W. Starling Burgess : Massachusetts Aviation Pioneer
Object ID:
2015.11.51
VE Exhibit Label 1:
Model A 3 "Flying Fish"
The Herring-Burgess Model A #3 Flying Fish was a pusher biplane with wheels replacing skids. This single place aircraft was built in April 1910 and delivered to Plum Island in May 1910.
Its first flight was piloted by William H. Hilliard on May 14, 1910 and was purchased for $5,000 by the Arrowplane Manufacturing Company of Boston, founded by Joseph Shoemaker.

Model A3 had a Curtiss 25 hp 4 cyl water cooled engine with a Herring direct drive, four bladed propeller, ignition by Bosch and El Arco Radiator. It spanned 26'9' with a wing area of 292 sq. ft. Its height was 9'8", length 33', chord 5'6", gap 4' and weighed 400 lbs. Its surfaces were covered with Nalad silk.

The Model A3 was built with inter-wing ailerons and Farman type flaps. New controls were installed for the aviator that became the Burgess standard in the aircraft to follow: a gate control for elevator and ailerons, with a foot yoke for rudder control. This was the first model built without the stabilizer fins on the upper wing.

The Model A 3 was exhibited and flown by Bill Hilliard in the Harvard Boston Aero Meet It was moved to Saugus Racetrack Airfield after the air meet at Squantum. Over the next two years it was extensively modified and flight tested by Shoemaker and his assistant Fred Chanonhouse at Saugus. Shoemaker left Boston a few years later and returned to New Jersey and stored this aeroplane away at his farm. After his death the much modified Model A 3 was donated to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC where it remains in storage.

Two additional Herring-Burgess Model A 3 type aircraft were sold in 1910 to Louis Mitchell from Texas, owner of the American Hippodrome Company. One was sold to a T. Shelton.

There were a total of five Model A3s built. Four were sold and one was used as a company test plane and then used in static displays in aeronautical exhibitions.
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Burgess Pfitzner Newbury 1910Burgess Pfitzner Newbury 1910
Hilliard In Herring Burgess 3 Plum Island 1910Hilliard In Herring Burgess 3 Plum Island 1910