By November 11, 1918, the 400 training-machines were delivered and 2,700 D.H.4’s, and the 5,000 order was cut to 3,100, which were to be completed. One thousand eight hundred D.H. S-4’s were shipped to France. The three plants were located near Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Orville Wright was the consulting engineer of the company. In addition to the three large plants which the company operated at the South Field Experimental Station, which had a total of 65,000 square feet, 8,000 people were employed by the company.
The Curtiss Aeroplane Company were making land-machines, seaplanes, and engines for the British Government when the United States entered the struggle. Mr. Curtiss, the inventor of the flying-boat, and the winner of many aeronautical prizes and trophies, was the chairman of the board of directors and Mr. John North Willys president.
In January, 1916, the company was incorporated, and in February of the same year the stock of the Burgess Company of Marblehead, Mass., was acquired by the Curtiss Company. It also controlled the Curtiss Aeroplane Motors, Ltd., of Canada and the flying-fields at Miami, San Diego, Hammondsport, Newport News, and the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station. The company had nine plants and four flying-fields in 1918. The main plant was at Buffalo, N. Y. The chief plant is now at Garden City, Long Island. The plants consisted of 2,000,000 square feet, and employed 18,000 persons.
The company reached a quantity production of 112 complete machines a week, and 50 a day was to be expected had not the armistice been signed on November 11, 1918. Before and during the war the Curtiss plants manufactured 10,000 aeroplanes and flying-boats and 15,000 motors. The Curtiss plants produced a great variety of machines, including Spads, Bristols, and Nieuports. The famous NC-1-2-3-4, which participated in the transatlantic flight, were constructed for the navy by Curtiss Company at Garden City, Long Island.
The Burgess Company was also doing business when the war broke out. The firm was organized in 1909. The company supplied machines to the United States Government for work on the Mexican border in 1914, and many types of seaplanes were also constructed. In 1913 the company secured the rights to manufacture under the Dunne patents, covering inherent stability.
The Burgess plant at Marblehead, Mass., was one chosen by the navy to build training-seaplanes producing N-9 and N-9-H seaplanes. The company started producing one plane a day, but finally got up to four a day, and employed 1,100 men and women. The company also built turn-engine dirigible cars for the navy.
The Glenn L. Martin Company of Cleveland, Ohio, was organized in the fall of 1917 with the idea of building a gigantic American bomber for work with the Allies in Europe. The first machine was flown in August, 1918. Mr. Martin had been the organizer of the Glenn L. Martin Company of Los Angeles in 1910, and had also been interested in the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation of New York and New Brunswick, N. J.
The Martin bomber constructed by this company had a wing spread of 71 feet and length of 45 feet. It carried 11 passengers and pilot, and made several records.
The factory consisted of a single structure of 300 by 200 feet. The war ended before the company got into quantity production of the huge bomber.
The L-W-F Engineering Company, Inc., was organized in December, 1915, and the plant was located at College Point, Long Island, N. Y. The factory has a floor space of 250,000 square feet. The company built training-machines and flying-boats for the government. The L-W-F fuselage is of the monocoque type, which means “one shell” as regards the body. It is of streamline laminated wood.