<text id=00he0201><title>The First Specification</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>The First Specification</hdr><body>
<p>The Aeronautical Division drafted Specification No. 486, basing it on Wilbur's estimates of the performance of his proposed aircraft, and issued it for competitive bidding on 23 December 1907. The specification outlined an airplane that would carry two persons with a combined weight of 350 lb (158 kg), and enough fuel for a 125-mile (201-km) flight. Required speed was a minimum of 40 mph (64 km/h). A 10 per cent bonus was offered for each mile per hour speed gain to a top of 44 mph (71 km/h), and a 10 per cent penalty would be assessed for each mile per hour below 40 mph (64 km/h), with total rejection if the craft did not meet or exceed 36 mph (58 km/h). It was desirable that the machine could be easily assembled and taken apart for transportation in army wagons. It should take about one hour to assemble and put into operational condition.
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<p>The machine had to be able to takeoff "... in any country which might he encountered in field service." The starting system had to be simple and transportable, and the plane had to be able to land on an unprepared field without damage. Further, it had to have some device to permit safe descent in case the propulsion system broke down.
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<p>And finally, "It should be sufficiently simple in its construction and operation to permit an intelligent man to become proficient in its use within a reasonable length of time."
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<p>When the specification became public knowledge, the Army became the target for an outcry of disbelief. Newspaper editorials pointed out that nothing even approaching such a machine had been built, let alone flown. Even the <hi format=ital>American Magazine of Aeronautics</hi>, supposedly a learned journal, criticized the Army for asking the impossible; such performance requests could lead only to failure to achieve them. There would be no bidders, the magazine predicted.
