42 Nebraskaland • October 2023
hen Charles Baysdorfer prepared for takeoff near
Waterloo, he was piloting a homebuilt biplane on
its maiden flight, but he hadn't taken any lessons or
flown in an airplane before. Manufactured planes and
professional training were hard to come by in 1910.
On that day, Nov. 21, however, Baysdorfer became the first
Nebraskan pilot and the first to fly a Nebraska-built plane.
No one who knew Charles and his brothers would have been
at all surprised.
The sons of German immigrants, the Baysdorfer brothers —
Otto, Charles and Gus — moved with their parents to Omaha
from Davenport, Iowa, in 1887. Otto opened a bicycle shop
and learned to repair electrical motors. When local merchant
Emil Brandeis bought the city's first "horseless carriage" in
1895, Otto and his younger brothers began designing their
own. Built entirely of locally fabricated parts designed by
the brothers, the "Ottomobile" was completed in 1898 and
became the first Nebraska-built car.
"Instead of a radiator, they had a water tank under the
seat," the Omaha World-Herald reported on Nov. 27, 1910,
"and after the car had gone a few miles, this became so hot,
that, — well the driver arose and stood up for a time, and let
the car stop for a little rest."
The brothers then designed an engine they could mount on
a bicycle — one of the city's first motorcycles. A World-Herald
profile of Otto on March 5, 1933, also credited the brothers
with building the city's first X-ray machine, with operating
the "first motion picture machine at the first movie shown
here," and with "inventing a sparkplug, a gasoline gauge and
various devices which brought them money and acclaim."
Charles left Omaha for four years in the early 1900s,
touring the country as a balloonist and parachute jumper.
The modern parachute harness had not yet been invented.
Parachutists of the day straddled a sling and held onto a
trapeze bar. Charles's specialty was the double jump. He
would let go of his parachute and free-fall for a few seconds
— while onlookers shrieked below — before a second chute
Nebraska's First Aviators
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
W
The Baysdorfers
Two of the Baysdorfer brothers and their "Ottomobile" in
1898. Omaha World-Herald, March 5, 1933.
Charles Baysdorfer, pictured in the Omaha World-Herald,
July 19, 1925.
RIGHT: Charles Baysdorfer's
fi rst airplane fl ight, Waterloo,
Nebraska. Omaha World-
Herald, Nov. 27, 1910.
