All Kinds of Model Trains Equipment

Ebook Creation: How to Select a Great Topic for Your Ebook

It couldn't be easier to select a topic for an ebook. People are hungry for information, and people are looking to the Internet to feed their hunger. After you've read this chapter, you will feel confident enough to choose your own topic, or you can literally pull your ebook topic directly from this ebook and use it! How's that for a deal?

Observe what's going on around you.

If you're smart enough to read this book, you're smart enough to look around you and determine what interests you and those around you. Think of what problems you've recently solved, and what kinds of problems others have had and solved. Any problem that has been solved in your world could easily be the subject of your next book. People love to read how other have solved a problem that they currently have.

So, brainstorm a list of problems in your life and in the lives of those around you. Your friend Bob lost his job? Your sister's child had chicken pox? How did they cope or find solutions? While you're at it, start another list of unsolved problems evident in your corner of the world. Write down problems you wish you had solved. Aha! These are subjects that people will really be interested in! How to lose the last ten pounds. The truth about UFOs. The straightest path to becoming a millionaire. From your personal corner, your step-granddaughter is pregnant at age 14? Your grocery bill is double what it used to be? Your roof leaks? These are problems waiting for ebook solutions!

These unsolved problems would also be great ebook topics. Remember, you don't have to know the solution, just the topic. You're going to get someone else to do the research and write the book for you. You will not actually be writing one word.

Spend a few minutes Googling

The Internet is a great way to find out what people are looking for at any given moment. You can search for almost anything. Google™ is a popular search engine you can use, or you can try any of the others like Yahoo!® or Mamma.com. Type in phrases like "top concerns of Americans," "best-selling nonfiction topics," or "popular how-to manuals." Common worries of 2005.

And while you're on the Internet...

Find out the most popular nonfiction books from the New York Times bestseller list, Amazon, and a Google search for ebooks. Your findings will tell you exactly what book subjects people are buying right now.

Try this. Go to www.amazon.com. From the tabbed menu running along the top of the Amazon home page, click "Top Sellers."

I did this one day in September 2005 and found a Harry Potter book, several other fiction books, and titles such as Natural cures "they" won't tell you about, How what you wear can change your life, How to profit from the demise of the dollar, and The official SAT study guide. I've paraphrased to some degree, but you get the idea.

Here's what I learned just from spending a few minutes on Amazon that day. People are reading good fiction from already-best selling authors (Da Vinci Code, the Harry Potter series, and others). Secondly, Amazon buyers, buying over the Internet, are interested in nonfiction topics such as improving their lives and making more money. For these books, just about any author will do, even virtual unknowns or people who went to prison for lying to the American public.

And that quick visit only confirmed that the straightest route to ebook profits is in the nonfiction ebook market. This is for a number of reasons. Fiction readers tend to like to curl up in a chair with an actual book. Some of them attend book clubs where the physical books are brought around someone's kitchen table with wine and cheese. Fiction readers tend to purchase from authors they're already familiar with. Fiction can be more difficult to write and deliver well. Also, many of the classics in fiction are available as free ebooks. A reader interested in fiction could just download those. So stick with nonfiction unless you're feeling particularly bold and experimental.

Here is some more good news, and if you didn't already know this then you are going to be smiling big. Drum roll please... ideas are not copyrighted, therefore any idea you see, hear, or read anywhere anytime, is yours to use for an ebook! You can create books around the same ideas that are covered in the Amazon best seller list, and turnaround and create an ebook on the exact same subject!

Now, copyright law does protect the way ideas are expressed, so you want to make sure your hired author does not plagiarize or copy book text outright. And you cannot use the title word for word either. But there's nothing stopping you from creating another book or ebook that covers the same subject with a different voice. It's all as completely legal and guilt-free as nonfat Haagen Dazs. This is why looking at bestseller lists is a great way to get topic ideas.

Digging a little deeper

There are groups of people who are willing to buy nonfiction ebooks: hobbyists. At any given time, these people are looking for ways to spend their money on their hobbies. Their passion is your financial gain.

What avid hobbyists want will always make great ebook material. Note that I did not say what hobbyists need. You may have certain opinions on what exactly certain people should need or should read. But those are not necessarily good topics for immediate ebook profit. Those topics may be areas for you to dabble in at your leisure. However, if you want to make money at this, find out what niche groups want, and hit those groups with your ebook.

Find hobbyists and niche groups by searching the web for "popular hobbies," "enthusiasts," or "what America is buying." Or, you can search specifically for forums and discussion groups for hobbyists. In the forums, people talk with each other to share ideas with one another. Often, they will exchange testimonials for equipment, upcoming events, and books.

One popular site where hobbyists go to talk to one another online is Yahoo!. Check it out. Go to www.yahoo.com. Click "groups." On the groups page you'll see a list of categories such as Business & finance, and Religion. For demonstration purposes, click on "Games."

On the games screen, game subcategories are listed followed by numbers. The numbers indicate how many discussion forums are available for that subcategory. These numbers reveal a lot. Notice how "role playing games," and "video & computer games" have factors of ten or in some cases factors of 100 more forums than other subcategories. "Wargaming" and "paintball" don't even come close, although those categories are much more discussion-laden than "horseshoe pitching."

For fun, one day I continued selecting subcategories until I arrived at a list of over a thousand (yes a thousand) discussion groups on Yahoo having to do with vampire role playing. Here's how I got there: Games>>Role Playing Games>>Live Action>> World of Darkness>>Vampire: The Masquerade.

Some of the forums are open to new members, and you can join to read what everyone's discussing. Once in the forum, you can review discussion threads from today, yesterday, or a year ago. Don't go back too far if you want to find out the hottest possible ebook topics. You can participate in discussions if you like. FYI, do not drop into a discussion group just to market an ebook; hobbyists consider this spam and will drop you from the group.

When you read and/or participate, you'll find out what this group is buying. All you have to do is skim to find out what questions they are asking each other about products or traveling or information. What they are interested in buying is a key piece of information because passionate consumers love to research before they buy. This is an immediate ebook market. Create a book on how to select the best this or that on the market, related to the current wants of the enthusiasts.

Enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes. Think brides-to-be, golfers, whitewater rafters, people who collect vintage baseball cards, wine connoisseurs, gardeners, frequent vacationers, video gamers, and parents who put their children into private tutoring, ballet, and violin lessons before age 3.

There are some hobbies that seem to continually attract enthusiasts, like playing golf, watching football, restoring old cars, and listening to music. These are classics. Then there are some hobbies that seem to come and go in waves, such as Red Hat Societies participation, snow boarding, or line dancing. Pick either a classic hobby or a fluctuating hobby in its peak season for your best odds.

A big market on the Internet is the 20-30 set. Here's what they are doing right now, according to one survey. They're snowboarding, wakeboarding, traveling, camping, listening to music, taking photographs. They're drinking gourmet coffee, rock climbing, playing guitar, camping, dancing, looking for online love, shopping for computers and other electronics, attending sports events, studying the Bible, exercising, trying to find jobs, and watching movies. Any one of these subjects would make a great ebook with a buying market standing by.

How-to's and hot topics

There is almost no limit whatsoever on the marketability of how-to books. Everyone wants an instruction manual, advice, and encouragement that they can do anything they read a how-to book for. Anything you know how to do, anything you've ever wanted to learn, or anything that's teachable at all, can become a how-to ebook.

How-to books for hobbyists are a good way to go, and this overlaps with the discussion above. A hobby how-to ebook could be anything from how to build a home from hay bales to how to play Texas Hold 'Em to how to understand Shakespeare.

One book publisher knows how hungry we are for how-to information, and has created a whole series of "Dummies" books around the market. Further, there are other similar book series', and all of them are doing quite well! "The Everything" series, "Idiot's Guide" series and others are all cashing in on the how-to phenomenon.

You could cash in by creating ebooks on any or all subjects covered in any of those series'. Go to www.dummies.com, and check out their list of titles. Pick one you like, and move full speed ahead!

Remember that even though the books have "Dummies" in the title, that the books are as popular as they are because the readers are not treated like dummies at all. The authors cater to a person who wants to find out the easiest way to do something without too much tangential discussion. When you have your ebook written and when you choose a title, make sure you are appealing to a reader's smarts! If you use words like stupid, dumb, or hopeless in the title, make sure that it is clear that the meaning would not extend to insulting the individual reader.

Ebooks, because of their brevity and because they are marketed primarily on the Internet can target smaller audiences. You don't have to write a universal book like How to use a computer (which may not be interesting enough to sell anyway in this decade). Ebooks can cover more specific territory. Knowing this, you can 1) create your ebook in a specific way for a specific niche readership, and 2) create additional ebooks for different facets of the same subject, and sell each one separately!

Say you've decided to write an ebook on fishing. (FYI, this is one of those hobbies where enthusiasts are willing to spend money!). You could create "How to Catch Freshwater Trout," "How to Tie Your Own Flies," or "How to Plan a Successful Deep Sea Fishing Trip." Almost anything related to the hobby can become a separate ebook depending on how much detail you include. Clearly, "How to put on waders," probably wouldn't be a great choice (though some would say it's impossible to underestimate today's consumer), because you would have to strain to fill up 60 to 100 pages on such a simple topic. You get the idea. The topic would need to be, in most cases, book worthy. Use good judgment.

Then, life itself requires instructions, as we know from "Life's Little Instruction Book." So, life also qualifies as a good how-to book topic. There are numerous subtopics, and you'll never run out of ideas. Here are a few examples:

· "How to ensure your child gets an A+ in math"

· "How to have a successful garage sale"

· "How to organize your home office"

And while we're on the subject of how-to books, I'd like to make one quick point. The titles of these ebooks do not need to be incredibly clever. Be sure the words "How to" are the first part of the title, and the rest should tell exactly what the ebook is about.

For example, which of these three titles would be best?

1. "How to have a successful garage sale."

2. "One weekend away from a cleaner house"

3. "How to sell your old shoes for a profit"

Although numbers 2 and 3 are clever, a little punchy, and correspond with the ebook content, I would still recommend using title number 1. "How to have a successful garage sale" sums it up pretty well and will catch the eye of an Internet surfer who is interested in putting together a garage sale and needs a how-to manual.

Anyway, back to the point. Any phase of life, way of coping with life, or large or small thing about life can be the subject of a how-to book.

Looking young

Perhaps sixteen year old girls don't want to look younger, but from that point on, and for most of the population in Western society, looking young is a common desire. Everybody wants to find the fountain of youth, whether it be in a pill bottle, a special diet, surgery, or an ebook.

An ebook about staying or appearing young in the face of growing old will have a solid future. Here are some title ideas, and I'm sure you can come up with a truckload more.

· "Drop ten years and ten pounds in ten days"

· "How to look 28 forever"

· "100 ways to look younger"

· "Grocery store products that will help you look younger"

· "Look 30 again without surgery"

· "How to live to be 100"

This topic is red hot. Botox, surgery, chemical peels, lasers, diets, acupuncture, electronic pulses, mega vitamins, prescription teas, thigh cream, and teeth whiteners are being purchased by baby boomers, the elderly, and even women as young as 20 ! No one wants to look a day older than they have to.

Health

Health is a concern to anyone who is growing old or ill or faced illness with a loved one or wants more energy or, basically, everybody. Health ebooks are a good investment for you to make. And doctors don't have to be the authors. Anyone with any credentials, or no crendetials at all, can write books on health. Just be sure you don't claim to be a doctor if you're not one.

Here are some health topics you can hit at this moment in time and be almost guaranteed immediate interest, readership, and sales!

Disease prevention and cure.As our baby boomer population ages, most will be afflicted with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, or some other malady. Give these people some hope. Create an ebook on how to cope, how to find the best practitioners, how to avoid disease triggers, or cures American doctors are unaware of.

Natural remedies. People are curious about alternatives to standard medicine, and are anxious to try herbal, natural, or holistic treatments. Create a book on any disease that covers alternative cures. For example, "How to Treat Lymphoma, Naturally." Or, you could just address natural supplements in general, "The best natural remedies for common ailments," or "Holistic health."

Diet. What we eat is always a hot topic. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of diet fads currently out there. Pick any one of them for an ebook. Then there's obesity, general health, and also diet supplements like vitamins. Think "How to equip your kitchen for macrobiotic dieting." Or, "Eat to cure cancer."

Travel

Never has so much travel been available to so many. People today want to get in touch with the people they love. They want to experience different parts of the world. See exotic things. Be entertained. Also, because, especially in America, adults sometimes work well more than 40 hours a week, people need really good vacations. They're doing their research to make sure that they will really enjoy their precious few weeks off each year.

Here are some topics for you: how to trade frequent flyer miles, how to keep airport security off your back, how to travel on a dime and get change, and how to keep your children happy on long car trips.

Beyond the how-to's, there is plenty of room for books like, the best amusement parks for your money, top 100 campgrounds, things you must see and do in Utah before you die, and free things to do when visiting Washington, D.C.

Get the idea? The good thing about creating travel ebooks is that you may already know a lot about a place that other people may be interested in visiting. Makes it easy!

Money

Money makes the world go around (well that and the earth's axis and planetary forces), and so it would make sense that ebooks would abound on the topic of money. They do, but the market is nowhere near saturated. There's always room for more. From getting rich to just saving money day-to-day, people are always interested in how-to books related to money. Ideas below:

· "How to feed your family on less than $40 a week"

· "How to get free stuff"

· "How to pay almost no taxes"

· "How to buy a retirement home for no money down"

· "How to be richer than your parents"

· "How to buy cars at auction"

· "How to start a financial management business"

Life enrichment

In these days, although fewer and fewer are attending churches, more and more are flocking to purchase self-help books. Self-help books are leaping off shelves at brick and mortar bookstores. People want to feel that if they read a self-help book, they have all the power to change their lives. Whether or not this is true is moot. Changing your life, soul searching, and helping thyself, are all great ebook topics.

As much as ever before, people want to know how to find peace with their pasts, how to be creative or spiritual in a consuming society, and how to find true love. There is no end to how-to books you could create in the category of self-help, or life enrichment. Here are a few more ideas here:

· How to marry for life

· How to unbreak your heart

· How to stay sane in a crazy world

· How to meditate

A few more topics bound to explode

These are fiery hot topics that are sure to be on the rise. You can pull any one of these to use for your first ebook. Then come back and pull another topic for your next ebook.

Using the latest electronics. We are a society obsessed with having the latest and greatest technology. Do an ebook on iPods, email/camera cell phones, wireless Internet, digital TV, or any combination of these items.

Home improvement. There's so much of a craze in this area that do-it-yourself (DIY) stores are on every corner of major cities. If you haven't been to a Home Depot or Lowe's lately, then you are one of the few. Sure, apartment dwellers and young students aren't in this market, but people with homes and money to afford them are in this market. In fact, some cable TV services offer entire channels dedicated to home improvement.

Especially of current interest are in-home automation systems. DIY home improvers are eager to learn about and buy things that will make their home lives more relaxing, high-tech, or fun. Create a book to teach them how to make their lights come on for them before they get home from their jobs, or how to press a button to adjust window blinds, music, or temperature. Or how Bill Gates' house works. Or how to add automation to an existing home, or how to build-in automation when a house is constructed.

Identity theft prevention. Especially because ebooks are marketed on the Internet, this is a great topic. This is because people who purchase over the Internet are concerned that their credit card numbers will not be seen by others or misused in any way. Even away from the computer though, consumers are on-edge about identity theft. Today, people are shredding their receipts, removing their personal information from the face of their checks, and cautiously covering themselves when they type in passwords at public terminals or ATMs. Microchips are being installed on ID cards. People are worried. Tap into this with an ebook!

Safety. Along the same lines as worrying about identity theft, people are worried about their safety from other things like crime, chemical warfare attack, and natural disasters. Watch the evening news tonight, and you will be able to list at least twenty things that people are afraid of. When you talk about safety, you are speaking their language. Titles along the lines of be prepared for any natural disaster would go over well, as would those like never be a crime victim again, how to defend yourself in a parking lot, or prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

How-to manuals for any new product recently on the market. This harks back to the Dummies series but takes it one step further. Target your ebook to people who want to buy the most current commercially available item. How to use the new model John Deere tractor. You will be sure that no one else has a book like yours, and you can say so in your sales pitch.

How to survive any phase of life. People face numerous demons and battles as they live their lives. For many, when they're in need, they'll be reaching out for help. Support groups, private therapy, being with friends, starting over - these are all solid topics for an ebook. You could also reach out specifically to certain people needing emotional assistance. How to get through the terrible two's. How to cope with a cancer diagnosis. Living with your own shortcomings. How to live with someone who is dying. Surviving high school. Any of these will do.

Anything to do with pets. People are pampering their pets more than ever before. Some pets are treated better than people. It's the people who spend small fortunes on their pets that will also be willing to pay good money for an ebook that gives them ideas on how to treat their animals even more royally than they already do.

Write books on how to pamper your parakeet, homemade meals for picky dogs, where the pet spas are, how to train your kids to be cat-friendly, million dollar homes for mutts, which animals make the best pets, or pet psychology.

Traveling mixed with the subjects above. Not only are people traveling like crazy, but they want to customize their itineraries and their methods of travel with their hobbies and lifestyles. Try a few of these on for size: where to dine around the globe and still stay on a low-carb diet plan. Hotels with the best exercise facilities. How to travel exquisitely with large dogs. Crime-proof your campsite. Be creative. There's a market here.

Using the Internet to meet people. As I said, the craze is upon us. Everyone's online, and sometimes folks spend more time chatting with Internet buddies than they do talking face to face with actual friends. I know I've been guilty of this one myself. Anyway, along with the advent of the World Wide Web, came people who need a little help figuring out how to get where they want to get. They want to find like-minded people, find a date, find love, find support.

There's a huge ebook market for hooking people up with people online. Here are just a few things that could be covered: speed dating online, virtual music jams, taking online classes, hooking up with people who share your hobby, and finding online support groups. Any of these and more are of interest to people who wish to get maximum benefit from their ability, thanks to the Internet, to network with people in the farthest reaches of the world. In fact one of the appeals with online communing is that distance does not matter. Help these people in foreign lands find each other with an ebook.

Topics of special interest to women. The facts don't lie. Women dominate the Internet, and they spend or influence spending of 80 cents for every dollar changing hands. What women want has never been so important to business owners and authors.

Certain topics appeal particularly to the female set. These include beauty, health, decorating, emotional support, and life enrichment. Women do a few things, generally, that men don't. They play bunko, wear make-up, and talk for hours to their girlfriends on the phone. They send more greeting cards, prepare more casseroles, and vacuum more often than men. They eat more salads and go shopping more often for clothes. They get more pedicures and love to dance more than the average man.

There are two things to keep in mind with regards to women and ebooks. If you want to attract a female market, you need to write about a topic that women like to read about, and you want to make the title friendly towards women.

Here's a female-oriented subject and title: Where to find great shopping bargains in Taos. And here's a male subject: Where to catch the most fish in Taos.

Here's a female-friendly title (same as above): Where to find great shopping bargains in Taos. And here's a male-friendly title on the same subject: Keep your money in your pocket in Taos. See the difference? Know your market, and if you need to choose between one or the other, you're safe going with the women's title.

Sex. People don't need to sneak out of bookstores with erotic books in their hands anymore, and they know it. They are looking on the Internet for sex materials, toys, and books. The Internet is private, individuals can take their sweet time, and indeed they can surf with or without a lover sharing their chair. There's been a recent ebook success entitled Orgasms for two. There is room for more similar ebooks. On the subject of sex, this is one case where a fiction book may also do the trick. You could create erotic short stories or a how-to-have-great-sex ebook. Either ebook would entice adults interested in this category (and incidentally, most adults are indeed interested in this category).

Get more interesting articles on Internet Marketing at my blog: http://mfuzi.com

About the Author

Hi, my name is Fuzi. I have been in the internet marketing arena since late 1990s. I am sharing some internet marketing ideas with my articles here.

Vintage American Flyer

The Curtiss Model D "Pusher"

Initial inspection of the Curtiss Model D aircraft at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome reveals a biplane, deviating from the other flying pioneer designs in the collection, the Bleriot XI and the Hanriot, which sport single wings and are therefore considered “monoplanes.”  Yet, the Model D’s unique features do not end there.  Indeed, there is neither an open nor an enclosed fuselage, but, instead, an almost box kite-resembling assembly of bamboo, beams, and booms; a horizontal, deflecting surface extending in front of the pilot, reminiscent of a canard; a seat, with a shoulder high, half-circle brace which appears more like something one would wear than sit in; an aft-facing propeller, mounted behind it, which seems as if it could not be definitively determined which end had constituted the “front;” small, horizontal surfaces, located midway and behind, the two wings, leaving one to temporarily wonder if this were a triplane; a tailwheel, prevalent on early-century airplanes, replaced by a nose wheel and resulting in a tricycle configuration; and a small arresting hook below hinting at carrier-based naval aviation.  These features, extensions of the ground-based transportation technology from which they had been derived, comprise geometrically-arranged design solutions to aerodynamic flight, and are innovations and expressions of the man who had conceptualized them all, Glenn Hammond Curtiss.

                Born on May 21, 1878 in Hammondsport, New York, Curtiss, whose middle name had been given in honor of the city’s founding father, had, as a schoolboy, always been interested in mathematics and mechanics and had forged a life path which had closely paralleled that of the contemporary Wright Brothers.  That path would ultimately lead to a mirror-cracking, nine-year lawsuit between the two.

                Although his formal education had ended after the eighth grade, he had nevertheless had a penchant and passion for technical matters and, buoyed by this inspiration, had been entirely self-taught.  Opening, like the Wrights, a local bicycle shop in the wine-cultivating, Finger Lakes region of New York State, he had first repaired them before designing and selling them, establishing, unknown to him at the time, a foundation upon which his interests and abilities would ultimately elevate him as high as the sky, by means of intermittently designed motorized bicycles, or “motorcycles,” light-weight engines, and the airplanes those engines would propel.

                A national bicycle champion at 20, and the first person to be issued a US pilot’s license, he was a founding member of the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) with the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, and won the Scientific American trophy by flying the first aircraft, the bow-winged June Bug biplane, for one kilometer on July 4, 1908.  Although the event had lagged the Wright Flyer triumph at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, by four-and-a-half years, it had been the first to be publicly demonstrated and verified.

                But it had been only the first of many record-breaking flights and feats, none of which, like those of the competing Wright Brothers, had been performed in secrecy.  Indeed, with the Rheims Racer, a development of the June Bug, Curtiss had been able to win the speed prize by flying at 52.63 mph in the Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne, in Rheims, France, competing against such names as Latham, Farman, Bleriot, and Comte de Lambert, and even beating Bleriot in his native country by six seconds and garnering the Gordon-Bennett Trophy

                In the United States, Curtiss had subsequently won the $10,000 Hudson-Fulton Prize by piloting his Albany Flyer from Albany to Manhattan, and his NC-4 design, intended for the Navy, had made the first transatlantic crossing to the Azores in 1919, some eight years before Charles Lindbergh had flown the more northerly route to Paris.  Acquisition and restoration of Samuel Pierpont Langley’s ill-fated Aerodrome had even enabled him to successfully fly that design, thus validating its merits.

                Curtiss, whose nationally-renowned Curtiss Aeroplane Company, the largest during World War I with two plants and more than 100 employees, had succeeded in making numerous, fundamentally important innovations and creating aeronautical designs during the early 20th century, and had, according to Augustus Post, Secretary of the former Aero Club, “worked his way up from the making of bicycles to the making of history.”

                The Curtiss Model D embodied all this experience.  Most closely based upon the Rheims Racer of 1909, which itself had incorporated several Aerial Experiment Association design characteristics, it had significantly deviated from other concurrent aircraft.  The Rheims Racer itself, having evolved into the larger design which had flown between Albany and New York and the ultimate Model D, had featured two identical, directly superimposed, cambered airfoil surfaces constructed of Baldwin rubber silk tacked to spruce ribs and laced to the frame, and mounted five feet apart, forming its biplane configuration.

Power, formerly provided by four-cylinder, air-cooled, 25-hp, vertical engines, which themselves had been little more than adaptations of automobile types, had later been replaced by the more capable V-arrangement, doubling the number of cylinders to eight and horsepower production to 50.  Because of its continuous, full-power requirement, the rear cylinders, mounted in longitudinal configuration, had been more prone to overheating, requiring a cooling method change from the previous air to the present water.  Although the eight-cylinder V-type necessarily bore a weight penalty over the earlier-generation of powerplants, it had offered continuous horsepower for considerable intervals, rendering Curtiss’s biplanes the fastest then in existence.

Characteristic of these earlier designs had been two, 12-square-foot, interconnected ailerons which, in an attempt to deviate from the Wright-patented wing-warping method of inflight blanking, had provided transverse control, while two 24-square-foot elevators, forming a second, smaller biplane and mounted at the end of two bamboo outriggers, pivoted at their meeting point ahead of the pilot in a canard arrangement, effectuating a climb, or upward pitch, and descent, or downward pitch, by means of a respective pull or push of the control column.

The tailplane had been formed by a 15-square-foot, rigid, horizontal surface, providing a stabilizing keel, and a 6.6-square-foot, pivotal, vertical surface mounted at the intersection of bamboo outriggers and connected to the pilot’s steering wheel through their hollow centers, facilitating yaw control.

The aircraft rested on pneumatic, springless, bicycle-like wheels.

All these design features had been incorporated in the later Curtiss Model D, whose ultimate configuration, echoing the methodology applied by the Wright Brothers, had been the result of a systematic approach to overcoming aerodynamic obstacles with design solutions.

The aircraft, with a 26-foot overall length, features neither an open nor an enclosed fuselage, but instead a geometric collection of spruce, ash, and bamboo serving as a common flight surface, control, and undercarriage attachment point, and is comprised of a trapezoid to support the forward elevator; a lower triangle for the pilot’s seat, control column, and nose wheel; dual, horizontal airfoils for lift, below which are the main wheels; and an aft, tailboom-formed triangle extending to the vertical and horizontal tailplane.  The engine, mounted between the two wings, is sandwiched between these forward- and rearward-extending geometries.  Somehow resembling a box kite, which had been dawning, heavier-than-air aviation’s only flying predecessor, it is a prime example of form following function.

Two interplane ailerons, tracing their origins to those developed by Curtiss during his Aerial Experiment Association involvement, had initially been mounted ahead of the cambered wings on the forward struts, but their inter-surface air foil disruption had necessitated their relocation to the rear ones, behind the wings.  Unlike the wing-warping method, which had entailed the twisting of the entire airfoil, these “ailerons,” which translate as “little wings” from the French, and initially appear like a third wing forming a triplane, hinge up or down, creating more lift on one side and inducing a bank in the opposite direction.  Four moveable, triangular-shaped surfaces, mounted on the wingtips of the Curtiss White Wing aircraft, an AEA design, had constituted an earlier attempt to provide lateral control.

The “cockpit,” consisting of little more than an exposed, wooden seat, a wheeled control column, and food pedals, had been based upon the motorcycle and automobile from which the new pilot, according to Curtiss’s ideology, would most likely transition.  Mechanical controls should be a natural connection to the limbs, imitating the dexterity of the human form.  Its controls were the key to the extension from one to the other, resulting in a human-machine interface, and the Model D uniquely introduced three car-like foot pedals.

The first of these, located on the left, released a spring-loaded “claw” beneath the airframe to snag, brake-like, dirt and grass, while the second, in the center, engaged the nose wheel brake, whose simple arrangement had entailed the release of a block which provided friction as it depressed the actual wheel, slowing its rotation.  But the third of the three, located on the right, had, more than any of them, echoed automobile operation, replacing the traditional engine throttle and fully replicating the ground-based gas pedal.

Unlike a car’s steering wheel, which turns its wheels, or an aircraft’s yoke, which differentially deflects its ailerons, the Curtiss Model D’s circular control operated the rudder for aerial banking, a movement traditionally controlled by foot pedals, while the column on which the wheel is mounted actuates the forward, single elevator for pitch, or longitudinal, control, by means of a simplistic bamboo pushrod connection.

The triangular-shaped surfaces extending above and below the horizontal elevator augment yaw-axis stability.

Aileron actualization, whose method had been introduced by the June Bug, is another example of motorcycle technology transfer, its pilot seat-attached shoulder yoke, akin to something one would “wear,” pivots to either side in order to differentially deflect the aileron surfaces themselves, mounted on struts located beyond and between the main wings’ trailing edges.  The pilot only needs to lean toward the raised wing in order to return the airplane to its neutral position.

A radiator separates the pilot from the 80-hp, eight cylinder, V-configured, A-3 Hall-Scott engine built in 1911 and sports an aft-facing, two-bladed wooden propeller, which extends above and below the two trailing edges, thus earning the aircraft its designation of “Pusher.”  A long, cylindrical, almost torpedo-resembling fuel tank is installed below the upper wing.

The aircraft, although primitive in appearance, is actually advanced in operation, incorporating several Curtiss-designed innovations, inclusive of the shoulder yoke aileron control, the ailerons themselves, the foot controls, and the tricycle undercarriage.

Instrumental in the development of naval aviation, the Curtiss Model D, piloted by Eugene Ely, had been the first aircraft to operate from an aircraft carrier, taking off from the USS Birmingham on January 18, 1911 and landing on the USS Pennsylvania ten months later, on October 11, requiring the installation of an arrester hook to do so.  Pontoon-fitted, it had also conducted water operations.  A two-person military version, the Model D Type IV, had been acquired by the US Army Signal Corps, on April 27 of that year, and had been designated “Signal Corps Airplane Number 2.”  “Signal Corps Airplane Number 1” had been a Wright Brothers design.

The Curitss Model D’s unique flight control configuration and tail-heavy balancing require some degree of pilot familiarization.

Engine starting, like that of all early designs, is a two-person procedure, requiring the seated pilot to move the spark advance lever to the “retard” position and to lightly rest his foot on the throttle pedal, while the standing ground attendant, sandwiched between the rear tailbooms, turns the propeller extending from the eight-cylinder engine.  After it has been turned, the spark lever is engaged and it rotates into air and noise circulating life.

The field staff, more than the aircraft’s inherent capabilities, provide guided direction on the ground, since it is devoid of nose wheel steering, despite its novel, tricycle undercarriage configuration, and its rudder is ineffective at slow, initial speeds.

Full engine run-up, with the aircraft pointed toward the wind, ensures fouled plug clearance.

With the biplane pointed in the desired take off direction, and water and oil temperatures within safe ranges, the pilot signals the ground staff to release its grip and the foot-throttle pedal is completely depressed, at which time fuel is piped to the Hall-Scott engine and its full, 80-hp production is verified by its propeller rotation.

Up-elevator deflection, hitherto relieving the nose wheel of excessive ground pressure, is progressively diminished until the air, routed over and down the two cambered, fabric-covered wings with sufficient speed, reduces upper-surface pressure and they react by taking the path of least resistance--upward, and taking the geometric, beam-formed structure to which they are attached with them.

Surrendered to the air, which requires three axes of control, the Model D negotiates the wind with its shoulder yoke-deflecting ailerons, its column-connected canard elevator, and its steering wheel-activating rudder.  The former, directly connected to the pilot’s shoulders, is an interactive maneuver, rendering the aircraft very much an extension of him, as if it were a larger, aerial “body.”

Because of its tail-heavy stability, it requires some degree of down-elevator deflection to maintain straight-and-level flight, and its wooden beam, flat-plate devoid geometry easily results in skids without corrective, coordinated aileron-and-rudder turns.

Aircraft drag, quickly resulting in stalls, and the shock absorber-devoid undercarriage, necessitates gentle, power-on landings.

Initial acquisition of a Curtiss Model D for the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome collection had occurred in the mid-1950s when Cole Palen had attempted to purchase one from a museum in Connecticut, but it had been intermittently sold to someone else.  Never deterred or daunted by obstacles, he had built one himself.  Subsequently preparing it for an Air Force air show, and conducting nocturnal, high-speed taxi tests, however, he had pulled back on the canard elevator-deflecting column and the biplane had rotated into a virtually vertical climb, stalling and crashing back on to the ground with minimal personal injury.

He later built two more reproductions, one of which, completed in 1976 and powered by the original, 1911 Hall-Scott engine obtained from the Smithsonian Institution, had been intended for the Saturday “History of Flight” air shows and still flies today.  It had been demonstrated in Hammondsport, New York, shortly after it had been completed to honor its original designer.

Like all of Old Rhinebeck’s pioneer aircraft, it is restricted to a short hop above the rolling grass field.

Subjected to an extensive reconstruction in the spring of 2002, the aircraft received an upper wing center section refabrication, a new propeller, and an overhaul of its A-3 powerplant, which had entailed disassembly of its crankcase, magnetos, carburetor, cylinders, and heads, taking to the skies so configured on August 10 and making its first aerial circuit in its 27-year history from the Avalon Airport in Geelong during the 2003 Australian International Airshow.

Despite its primitive- and frail-appearing, wood beam, strut, and wire construction geometrically collected in the form of a biplane, the Model D, incorporating many significant, early, 20th-century innovations and advancements, was the product of Glenn Hammond Curtiss’s systematic solution to aerodynamics and aerial flight.  Its controls are an extension of the pilot who flies it.  Its airframe, to which they are attached, is an extension of the man who designed it.

About the Author

A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. I have made some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road.