trol and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the air.

Over­all, this chap­ter serves as a rich cat­a­log of ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry aero­nau­ti­cal exper­i­men­ta­tion. It shows how flight was tran­si­tion­ing from dar­ing exhi­bi­tions into method­i­cal engi­neer­ing prac­tice. Whether through mono­planes win­ning pub­lic con­fi­dence, con­vert­ible air­craft bridg­ing design for­mats, or exper­i­men­tal con­trol sys­tems eas­ing the pilot’s bur­den, avi­a­tion was evolv­ing rapid­ly. Each machine reflect­ed a dis­tinct philosophy—some aimed at speed, oth­ers at con­trol, still oth­ers at acces­si­bil­i­ty. In cap­tur­ing these vari­a­tions, the chap­ter doesn’t just present a time­line of tech­ni­cal advances. It doc­u­ments a moment in his­to­ry where the sky was a blank can­vas, and every machine was a bold attempt to define the art of fly­ing.