DANE HULBERT

 

Hulbert's pusher-tractor aeroplane from KO Ecklund's Aerofiles website

 

New American Aviator Appears Daily Journal and Tribune, Knoxville, Tennessee: September 24, 1909, Transcribed by Bob Davis - 1-29-05 Lucerne, Switzerland, Sept. 21. - A new American aviator, Dane Hulbert , has made several successful aeroplane flights here lately. His machine differs from existing aeroplanes in that it travels lengthwise through the air and has two propellers, one in front and another behind. Editor's Note:According the the story in Contact, by Henry Serrano Villard, Hulbert was Swiss, not American.

 

ECCENTRICS AND GENIUSES from CONTACT, The Story of the Early Birds by Henry Serrano Villard Extract from Chapter Ten      "In the course of the early years practically every conceivable form of wing surface was tried--and generally found wanting. To mention only a few, there were, for example, such bizarre concoctions as the circular cage of the Frenchman d'Equivelly, contaning five small surfaces on each side of the motor, with two larger surfaces on top; the double-celled, tunnellike "wings" connected by fuselage built by the Vermorel company for another French inventor, Givandin; and the arrangement of a couple of wings placed lengthwise instead of crosswise, with a propeller both for and aft, produced in 1910 by Dr. Dane Hulbert, a Swiss. Needless to say, such unconventional efforts got nowhere."...

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Dane Hulbert", using the Google search engine, (2-1-05), you will find about 9 links, only two of which appear to be relevant.

 

American airplanes: Ha - Hu      You will find a short, but informative description of Hulbert's airplane on this page of KO Ecklund's Aerofiles website. It offers a link to a phtograph of his plane which is unique in its configuration. You can access the page by clicking on the title above. You may want to use the "FIND" function on Hulbert to go directly to the entry on the page.

 

Zu Verkaufen: 20 Fotobilder, schwarz-weiss, Swissair-Chronik      I was alerted to this website by Paul Dunlop who wrote the following: "Hello Ralph A few years ago, I sent you an email about the early aviator Dane Hulbert and his obscure flying machine, a photo of which appears in the 1913 Jane's AWA. Well, I happened to come across a second photo of the Hulbert flying machine. Go to this link: http://www.flightforum.ch/forum/showthread.php?t=45979 and then scroll down to the bottom photo on the page. The Hulbert machine is the middle of the 3 aircraft shown in the photo. Admittedly it's not a good image, as it's really a photo of a photo, but still it shows just what the Hulbert machine looked liked front-on. Cheers, Paul"      You can access the page by clicking on the title above. The text is in German.

 

RECOMMENDED READING

CONTACT The Story of the Early Birds Man's first decade of flight from Kitty Hawk to World War I Henry Serrano Villard Foreward by S. PAUL JOHNSTON Director, National Air and Space Museum Smithsonian Institution In today's age of space probes and moon rockets, it is hard to believe that the aeroplane is scarcely sixty years old. Here Henry Serrano Villard, who knew many of the pioneer pilots and flew in their "bits of stick and string,"re-creates the romantic era when man first dared the miracle of flight. His anecdotal account, illustrated with 125 photographs--many from his personal album--covers the decade and a half of aeronautical history from the Wright brothers' exploits at Kitty Hawk to the outbreak of World War I.   Editor's Note: I had the pleasure of knowing Henry for several years before his death. I found him to be a delightful companion and a remarkable source of information on the entire field of aviation. I can recommend his book, without hesitation, as an essential resource for anyone interested in the history of early aviation..

 

I have no information as to the dates of his birth or his death.

 

Editor's Note: If you have any information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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