On New Year’s Day 1914, pilot Tony Jannus took off from St. Petersburg, Florida, on a scheduled passenger flight to Tampa. On the centennial of that flight, the departure city held a ceremony marking what was the first airline flight in the U.S., and it was planned that a historically accurate replica of Jannus’s Benoist flying boat, under construction for the past two years at Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight aviation attraction, would recreate the flight.
The replica is powered by a reverse-engineered version of the “Roberts 6” inline engine that powered the original. But it appears the team was unable to get the engine to produce enough power to get the small biplane off the water.
