| |
Gnome Engine
via email from Pete Jones, 9-1-08
Ralph,
The rotary engine in Katherine's plane in the photos of this section is the actual Gnome engine
retrieved from Lincoln Beachey's fatal plane crash in March 1915. I've always thought it was kind of
strange that Katherine would
want a piece of equipment with a forgive me, a sort of gruesome air about it. But the engine was retrieved from the bottom of
San Francisco bay along with Beachey's body and ran quite perfectly for Katherine.
This lends a bit of fact that there was
nothing wrong with Beachey's motor, it was his aircraft, a monoplane as opposed to the Curtiss he always flew, that broke apart
hurling him into the bay |
|
<
