Abstract:
The theme of the AHS 70th Annual Forum and Technology Display in Montréal, Québec, Canada, is "Celebrating International Cooperation in Vertical Flight Technology." Perhaps no finer example exists of this type of cooperation than with Alexander Graham Bell's Aerial Experiment Association, a Canadian-American aeronautical research group formed on October 1, 1907, at Baddeck, Nova Scotia. According to Bell, the A.E.A. was a "co-operative scientific association, not for gain but for the love of the art and for doing what we can to help one another," and dedicated to the construction of a practical flying machine. Between1907 and 1909, the A.E.A. produced several different aircraft in quick succession, each an improvement over the previous one. The group introduced key technical innovations, notably wingtip ailerons and the tricycle landing gear, and, working with John Newton Williams, they would witness the first lifting of a person using rotary-wings in America.