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Bates Airplane Factory
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Workers in Carl Bates' airplane factory in Chicago. The history of Bates' various aviation enterprises is sketchy, but it is known that he built airplanes and motors in Chicago until about 1912 when he sold out to the Edward Heath company and that he went into business again on his own during World War I. It is likely that this photograph of fuselage construction dates from that era.
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W0146E0
WHi 11765
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Iowa's First Flyer
August 1912
The monoplane built by Carl S. Bates, an aeronautical inventor originally from Clear Lake, Iowa.
Iowa's First Flyer
March 1909
Carl Bates in his airplane. The bottom half of the card shows the beginning of a race between Bates' invention and an automobile. Bates was from Clear Lake, Iowa, where he experimented with gliders...
Iowa's First Flyer
March 1909
Carl S. Bates, a young inventor from Clear Lake, Iowa, about to race the Buick owned by Louis Strang on the beach at Daytona Beach. Bates originally challenged Curtiss and the Wright Brothers to a...
Iowa's First Flyer
March 1909
The airplane invented by Carl S. Bates on the beach at Daytona Beach, Florida. Coverage of this event by a local newspaper noted that the advantages of Bates' machine included a highly efficient an...
Iowa's First Flyer
1906
The monoplane glider built and flown by Carl S. Bates of Clear Lake, Iowa. During the previous year Bates had built a bi-plane glider.
Home-Built Heath
1932
Ray and Carl Breecher's Heath parasol monoplane while still under construction in their father's garage. Despite extensive modification, the plane crashed during a test flight in 1934. The E.B. Hea...