page_title: Emil Matthew Laird
section_title: Childhood, airplane designer, and barnstormer
hierarchical_section_title: Emil Matthew Laird / Biography / Childhood, airplane designer, and barnstormer
caption_attribution_description: English: In 1915 Emil "Matty" Laird built this biplane. He was around 20 years old and this was his third airplane. The plane was known as the Boneshaker due to the strong vibrations produced by its Anzani engine. The plane was designed for exhibition acrobatics and it filled that role well. For instance, at that time it was one of a small number of American planes that could perform the loop-the-loop. Laird loaned the plane to Katherine Stinson for exhibitions in Japan and China. The Boneshaker garnered significant international attention during that tour. The Boneshaker is displayed at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
context_page_description: Emil Matthew Laird was a pioneering American aircraft builder, pilot, and businessman. He put the first commercial aircraft into production at his E. M. Laird Aviation Company.
context_section_description: Laird was born on November 29, 1896 and grew up in Chicago. His father died in 1909. A year later, after Laird completed eighth grade, he was forced to go to work to help support his mother and three siblings. He found a job as an office boy at the First National Bank of Chicago.
  While working at the bank, Laird had his first experience with aviation. He watched Walter Brookins fly a Wright Model A in Chicago’s Grant Park. Laird later described the experience, “I was so thrilled with seeing him fly and maneuver around the land that I said right then and there that I wanted part of it and made up my mind I was going to have it. I didn’t know how, but I would.” Towards that end he started building models and joined a model airplane club.
  Laird's first full-size aircraft was a bicycle with glider wings attached that he built at the age of 15. He then built a monoplane of his own design in his mother's attic and flew it on September 15, 1913, getting 10 feet (3.0 m) off the ground. Four months later, he managed to get twice as high. Laird used the plane to teach himself to fly. After a friend crashed the plane and heavily damaged it, Laird and his friends scavenged its parts and built his second plane, the Laird Baby Biplane, which was completed in 1914. Laird flew the Baby Biplane in local meets.
  The promoter Bill Pickens heard of Laird’s flights in the tiny biplane and hired him to demonstrate aircraft. Laird was paid $350 just to take off and circle a field in the early days of skeptical onlookers. Over the next three years Laird performed as a barnstorming pilot at county fairs all over the Midwest. He also worked during the winter at the Sloan Aircraft plant in Bround Brook, New Jersey, primarily to learn how to better build planes by working under skilled craftsmen. Eventually, Laird became one of the best-known exhibition flyers in the United States.
  During this period, Laird and some colleagues also built a larger biplane. Laird’s 1915 Biplane became known as “Boneshaker” due to the strong vibrations created by its 45-horsepower, six-cylinder Anzani radial engine. With this plane Laird was able to perform several challenging aerobatic maneuvers, including the loop-the-loop. At that time only a handful of American exhibition pilots had both the skill and a plane with enough power and structural strength to perform a loop. In 1916, Laird loaned this plane to Katherine Stinson for the first tour of an airplane in Japan and China. Both Stinson's flying and Laird’s plane garnered significant international attention during the tour. This plane is on display at the Henry Ford Museum.
  In March, 1917, Laird was testing a new biplane built by another designer. During one of the test flights the plane entered a spin from which Laird could not recover. The resulting crash broke numerous of Laird’s bones and he almost lost a leg. He was in the hospital for months and ended up with an improperly knitted elbow, which disqualified him from military service during World War I. Towards the end of the war he returned to Chicago to build airplanes.
caption: Laird 1915 Biplane, also known as Boneshaker. This plane was used by Laird and Katherine Stinson for exhibition flights and received significant attention.
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