A Plan To Make Bobsleds Fly – 1910

A Plan To Make Bobsleds Fly – 1910

     The following newspaper article appeared in The Bennington Evening Banner on November 22, 1910.  (Williams College is in Williamstown, Massachusetts.)

    Would Make Bobsleds Fly

Williams Students Will Fix Aeroplanes To Sides Of Long Crafts

     Boston, Nov. 22 – Leo Stevens the aeronaut, is enthusiastic over a plan of H. P. Shearman, president of the Williams College Aeronautical Society, to attach wings to bobsleds and so teach students to fly.  

     There are some beautiful coasts several miles in length in the Berkshire Hills.  Mr. Shearman’s idea it to attach an aeroplane with flexible wings – a typical biplane minus the engine – to a bobsled, from which the planes can be controlled by the usual levers.

     “We shall take the sled to the top of a long hill and coast down,” said Shearman.  “Any one who has ever coasted in the Berkshires knows how fast we are likely to travel.  As soon as we are traveling about a mile a minute we shall tilt up the planes and the sled will leave the ground.  Then by manipulating the planes the sled can be kept a foot or so above the snow, just skimming the ground, until the bottom of the hill is reached.”

     “In this way the fellows in our society can learn how to handle the planes, and gain practical experience without undergoing the risk of operating a real aeroplane with an engine to propel it.”

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