page_title: History of aviation in Canada
section_title: Aerial experiments by Bell
hierarchical_section_title: History of aviation in Canada / Experiments and exhibitions / Aerial experiments by Bell
context_page_description: The history of aviation in Canada begins with the first manned flight in a balloon at Saint John, New Brunswick in 1840. Development of the aviation industry in Canada was shaped by the interplay of Canadian national ambitions, national and international politics, economics, and technology. Experimental aviation started in Canada with the test flights of Bell's Silver Dart in 1909, following the epochal flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903. The experimental phase gave way to use of aircraft in warfare and many Canadians served in the British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during the First World War.
  After the war, aircraft turned from an expensive novelty into a vital transportation tool, particularly useful in exploration and development of Canada's North. Canadians who had served with the RAF put their acquired aviation skills to peacetime use. Aviation was applied to the task of tying together far-flung communities in the North, and to gather information on the natural resources of the country. Aircraft were as important to opening up the North as the railway was to opening the West in the previous century. Between the wars many small regional airlines were founded.
context_section_description: Alexander Graham Bell had organized the Aerial Experiment Association for the development of aviation, which was funded by his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard from sale of some of her real estate. AEA member Frederick Walker Baldwin was the first Canadian to pilot an aircraft in 1908, although not in Canada. The first powered heavier-than-air flight in Canada occurred on Bras d'Or Lake at Baddeck, Nova Scotia on February 23, 1909, when John Alexander Douglas McCurdy piloted the AEA Silver Dart over a flight of less than 1 kilometer.
  McCurdy and Baldwin in  August 1909 demonstrated the Silver Dart and the Baddeck No.1, a second aircraft built in Canada, to Canadian military authorities at Camp Petawawa. Both aircraft were damaged during the demonstrations and so did not impress the military authorities, who lost interest in using such aircraft. McCurdy later flew a record-setting over water flight from Florida nearly to Cuba in 1910. A trial flight to transport newspapers from Montreal to Ottawa in 1913 ended in a crash.
caption: Canada's first aircraft, the AEA Silver Dart
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