Word: bellancas
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Thus, a competition to carry the U. S. public in the air looms between the backers of a 25-year-old Nordic, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, who is everybody's hero, and the backers of a 41-year-old Latin, Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, who is as obscure in the popular eye as he is small in stature (5 ft., 1 in.). And yet, it is Mr. Bellanca who designed the Columbia that stayed in the air over the U. S. for 51 hours and later flew 3,905 miles, who carries in his pocket the plans for a plane...
Years ago, in the cliff-perched village of Sciacca on the island of Sicily, the boy Bellanca watched ships cut the sea and kites cut the air. There was a similarity, he thought. He made his kite fly horizontally, like a glider. His imagination roamed-"a little fan in front, and I could fancy it there flying by itself...
Then Giuseppe Mario Bellanca began to put sticks and canvas together. His first plane, a compromise in design between his own ideas and those of his friends who furnished the money, crashed at the start of its maiden voyage. He was convinced that the early pusher type of plane with propeller in the rear was wrong. His next plane, which he hoped would conquer the English channel, was designed with the propeller in front, No one seemed anxious to purchase a motor for him, so he stayed on the ground-again disappointed-while Louis Blériot crossed the English...
Broken in health and finances, Mr. Bellanca came to the U. S. His relatives helped him secure funds to build a monoplane in Brooklyn. He taught himself to fly, set up an aviation school. During the War, he lost a contract with the British government because he did not have the money to swing it. He designed planes for a Maryland concern until it went bankrupt...
Finally, in a garage in Omaha, he smiled at disappointments as he built the Bellanca VIII-a monoplane of large wing surface, with struts, fuselage and tail all designed to give great lifting power. People thought the plane a little queer. Nevertheless, it won 13 efficiency prizes, aided by a little Anzani motor which Mr. Bellanca purchased from a junkman for $75. As everyone now knows, the famed Columbia is a Bellanca VIII equipped with a Wright Whirlwind motor...