“The tallest airplane ever built” is the title to this picture which appeared in the “Chronicle of the Car” section of the Illustrated London News for 22 February 1908. The plane is the work and vision of J.W. Roshon, a photographer from Harrisburg Pa. Somehow, Mr. Roshon designed this thing to fly–that it could roll, and perhaps even taxi, is one thing, but flying really doesn’t seem to be part of its performable agenda. The plane was made of “aluminum and steel tubing, bamboo, and steel wire… and measured 24 feet wide, 8 feet deep, and 17 feet high”, and held 900 square feet of canvas. This all sounds very heavy to me, especially when you consider that the engine weighed 50 pounds and generated seven horsepower. By contrast, the Wright I Flyer (the famous first-flight airplane of 1903) had a wingspan of 40 feet, weighed 625 pounds and sported a 12 horsepower, 170 pound engine (and which by the way was all produced for about a thousand dollars).
Its hard to see, but the pilot is prone, and laying left-to-right, and the plane really does seem to be 8 feet long, stem to stern. I cannot find out what happened to the canvas and tubing and pilot after the test flight (where “flight” means “roll”).
