early 20th century

This sounds like a fascinating series of competitions (with more than fifty registrants and twenty flying prototypes in some years). I'm quite curious to no more about it. I've found references (and photos) of a few individual contenders - but trying to figure out what the designers were...

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and futurist. He was an important contributor to the use of commercial electricity, and is best known for developing the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply...