{"id":2111,"date":"2010-03-07T21:29:09","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T21:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=941"},"modified":"2018-11-08T14:48:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T19:48:32","slug":"100th-year-anniversary-of-first-commercial-aviation-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/fantasy-of-flight\/100th-year-anniversary-of-first-commercial-aviation-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"100th Year Anniversary of first Commercial Aviation Flight!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On January 1st, 2010 I made the announcement that Fantasy of Flight will build a reproduction of the Benoist flying boat which made the first ever commercial flight on January 1st, 1914. \u00a0It was a two person aircraft that pilot Tony Jannus flew from St. Petersburg across the Bay\u00a0to Tampa. \u00a0The flight was flown at between 15 and 50 feet and took twenty-three minutes. \u00a0After some fanfare, he flew back! \u00a0Prior to the flight there was an auction and the Mayor of St. Petersburg bid $400 for the honor of being the first ever commercial passenger. \u00a0The later normal fare was $5 and, in the first year of operation, they made about 1200 successful flights!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Benoist-flying.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-947 colorbox-2111\" title=\"Benoist flying\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Benoist-flying.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"466\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>While several other reenactments have been made over the years with different airplanes, our intent is to build an airplane\u00a0as accurate as possible, including using a six-cylinder Roberts 2-cycle engine, which we intend to build as well! \u00a0Since Fantasy of Flight is all about pushing boundaries, this was a great opportunity for myself and the Aircraft Department to push ours!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1148\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 560px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Kermit-and-Tony-in-BenoistJPG.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1148  colorbox-2111\" title=\"Kermit and Tony in BenoistJPG\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Kermit-and-Tony-in-BenoistJPG.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"512\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kermit and Tony Jannus in Benoist replica at St. Pete Museum<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1192\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 560px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Roberts-engine.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1192  colorbox-2111\" title=\"Roberts engine\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Roberts-engine.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"424\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">75 hp Roberts 2-Cycle Engine<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Currently, we are doing research on the aircraft and engine and hope to begin construction sometime next year. \u00a0We hope to have the airplane ready for test-flights by the summer of 2013. Fortunately, we have a lake on site where we can safely begin testing and tweaking. \u00a0I thought it was interesting the original flight was covered on the front page of the St. Pete Times and our announcement was as well . . . 96 years later!<\/p>\n<p>Kermit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 1st, 2010 I made the announcement that Fantasy of Flight will build a reproduction of the Benoist flying boat which made the first ever commercial flight on January 1st, 1914. \u00a0It was a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,31,11,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benoist","category-calendar-events","category-fantasy-of-flight","category-kermit-weeks","100th-year-anniversary-of-first-commercial-aviation-flight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6369,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions\/6369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}