AEA June Bug

<!-- This article is a part of WikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout. -->The June Bug (or Aerodrome #3) was an early US aircraft designed and flown by Glenn H. Curtiss and built by the Aerial Experiment Association (A.E.A) in 1908. The June Bug is famous for winning the first aeronautical prize, the Scientific American Cup, ever awarded in the United States.

Design and development

A solid silver sculpted trophy, and $25,000 in cash, would be awarded to whoever made the first public flight of over 1 kilometer (3,280&nbsp;ft). Glenn Curtiss had a hobby of collecting trophies, and he and the Aerial Experiment Association built the June Bug with hopes of winning the Scientific American Cup.

Aerodrome #3 included the previously used aileron steering system, but a shoulder yoke made it possible for the pilot to steer by leaning from side to side. The term aileron is believed to have been coined when describing the June Bug. The varnish that sealed the wing fabric cracked in the heat, and so a mixture of turpentine, paraffin, and gasoline, later to be known as wing dope, was created. The June Bug had yellow wings because yellow ochre was added to the wing mixture in order to make the aircraft show up better in photographs.

It was named by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell after the common Phyllophaga, a beetle known colloquially in North America as the "June bug," because June bugs were observed to fly similarly to...
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