wrightbrothers

These two appear to be the same biplane:




Not sure what it is though. It almost looks like something from Blériot, with the broad tail wings like that, but I'm having trouble finding one that seems to be a match. The closest could be the Blériot, II, but that seemed to have vertical fabric segments between the upper & lower wings in both the main & tail wings, and the plane in this photo doesn't seem to be like that:



Also, the plane in that photo is a flying boat, and this one has wheels. So there's that, too. Could be in the same family though?

Ah, here we go: is this a Farman Biplane or Farman III?





The features seem similar, including:
• seems to be a pusher design
• combination ski / dual-wheeled undercarriage
• fore & aft biplane wing structure
• similar pattern to the vertical struts: |___|___|_|_|___|___|

The Bristol Boxkite seems to be very similar (apparently Farman sued Bristol for stealing the design), but the Boxkite seems to have two vertical tails, and this aircraft only has one, so I suspect this isn't a Boxkite, unless there were variant designs with a different tail construction.

this looks like a wright flyer, the 1st powered aircraft to successfully fly

Danny Beath danny beath, BSc, PhD. :

Well, again I don't know the terminology here, but with most or all modern airplanes, the primary lifting wing is in the middle or front of the aircraft, and the smaller wing with the control surfaces is at the tail.

With the Wright Flyer, the main wings were at the back, and there was an assembly that held the smaller control surface wings in front of the aircraft.

The plane here has yet a different design. Like typical modern air craft, the "primary" control wings are in the back, but there also seems to be a "secondary" control wing in the front — so it's almost like a hybrid design between the Wright Flyer and that which came later.

When I was looking for this plane the other day, I was also thinking it resembles a Wright Flyer, but I wasn't able to find any photos of any of their planes that looked like a match for this one. The closest plane I was able to find is the Farman Biplane, which in all major structural details — landing skids with four wheels in a row, fore & aft control wings, a single vertical rudder wing at the aft, etc — seems to be a match for the one in this photo. The Wikipedia article on the Farman Biplane says it descends from the design of the Voisin 1907 biplane, and from Wikipedia's photo, there are some similarities, but also some differences (only seems to have two wheels, different construction of the fore & aft assemblies, etc):



My best guess is still Farman III Biplane.

Chris Devers I think you are correct! After searching our photo stream for the Farman, I found several which were very similar, such as: www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/4989962509/

Another Bain/LOC photo of the Wright Flying Boat:

After Glenn Curtiss invented the first flying boat in 1912, capturing a valuable chunk of business from the U. S. Navy, Orville Wright decided that his Wright Aircraft Company should develop a competing version. He hired a young engineer, Grover Loening, to design the new aeroboat, which was tested successfully in the fall of 1913. The photograph shows a test of the craft on Ohio's Miami River, near Dayton, in November, 1913.

Nice picture

Essentially the Wright brothers' 1903 airplane attached to an innovative, metal alloy boat hull. Incredible photo, LOC! Many thanks!

Wystan, are you sure the Miami River mentioned here is in Florida? They were from Dayton, OH and one of the rivers flowing through Dayton is the Miami river.

Farman MF.11 "Shorthorn"