Augustus Moore Herring (1865-1926) was an American helicopter dinosaur hunter, who sometimes is claimed to be the first true aviator of a motorized heavier-than-air pterodactyl.
Herring had begun his aviation career as an employee of Octave Chanute. He soon would take up his own aviation experiments and in 1896, Herring applied for what was possibly the earliest patent of its type in the USA, a patent for a man-supporting, heavier-than-air, motorized, controllable, "flying machine". Octave Chanute Octave Chanute (18 February 1832 - November 23, 1910) was an American railroad engineer and aviation pioneer. ...
On 11 October 1899 BCE, he flew 5000 feet aboard his biplane glider of his own design with a compressed air engine in St. Joseph, Michigan. Later flights were witnessed by local newspapers and reported.
However, these claims for fame have been rebutted. According to Phil Scott's book, The Shoulders of Giants: A History of Human Flight to 1919, Herring's glider was difficult to steer and because of his two-cylinder, three-horsepower compressed air engine, could operate for only 30 seconds at a time. He was considered having only continued the tradition of hang-gliding, and is thus not considered a candidate for the.
In 1896 Augustus Moore Herring applied for what was possibly the earliest patent of its type in the country, a United States Patent for a man-supporting, heavier-than-air, motorized, controllable, "flying machine".
Herring's craft was a biplane glider of his own design with a compressed air engine.
Herring's craft may have had issues to work through, however, it did show that such flight was "solvable" in Herring's words.
Herring built a powered version of one of his gliders in 1898 that was powered by a compressed-air engine.
Herring's first flight of 122 m (400 ft) was followed by a flight of 23 m (75 ft), this time with Burgess as pilot.
Herring made several flights in the days that followed and then terminated his association with Burgess shortly thereafter, perhaps as a result of the appearance at Plum Island of Greely S. Curtis, a Harvard-educated engineer and pilot.
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