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The Aeronautic Society of New York

The third machine was a weird and wonderful monoplane built by C. W. Williams. Mr. Williams built to test out the principle of wing mechanism, and found that it could be made to work very satisfactorily. Unfortunately, his getting to work so soon was against him, for he was too early to have the advantage of the Kimball motor, which Mr. Kimball afterwards was good enough to offer to put at the service of members, or of the motor bought by the Society a little later; and he was unable to obtain a suitable motor in the market. By the aid of a small motor, however, he was able to try out eventually all the data he required; and then began on a more perfected model, which he is now completing.

In a very little while many members were out obtaining in gliders what was to be preliminary practice in the air, or trying out in that form of apparatus some new idea to be constructed subsequently in a motor-driven machine. Before long one corner of the workshop became a veritable hospital for gliders. Later success suggested that, however much could be learned, and had been learned, by the use of gliders, and however valuable

[[image - black & white photograph of a large crowd people on hand to witness an exhibition of aircraft by the Areonautic Society, several aircraft on display]]
[[caption]] Scene on the Lawn at The First Exhibition of the Aeronautic Society, Nov. 3, 1908
20,000 Persons Present [[/caption]]

such practice might be in preparing a man for taking the air, it was not an absolutely necessary part of an aviator's training. For the learning to drive a flying machine had to be learned in the machine itself.

Morris Park happened to have no natural hill or mound that was high enough for any practical kind of gliding. To get over that difficulty, and also provide for machines that would be built with skids and without launching wheels, the Society had a launching catapult erected out in the centre of the infield. Later a wooden structure was devised by Dr. S. B. Battey, and erected; but the necessity for a building permit for it happened to be overlooked, and, as it chanced that one enthusiastic glider remained on top of the erection the whole of a day nearly, waiting for the wind to blow in the way he wanted it to blow, the City Building Department held that that length of occupation had converted the structure into a dwelling-house, and, so, as it had neither open plumbing nor fire-escape, they condemned it as unfit for residential purposes, and solemnly ordered its removal.