Eyerly Aircraft Company was an amusement ride manufacturing company in
Salem, Oregon
Salem ( ) is the capital 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, which runs north through the city. The river ...
, founded by
Lee Eyerly in 1930. The company originally intended to design
flight simulators 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 that occurred 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 (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
hit. The first was the Whiffle Hen,
a plane which only burned two US gallons (8 L) of fuel per hour of flight. The second was 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 the
Acroplane.
Amusement rides
A salesman approached Eyerly about selling them to carnivals and parks as an amusement ride after noticing several Acroplanes 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 (1933),
the
Roll-O-Plane,
[ ] 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 whee ...
(1947).
Perhaps their most popular design was the
Octopus
An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) 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, cuttle ...
,
which resulted in later variations: the
Spider and the
Monster
A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...
. Two of the company's kiddie carousel rides were the
Midge-O-Racer and
Bulgy the Whale Bulgy the Whale is a children's amusement ride manufactured by Eyerly Aircraft Company. It consists of eight whale-shaped ride vehicles traveling in a counter-clockwise rotation, similar to a carousel, while traveling up and down small hills. Althou ...
.
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 a Florida fair in 1988, where an arm of an Octopus ride snapped along an existing crack that was paint-covered and missed in inspections.
A 17-year-old female died of head injuries when the basket she was riding in collided with another as it fell to the ground.
A wrongful death lawsuit was brought against the ride's owner and county fair operator for failure to properly inspect and reinforce the ride.
In the wake of the lawsuit, Eyerly Aircraft filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors permanently in 1990.
The intellectual property rights to their rides were later purchased by Oregon Rides Inc.
See also
*
Octopus (ride)
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