One hundred years ago today, Tony Jannus made the first regularly-scheduled commercial airline flight in world history, by flying a Benoist XIV "flying boat" from St Petersburg to Tampa, Florida. Today, the city of St Pete remembered Jannus's flight with a replica Benoist and a commemorative seaplane flight.
On January 1, 1914, the first regularly-scheduled commercial airline flight in the world took place in Tampa Bay (see my diary on this event here: http://www.dailykos.com/... )
In 2010, as the 100th anniversary of Jannus's flight approached, Kermit Weeks, the owner of the popular Fantasy of Flight vintage aircraft restoration center and exhibit, in nearby Lakeland, Florida, began plans to recreate the historic Benoist XIV seaplane and duplicate the flight. Another replica Benoist had already been built back in the 80's, flew in 1984, and now hangs on display in the St Petersburg Museum of History, but Weeks wanted his version to be more authentic. None of the technical drawings or plans for the Benoist still exist, so Weeks had to pattern his airframe parts from old photographs. There are no surviving examples of the Roberts inline six-cylinder engine that powered the original Benoist, so the 1984 reproduction used a vintage six-cylinder Chevrolet engine instead. But since then a series of original engineering drawings of the Roberts engine have been found, and Weeks decided to reconstruct an exact replica engine himself, from scratch, using the same materials.
Originally, Weeks budgeted the Benoist project at around $300,000 and two years. Four years later, he's spent almost that much just for the engine. The project went right down to the deadline--just one week before today's scheduled 100th anniversary flight, Weeks had still not made the 5-hours flight time necessary to get an FAA air-worthiness certificate to fly passengers in the replica. Weeks' plans for the anniversary were to take a passenger (perhaps the great-great-granddaughter of the original 1914 passenger, Abram Pheil) in the replica and fly Jannus's original route to Tampa and back. If he missed his deadline and the replica Benoist was not able to fly today, he planned to exhibit the plane on shore, and Eddie Hoffman, the son of the man who built the 1984 replica, would recreate the historic flight in the same Hoffman X-4 flying boat that was used to accompany the 1984 Benoist replica on its flight.
Alas, in the end, it was Mother Nature, not the FAA, that foiled Weeks' plans. It was a cloudy, rainy and windy day today in St Pete, so the decision was made to not attempt to fly the Benoit. Instead, after some speeches, Hoffman flew off in the X-4.
Some photos from the event:
The replica Benoist XIV on display.
Close enough to touch--but please don't touch!
The propeller, located behind the cockpit.
Inside the cockpit. Not much room for two people, huh.
The gas tank, conveniently located right behind the passenger seat.
Cables and pulleys for the flight controls.
The propeller sprocket. During the 1914 flight, the pilot had to land the plane in Tampa Bay, climb out to adjust the chain, then take off again.
The replica Roberts six-cylinder engine.
A banner attached to the wing strut. After the 1914 flight, the pilot gave the original banner to a young girl in the crowd. Sixty years later, she donated it to the St Pete Museum of History, where it is on display.
Some folks in period dress, available to answer questions about the "aeroplane".
"Tony Jannus" addresses the crowd.
Former St Pete Mayor Rick Baker, now part of the Aviation Historical Association.
Eddie Hoffman addresses the crowd before climbing into his X-4 seaplane.
The X-4 on its takeoff run . . .
. . . liftoff . . .
. . . and across the Bay to Tampa. The 1914 flight took 20 minutes. Even today's PSTA buses can't get from St Pete to Tampa that fast.