Augustus Moore Herring
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Augustus Moore Herring (August 3, 1867 – July 17, 1926) was an American aviation pioneer, who sometimes is claimed by Michigan promoters to be the first true aviator of a motorized
Biography
Herring was born in Covington, Georgia, to William F. Herring, a wealthy cotton broker, and his wife Cloe Perry Conyers. He studied in both Switzerland and Germany, before his family settled in New York in 1884. In 1885-6, as a student at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Herring was already building models of flying machines. By 1893, he had built a full sized glider – which he crashed when trying to leave the ground. He began studying glider expert Otto Lilienthal's work. In 1894, Herring built a Type 11-monoplane glider based on Otto Lilienthal‘s 1893 German patent.
Herring was then hired by
On October 10, 1898, Herring telegraphed Chanute to come and watch him fly a powered aeroplane of his own design, based on the Chanute-type biplane structure, using a compressed air engine at Silver Beach Amusement Park in St. Joseph, Michigan. He could not get airborne. Herring was reported to have made a longer flight on October 22, witnessed by two locals.
In 1909 Herring joined
Herring did some aviation design work for the United States Army during World War I, he later was partially paralyzed by a series of strokes.
He died in 1926 at the age of 59, survived by his wife, the former Lillian Mellen. Ironically, four years later Herring won his suit against Curtiss with a sizeable financial award.
Claims as first to fly
Aviation historian Phil Scott in The Shoulders of Giants: A History of Human Flight to 1919 (1995,
Herring's defenders point out that hang-glider fliers today steer their aircraft by shifting their body, as Herring did. This method was superseded by the
References
- ^ America's First Airplane Flight :: The Southwest Michigan Directory. Swmidirectory.org. Retrieved on 2011-09-19.
- ^ Chanute Bibliography. Spicerweb.org. Retrieved on 2011-09-19.
- Short, Simine (2011). Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution. ISBN 978-0252093326.[page needed]
Further reading
- Gierke, C. David (2018). To Caress the Air: Augustus Herring and the Dawn of Flight. Write Associates LLC. Volume one: ISBN 0999045768
- Mumford, Lou (October 11, 1998). "Clearing the Air on 1st Flight". South Bend Tribune.
- Simine Short. 2011. Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution. University of Illinois Press. OCLC 785781240
External links
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- History Flies in Michigan. Google HTML version at the Wayback Machine (archived June 6, 2011). includes Michigan House Resolution No. 553 (2002) which honors and thanks Herring. Says Herring born in 1867.
- Chanute Exhibit. which mentions Herring work.
- Michigan History -Silver Beach St. Joseph, Michigan. with story of Herring 1898 flight.
- Photo of Augustus Herring's powered biplane
- Langley and Herring 1895.
- Chanute and Herring 1896–8.
- Herring and the Wright Brothers.
- Chanute Papers at LOC. with Herring letters.
- Augustus Moore Herring Papers at Cornell University.
- Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009.
- Guide to Research Notes Concerning Augustus Moore Herring circa 1964 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center