Eyerly Aircraft Company was an amusement ride manufacturing company in

Salem, Oregon Salem ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County, Oregon, Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, w ...

, founded by

Lee Eyerly Lee Ulrich Eyerly (February 22, 1892 – March 23, 1963) was an American civil aviation pioneer and amusement ride manufacturer. Eyerly helped found Salem, Oregon, Salem Oregon's McNary Field, built the Flying E Ranch in Wickenburg, Arizona and i ...

in 1930. The company originally intended to design

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

s for the aircraft industry but shifted to amusement rides after an early simulator, called Orientator, became a popular pay-per-ride attraction with the public. The company manufactured rides until 1985 and went bankrupt in 1990, following a fatal accident in 1988 on a ride built by the company.

Aircraft manufacturing

Lee Eyerly founded Eyerly Aircraft Company in 1930 to manufacture two inexpensive ways to train pilots which he devised when the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

hit: the Whiffle Hen, a plane which only burned two US gallons (8 L) of fuel per hour of flight, and a ground-based flight training device patented under the name "Orientator". The Orientator consisted of a small airplane suspended in what looked like the tines of a giant tuning fork. Air from the electrically driven propeller passed over the wings and rudder, and the operator controlled the movements of the plane in a manner similar to a real aircraft. The Orientator was produced commercially and eventually renamed "Acroplane".

Amusement rides

A salesman approached Eyerly about selling Acroplanes to carnivals and parks as an amusement ride after noticing several stored on the lot outside Eyerly's shop. While Eyerly was initially skeptical, he agreed to a deal which led to selling about 50 Acroplanes as an amusement ride. The following year, Eyerly changed the company's focus from aircraft to amusement rides based on the successful sales. Eyerly developed and patented numerous amusement rides which would become staples of carnival midways, including The

Loop-O-Plane The Loop-O-Plane is an amusement park ride that originated in America. It was invented by Lee Eyerly and manufactured by the Eyerly Aircraft Company of Salem, Oregon, in 1933. The ride was immediately popular with customers and became a staple of ...

(1933), the

Roll-O-Plane The Roll-O-Plane, also known as the Bullet is an amusement park ride that originated in America. It was invented by the Eyerly Aircraft Company of Salem, Oregon, as an updated and more exciting version of the Loop-O-Plane. The ride is commonly nic ...

, the Fly-O-Plane and the

Rock-O-Plane The Rock-O-Plane is an amusement park ride designed by Lee Eyerly in 1948 and manufactured by the Eyerly Aircraft Company of Salem, Oregon. It is sometimes nicknamed "the cages" or "the eggs". Its shape is similar to that of a Ferris wheel, b ...

(1947). Perhaps their most popular design was the

Octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

, which resulted in later variations: the

Spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

and the

Monster A monster is a type of imaginary or fictional creature found in literature, folklore, mythology, fiction and religion. They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes Anxiety, terror ...

. Two of the company's kiddie carousel rides were the Midge-O-Racer and Bulgy the Whale. Although Eyerly's manufacturing business became amusement rides, the name of the company remained Eyerly Aircraft Company. A partial list of the Eyerly Aircraft Company rides and their locations follows.

Closure

Eyerly Aircraft Company continued to produce amusement rides until 1985. A fatal accident occurred at the Broward County Fair in Florida in 1988, when an arm (carrying four rider baskets) of a Monster ride snapped along an existing crack that had been painted over years before, and had then been missed in inspections. A 17-year-old girl died of head injuries when the basket she was riding in collided with another as it fell to the ground, and at least six others were injured. A wrongful death lawsuit was brought against the ride's owner and county fair operator for failure to properly inspect and reinforce the ride, despite Eyerley's warning bulletins recommending maintenance. Following the lawsuit against the operator, Eyerly Aircraft's insurance premiums increased and became unaffordable; the company filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1990. The rights to their rides were later purchased by Oregon Rides Inc.

References

{{Amusement rides Amusement ride manufacturers Companies based in Salem, Oregon 1930 establishments in Oregon Manufacturing companies established in 1930 Defunct manufacturing companies based in Oregon Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1985 1985 disestablishments in Oregon

Aircraft manufacturing

Amusement rides

Closure

See also

References