1911 Steco Aerohydroplane

[dpolglaze]

There's a story in the local paper this morning about "Minnesota's Oldest Airplane." The pictures aren't very good, but there's some information, and I thought it might be interesting to this forum.

Minnesota's oldest aircraft needs a new home | StarTribune.com

Dan

[Rod_Filan]

Thanks for that story Dan.

More on the Steco Aerohydroplane, including a pair of period photograph at aerofiles:
American airplanes: St - Sz
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Cheers
Rod

[aerohydro]

Three, more recent, photos of the Steco Aerohydroplane can be found here, here and here.

Cheers,
Paul

[Varese2002]

Thanks Dan for the atention to the unique Steco hydroaeroplane, which has ever been difficult to place permanently in an aviation / science museum

The article of the Star Tribune is somewhat quick with its historical content. So for historical accuracy this ...

As written by the Star Tribune

Flown only a few times off Lake Michigan before being packed away in crates in a suburban Chicago garage for three-quarters of a century, the oldest aircraft ever recovered in the United States was towed a few hundred yards as its search for a permanent home intensified.

As written by Dennis Eggert (then curator of the Minnesota Air & Space Museum) on the Steco in WW1 Aero 134 (November 1991) pp. 31-36.

Stephens built the airplane in 1910-11 and proceeded to ship it around the midwest from town to town over the next few years, exhibiting and flying it. At each stop he would have it uncrated, assembled and put on exhibit, and he would then fly it. After each event, the plane would be disassembled, the parts being carefully wrapped and stacked in shipping crates, loaded onto a rail flatcar, and sent to the next destination. Test flights were made with the Burgess floats on Lake Michigan with his son Ralph as the pilot.

Stephens stopped flying with the Steco at te start of WW1 (1914). So he flew during 1911-1914 as a sort of early barnstormer. It is special to read that the machine was first offered in 1989 to the Chicago Museum of Science who declined the offer. Minnesota jumped at the opportunity then.

It is special to observe that the patent of James S. Stephens was filed on July 5, 1910 but patented on February 2, 1915. They took their time then, almost 5 years.

Cheers

Kees