Sometimes airplanes fall out of the sky. This is an unfortunate fact of aviation. Sometimes it’s because of mechanical failure or pilot error or an errant missile or an errant flock of birds. And sometimes planes fall out of the sky because they are are terribly, terribly designed.
That was the case with the Christmas Bullet, a strutless biplane from the early days of aviation.
The plane was designed by one Dr. William Christmas, who may or may not have been an actual doctor. He was a charlatan, and also not an especially good aeronautic designer. Christmas believed that struts and braces, the hardware used to provide rigidity to the wings, were unnecessary in an airplane and that wings would work just fine if they were allowed to flap like a bird’s. In his mind, as the single-seat plane flew faster, the wings would flex higher, up to 18 inches from center in either direction. Now, the wings on modern airplanes are made to bend significantly, but they also have significant internal support to make sure they don’t break off.
Christmas claimed he had been building and flying planes as early as 1907, and in 1918 he was able to convince investors, a senator, and the Continental Aircraft Company to fund his visions for an airplane. He claimed the design he was working on would be able to fly to Germany and kidnap the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. As World War I was drawing to a close, the Army coughed up an engine to test the plane with, but only for ground tests, and required Christmas to seek approval before attempting to fly. By the time he had finished the plane, the war was over (and the abdicated kaiser was less of a juicy kidnapping target), but private aviation was catching on in the US.
Not everyone was bought into Christmas’ proposal: Vincent Burnelli, an engineer at Continental Aircraft, claimed the wings were so heavy that they had to be winched into place, and that the tail assembly was much too small for the comparatively heavy, 2,100-pound Bullet. He ended up resigning from Continental over his concerns about the safety of the design.
In December 1918 (various precise dates are reported), the Christmas Bullet, using the Army’s Liberty 6 185-horsepower engine, took its first test flight, over New York’s Long Island. It didn’t reach the expected (and the then-dazzling) speed of 200 mph, but once the Bullet reportedly achieved an altitude of 3,000 feet, the wings peeled away from the fuselage and the plane promptly plummeted to earth. Cuthbert Mills, a pilot with the US Air Mail Service, was killed instantly. The second and not surprisingly final flight of the Bullet also resulted in the death of the pilot.
Though his creation was an utter failure (as were many early planes, to be fair), Christmas continued making fantastic claims and less fantastic airplane designs. After the Bullet, none were ever built, though Christmas was said to have been paid fantastic sums for rights to his inventions. Following World War II, he told the Air Force in a letter that his inventions had “made the aviation industry what it is today.”
Well, we suppose every industry needs its cautionary tales.
Have a crazy invention or whopping failure you want us to cover? Email alex_davies@wired.com and jlgolson@gmail.com and we’ll check it out.
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