First Indiana-Built Airplane

Constructed at Fisher Garage, the service facility of Indianapolis Motor Speedway Founder Carl Fisher's automobile business, the image you see here is the first airplane constructed in Indianapolis, and probably the state of Indiana. An incurable entrepreneur, Fisher harbored a vision of moving into the airplane construction business - a dream that was never realized. This image is derived from library microfilm records of a photograph published in the December 11, 1909, Indianapolis News.
 
Below is the information published in support of the photo.
 
"The first airship ever built in Indianapolis has been completed at the garage of the Fisher Automobile Company, and it is also the first turned out by the company organized by C.G. Fisher for the manufacture of aeroplanes. Several more will follow and they will be sent to aviation enthusiasts in various parts of the country.
 
The only thing which stands in the way of aeroplaning becoming a simple and safe popular sport lies in the tendency to continual 'air-skids' caused by varying air currents which are encountered. It is true that experience soon teaches the operator to check these 'air-skids' unconsciously, just as the clever automobile driver checks the tendency of his car to skid on greasy asphalt without conscious effort. But this does not alter the fact that this condition is most trying to the novice fifty feet or more off the earth and naturally nervous in consequence. A.P. Warner, of Beloit, Wis., the well-known inventor of the auto-meter, which accurately indicates the speed of an automobile in miles per hour, claims to have the problem practically solved and will shortly equip his Curtiss aeroplane with the new device. Aviators in all countries are watching Warner's experiments with much interest and confirm his own promise that, when this one problem is successfully solved, the aeroplane is at once put on a commercial basis and will rapidly replace the automobile for those who drive for the exhilaration and pleasure there is in it. Much interest is also manifested by students of aeroplaning in the new aeroplane anemometer, designed to indicate the speed of airships, another Warner invention, which is being tried out on Waner's airship."