Aero Miniature Flying Machine

Ad for the Aero Miniature Flying Machine; pg 197 in Hertz's airplane book

Louis Hertz is a writer who looms large in my reading from long ago. He is likely best known for his four volume The Complete Book of... series, which included Model Railroading (1951), Model Raceways and Roadways (1964), Model Aircraft Spacecraft and Rockets (1967), and Building and Collecting Model Automobiles (1970).

Back in the day when I was new to model building and trying to read everything I could about the hobby, I checked out Mr. Hertz's books from the local library more times than I can remember. Back then I was mainly looking for information on construction techniques, and trying to see what was available. The thing I didn't realize at the time was that each book is an amazing reference volume on the early history of their respective fields. The aircraft book is probably the best example: Chapter 9, The Story of the Model Airplane, is a 90 page wonder of arcane scholarship. Ok, the book was published in 1967, and here we are 52 years later, so no doubt much has been learnt since then, but it makes for good reading in that it provides lots of clues for further internet searches to see where those clues might lead.

While reading Mr. Hertz's history of balsa as a material for model airplane construction, I stumbled across some discussion about the Aero Miniature Flying Machine, which Mr. Hertz claims was likely one of the first flying models to be manufactured and sold in the USA. Apparently is was first sold in or around 1909, and probably remained in production until around 1916. The model looks like a tailless biplane design with curved upper and lower wings. It sold for around $1 [the internet tells me this is about $28 in today's money], and it was claimed the 14" wingspan model could fly 100 ft. Another claim was that if a flight started upside-down, the plane would right itself. It sounds like an intriguing airplane, but I wasn't successful in finding more information with Mr. Hertz's clues. The search continues.