Breguet's Pre-1914 Challenge #120

[aerohydro]

Here you go. I am nothing if not generous, so I am providing not one but two images of our mystery machine.





One whole point will be gifted to the first of you to identify the maker, the machine and their place in aviation history.

The scoreboard at the end of Challenge #119 is:

20.90 Rbailey
16.20 Varese2002
12.80 aerohydro
12.20 Aquilius
7.30 matte_kudasai
6.70 richard B
6.00 Cruze
6.00 Flamingo
6.00 YavorD
5.90 Rod_Filan
5.50 Airarticles
**************
(those above this section must wait 12 hours before answering,
those below - and everyone else - may answer immediately)
**************
3.30 berman
3.00 Lodzermensch
3.00 joegertler
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires

Breguet's Pre-1914 Aircraft Challenge

The rules of engagement:

1. The thread title must be "Breguet's Pre-1914 ID Challenge #......".
2. The score board, link and rules must be copied to the beginning of each thread, so that we know where we are. The score board and the correct answer to the challenge must also be placed at end of each thread.
3. The flying object must have been dreamt up before 1914 (no limit backwards in time ....).
4. There are no limits to the flying object for the pre-1914 series. There is no ruling that it must be flown, or completely built.
5. Machines which exist only as 'paper', that is absolutely no material has been cut to construct it, are excluded from this ID Challenge
6. The picture / drawing must show as much of the flying object as possible, but views showing the machine 'incomplete' are possible (with discretion).
7. Challenges which depict a machine already earlier presented are disqualified.
8. If there is any doubt as to the eligibility of a flying object for the challenge details should be PM'd to Breguet BEFORE the object is submitted.
9. Once someone has got 5 correct answers under their belt they belong to the ROYALTY. Once they belong to the ROYALTY they must wait 12hrs after the posting of the new challenge before they can post an answer.
10. To be eligible for correct ID an answer must include at least one characteristic of the aircraft that helped in its identification.
11. The first person to ID the challenge correctly gets to post the next challenge. If this can not be done for any reason Breguet himself will post the next challenge.
12. If a ROYALTY gives the correct answer too early, the challenge is over, he gets no point but has to post the next one. In lieu of the fact that the "novices" have in effect been "cheated" of their "exclusive" time that next post should be a relatively easy one. Anyone repeating the correct answer at the right time gets neither a point nor the right to post the next challenge.
13. The final arbitrator in relation to questions about the rules will be Breguet.

[aerohydro]

My generosity continues. Here, I offer a larger, more expansive, version of the photograph originally posted.



Hmm, some writing can be seen, both in the background and at the base of the print.

Cheers,
Paul

[Varese2002]

Thanks for your generosity Paul, I was thinking / searching on the lines of Pearse and New Zealand. Quite wrong as this is an early US plane designed and built by Benjamin Thomas Epps as can be seen on the writing an electric contractor in Athens (Georgia).

This 1907 machine is quoted as the first heavier-than-air aeroplane in history that flew south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Machine can be identified by its high wing monoplane construction, pilot seat construction under the wing, tricycle undercarriage, pusher construction. I have not tracked down the reference to a 1907 vintage Anzani two-cylinder engine, but at least I did not know that it existed. Must be a very early Anzani taround in the USA.

An very interesting machine, never seen before. Thanks for that.

Cheers

Kees

[Varese2002]

An historic marker for the first flight of Epps



More can be seen here

Cheers

Kees

[aerohydro]

Well, congratulations to Kees for answering the quiz. I had thought the signage on the side of the building was a bit too poorly defined to make out the proprietor's name. I was wrong!

Ben Thomas Epps is a hero within Georgia, but seemingly little known outside of it. A useful summary of his life can be found at the New Georgia Encyclopedia. The site of his 1907 flight eventually became the location of the local airport, known as the Athens - Ben Epps Airport.

A replica has been made of the Ben Epps' 1907 monoplane.







Cheers,
Paul

[aerohydro]

The March/April 2007 issue of Athens Magazine, to commemorate the centenary of Epps' flight, contained the following article, and which I am quoting in its entirety. I have also found these two contemporary photos in a pamphlet that had reprinted the magazine article.

A Wing and a Prayer

On the 100th anniversary of his first flight, a look back at the life of Ben Epps, Sr. and his passionate pursuit of flying

By freelance writer Pate McMichael, Lake Oconee, Georgia.

There’s a photograph of a plane billowing down a hill somewhere in Athens—air lifting its wings, wheels touching the ground, a tree in the distance. If only we could hit play and set the scene in motion. Maybe those wings would rise and the picture reveal the exact day and time Benjamin Thomas Epps became the first person in Georgia to fly.

Nobody knows exactly when it happened, but we do know the year: 1907. At 18 or 19 years old, the young man had built his first plane. A 15-horsepower motorcycle engine powered the machine; it flew with one elongated wing and landed on three bicycle wheels. And sometime that year, on the second try, Epps made that awkward contraption ride the wind. If only for a few hundred yards, the young man defied gravity.

Decades later, Hugh Rowe provided an eyewitness account in the Athens Banner in his column, “Did It Ever Occur to ‘U’: A Little of Everything—Not Much of Anything:” “Nearly a half century ago, the writer of this column was present when [Epps] demonstrated to a large group of citizens that flying in the air was not a dream, but a reality. In a machine that he built with his own hands, he succeeded in flying a distance that was surprising to those present. The airplane was hauled to a field on West Broad Street, on Brooklyn Branch. It was unloaded on a hill and was pushed down grade, for a run-way, and soon the machine arose and sailed off for a considerable distance before landing.”

In March 1949, Lola Trammel told another version of the story in The Atlanta Journal Magazine: “The plane was declared ready to fly one afternoon in 1907, and the next morning most of Athens’ sporting bloods and the idly curious were on hand for the test flight…The onlookers did not learn until years later that young Epps had waked up a couple of pals at 2 o’clock in the moonlit morning and had slipped out to the field for a preliminary test. The plane flew fine—then. With a crowd assembled, though, something went wrong.

The little machine rose about 30 feet above the ground and the amazed witnesses were just starting to cheer, when the plane slipped sideways and crashed.”

A few years before flying, Ben Epps made the decision that would transform his life, dropping out of Georgia Tech at the age of 15 and returning to Athens. In addition to helping his parents save money, Ben didn’t much care for spending his days in a classroom, according to a letter home dated Dec. 13, 1904. By all accounts, Epps thrived as both daredevil and engineer—a rare spirit who loved staring down the fear of adventure and the challenge of innovation. His passion for aviation emerged amid the Wright Brothers’ own quest to conquer the sky. Their ever evolving story routinely made headlines in Epps’ day.

Soon after returning to Athens, he opened his own bicycle shop on muddy Washington Street. He also did electrical ontracting. Eventually, Epps started carrying gasoline and marketing his ability to repair cars. The profits from the garage fed Ben’s desire to fly. He had already started drawing up plans for his first plane — the one he flew in 1907.

It took two years for Ben Epps to fly again. This time he teamed up with Zump Huff and stoked the local curiosity early. In March 1909, the paper read, “It is interesting that right here, within the call of Lexington almost, a pair of aviators are to be found and that it is possible a successful machine to fly through space may be the outcome of their endeavors…They have not yet been successful in traveling any great distance above terra firma but they are at work on the machine and hope to have a fine sail before many days.”

Trial and error eventually taught Epps a few important lessons. One in particular stands out. In developing what would become the 1912 monoplane, Epps added an alarm clock to time his gasoline consumption; even the South’s first aviator needed a low-fuel gauge. When he flew the plane in 1912, that alarm clock worked like a dream. On the way down, however, something went terribly wrong. Ben kept the nose up as long as he could, but the machine eventually crashed in a field. And once again, he walked away undaunted, unscathed. He even posed for a photograph next to the mangled hunk of wood, wire and cloth. In the picture, he’s wearing a nonchalant expression, a sagging tie, and long sleeves—rolled up of course.

The Epps Family

World War I forced Epps to take a hiatus from flying. He didn’t have to serve because he was married with children by the time the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917. The war brought Epps more garage work than he could handle. Growing up in the Epps household in the 1920s was not unlike living in the future. Unusual for the day, the house had running water and electric lights, not to mention a garage for all the cars and trucks Epps had invented or rebuilt over the years.

Evelyn, the first of nine children, loved flying in her dad’s airplanes. She attended the Lucy Cobb Institute and stayed on the honor roll. But every so often dad would let her skip class. They would drive out to the flying field, hop into one of his airplanes and buzz downtown Athens. That way everyone could see the American flag fastened to the fuselage. Then, when they had reached Oconee Hill Cemetery, Evelyn and Ben would throw wreaths into the air. And for a few, solemn seconds, a rain of flowers filled the Athens skyline, before coming to rest on the graves of the city’s heroes, the men who had given their lives in war.

Epps’ first son, Ben Jr., was chipped off the old block. Every Sunday his mother dressed him in a white suit and took him out to the flying field where his daddy spent one day a week flying joyrides, giving lessons, and performing stunts. Junior soon made a racket out of selling popcorn and candy to visitors. He could barely carry all the change in his pockets. In the afternoons, the boy hung around the filthy garage on Washington Street—barefooted. The oil and grease caked on his feet so bad it took a putty knife to scrap it off. At home in the country, he played in the fuselage of an old airplane that sat in a field among the peach trees—throwing the propeller and working the controls.

So it was only natural that at age 13 Junior started learning how to fly an airplane. One Sunday evening, Sept. 20, 1929, father and son came home after a long day at the flying field. They sat down at the table with the rest of the family for supper. Junior’s mother, Omie, noticed that the boy and his father were grinning at each other like a couple of possums. “What’s so funny?” she asked. A few hours earlier, Junior had been flying a Waco 9 with his dad in the passenger seat. The boy made four or five perfect landings, so Epps Sr. stepped out of the plane. The boy took off, circled the field and started heading downwind toward the runway—where he landed. Mother didn’t know that her son had just become the youngest person in the world to solo an airplane. Dad couldn’t stop smiling.

When the news of Junior’s flight broke, the boy became a national celebrity. He became “The Boy Who Can Fly.” A woman in Baltimore wrote a chapter about him in a book titled Up. She even arranged for Junior to visit Washington, D.C. The President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, wanted to shake his hand. Then the Athens paper ran an article, “Georgia’s Aviation Family,” that ended up on the wire. A famous radio broadcaster, Floyd Gibbons, picked up on the story and devoted a segment to the Epps family on his national radio show.

All the attention didn’t faze Ben Epps Sr. He just kept to flying in Athens. In 1935, he took a young couple for a ride one Sunday afternoon. The plane was above the University of Georgia campus when the control stick jammed. Then it went into an ugly tailspin. Newspaper accounts from witnesses said the man at the controls seemed“desperately” trying to keep the nose up. But at 500 feet the plane suddenly dove straight into the ground, killing Sylvia Raskin on impact. She was 20.

Epps broke his hip and suffered severe shock. But when he recovered he did what he had always done. He went right back to flying. In fact, he took off from the flying field in East Athens aboard a De Havilland Gypsy biplane three years later, on Oct. 23, 1937. A first-time student pilot sat in the passenger seat. It was late afternoon—one of those coveted fall days when the sun seems to set for hours on end. Epps opened the throttle and took off. The plane rose fifty feet, stalled, and then slammed back to Earth. The student pilot lived, but Georgia’s pioneer of aviation never regained consciousness because his skull had been fractured. He died right there, on his beloved flying field. Where he had dared, for so many years, to teach others the same skill he had taught himself—one forgotten, yet unforgettable day 100 years ago.

[aerohydro]

The answer to this Challenge: the 1907 Ben Epps Monoplane

The scoreboard at the end of Challenge #120 is:

20.90 Rbailey
17.20 Varese2002
12.80 aerohydro
12.20 Aquilius
7.30 matte_kudasai
6.70 richard B
6.00 Cruze
6.00 Flamingo
6.00 YavorD
5.90 Rod_Filan
5.50 Airarticles
**************
(those above this section must wait 12 hours before answering,
those below - and everyone else - may answer immediately)
**************
3.30 berman
3.00 Lodzermensch
3.00 joegertler
2.00 sobrien
2.00 Doc
1.10 Froggy
1.00 paolomiana
0.40 Wind In The Wires

The next Challenge lies with Kees.

[Varese2002]

The centenary of the 1907 flight of Ben Epps was commemorated in a grand manner, more on it here

A documentary was made 'Ben Epps: The Legacy of Georgia’s First Aviator', which can be bought on DVD. The scrapbooks of Ben Epps has been scanned and are (will be) available on CD. Those last ones might be very interesting.

Cheers

Kees

[Rod_Filan]

I thought the sign said STEPS(!) ...but I did get the benefit of reading up on the 1906 2-cyl Anzani.

Great story Paul. Certainly like you said, a hero in Georgia but hardly known elsewhere. This in a way is similar to Wop May in Canada. A historical giant in Edmonton and northern Alberta -- a lot of people would be well versed about his legendary mercy missions, and even know that he "fought" the "Red Baron" if asked -- but go to the next province and you'll get ..."what kind of stupid name is Wop?"
-
Cheers

[aerohydro]

Turns out that two replicas of the 1907 Ben Epps monoplane have been built, both of these built by Harris Lowery. Here are a couple of photos:

The images accompanied this news story about the 2007 centenary celebrations.

Cheers,
Paul