The Curtiss Aviation Book

Transcriber's Note

This book was transcribed from scans of the original found at the Internet Archive. I have rotated some images.

Copyright, 1910, by The Pictorial News Co.

CURTISS' HUDSON RIVER FLIGHT OVER THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

THE CURTISS

AVIATION BOOK

BY

GLENN H. CURTISS

AND

AUGUSTUS POST

WITH CHAPTERS BY CAPTAIN PAUL W. BECK, U. S. A.

LIEUTENANT THEODORE G. ELLYSON, U. S. N.

AND HUGH ROBINSON

With Numerous Illustrations from Photographs

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1912, by

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign

languages, including the Scandinavian

October, 1912

TO

MRS. MABEL G. BELL

WHO MADE POSSIBLE THE AERIAL EXPERIMENT ASSOCIATION

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHORS

Table of Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS

[PART I BOYHOOD AND EARLY EXPERIMENTS OF GLENN H. CURTISS by Augustus Post]

[CHAPTER I THE COMING AIRMEN AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER]

The time has come when the world is going to need a new type of men–almost a new race. These are the Flying Men. The great dream of centuries has come true, and man now has the key to the sky. Every great invention which affects the habits and customs of a people brings about changes in the people themselves. How great, then, must be the changes to be brought about by the flying machine, and how strangely new the type of man that it carries up into a new world, under absolutely new conditions!

Each year there will be more need of flying men; so that in telling this story of a pioneer American aviator, his struggles, failures, and successes, it has been the desire to keep in mind not only the scientific elders who are interested in angles of incidence, automatic stability and the like, but also the boys and girls–the air pilots of the future. It is hoped that there will be in these introductory chapters–for whose writing, be it understood, Mr. Curtiss is not responsible a plain unvarnished story of an American boy who worked his way upward from the making of bicycles to the making of history, an inspiration for future flights, whether in imagination or aeroplanes, and that even the youngest reader will gain courage to meet the obstacles and to overcome the difficulties which Glenn H. Curtiss met and overcame in his progress to fame.

Here is a man who is a speed marvel who has beat the world at it. First on land, riding a motorcycle, next in a flying machine, and finally in a machine that was both water and air craft, which sped over the surface of the sea faster than man had ever travelled on that element, and which rose into the air and came back to land with the speed of the fastest express train; a man who traveled at the rate of one hundred and thirty-seven miles an hour on land, fifty-eight miles an hour on the water and who won the first International speed championship in the air.

More than that, they may see what sort of a boy came to be the speed champion and to know some of the traits that go to make the successful airman, for it is said of the great aviators, as of the great poets, they are born flying men, and not developed. The successful flying man and maker of flying machines, such as Glenn H. Curtiss has shown himself to be, realises how dangerous is failure, and builds slowly. He builds, too, on his experience gained from day to day; having infinite patience and dogged perseverance. And yet a great aviator must be possessed of such marvelous quickness of thought that he can think faster than the forces of nature can act, and he must act as fast as he thinks.

He must be so completely in harmony with Nature and her moods that he can tell just when is the right time to attempt a dangerous experiment, and so thoroughly in control of himself that he can refuse to make the experiment when he knows it should not be made, even though urged by all those around him to go ahead. He must feel that nothing is impossible, and yet he must not attempt anything until he is sure that he is ready and every element of danger has been eliminated, so far as lies in human power. He must realise that he cannot change the forces of nature, but that he can make them do his work when he understands them. Some of these qualities must be inbred in the man, but the life-story of Glenn H. Curtiss shows how far energy, courage, and tireless perseverance will go toward bringing them out.

It is from among the country boys that the best aviators will be found to meet the demands of the coming Flying Age. They have been getting ready for it for a long time long before the days of Darius Green. Does any one now read "Phaeton Rogers," that story of the inventive boy back in the eighties, and recall the "wind-wagon" which was one of his many inventions? There were many like him then, and there are more like him now; always tinkering at something, trying to make it "go," and go fast. And there are many of these who are building up, perhaps without knowing it, the strong body, the steady brain, courage, perseverance, and the power of quick decision the character of the successful airmen of the future.

The history of aviation is very brief, expressed in years. In effort it covers centuries. First come the inventors, a calm, cautious type of men, holding their ideas so well in trust that they will not risk their lives for mere display and the applause of the crowd. Then the exploiters, eager for money and fame; men who develop the possibilities of the machines, always asking more and getting more in the way of achievement with each new model built. Though covering a period of less than a half score of years, aviation already has its second generation of flyers, pupils trained by the pioneers, young and ambitious, eager to explore the new element that has been made possible by their mentors. From the country districts, where the blood is red, the brain steady and the heart strong, will come many an explorer of the regions of the air. Just as the city boy in developing the wireless telegraph strings his antennae on the housetops and the roofs of the giant skyscrapers, so will the country boy develop his glider or his aeroplane in the pasture lands and on the steep hillsides of his own particular territory, and we shall have a race of flying men to carry on the development of the flying machine until it shall reach that long dreamed-of and sought-for perfection.

[CHAPTER II BOYHOOD DAYS]

Glenn Hammond Curtiss was born at Hammondsport, New York, May 21, 1878. His middle name shows his connection with the pioneer family for which the town is named. Then Hammondsport was a port for canal boats that came up Lake Keuka; nowadays it is an airport for the craft of the sky. It is a quaint little town, lying on the shores of a beautiful lake that stretches away to Penn Yann, twenty miles to the north. Glenn's old home was called Castle Hill. It was nearly surrounded by vineyards and fruit trees. It was once the property of Judge Hammond, who built the first house in Hammondsport. On this site now stands the Curtiss factories.

All about Hammondsport are the great vineyards that have made the town famous for its wine, for Hammondsport is in the very heart of the grape-growing section of New York State. These vineyards give the boys of Hammondsport a fine opportunity to earn money each year, and Glenn was always among those who spent the vacation time in tying up grape vines, and in gathering the fruit on Saturdays and at other odd times.

Some of the neighbours' children picked wintergreen and flowers, and sold them to the summer excursionists. One time Glenn was invited to go with them. He sold six bunches for sixty cents. His mother applied the amount toward a pair of shoes in order to teach him the use and value of money. He was then three years old and wore a fresh white dress and a blue sash.

Glenn was afterwards taught how to prune and tie vines and gather fruit and at harvest time he was often seen with pony and wagon making a fast run to the station to get the last load of grapes on the train.

With the care of his sister and the work on the home vineyard, life was not all play, for Glenn was "The Man of the House," after his father's death, which occurred when he was four years old. At this time, he went with his mother and sister, to live with his grandmother who lived on the outskirts of the village.

Hammondsport is divided by the main street, and the boys of the two sections, like the boys in cities, were always at war. The factional lines were tightly drawn and many were the combats between the up-town boys and the low-town boys. The hill boys had a den in the side of a bank that sloped down from Grandma Curtiss' yard, walled in with stones of a convenient size. This gave them good ammunition and a great advantage in time of battle.

Among the members of the up-town gang were, "Fatty" Hastings and "Short" Wheeler, "Jess" Talmadge and "Cowboy" Wixom and Curtley, as the boys called Curtiss. He was captain of the band, because he had a sort of ownership of the den. Thus the war waged until one day they punctured Craton Wheeler's dog "Pickles," which so infuriated the enemy of the lower village that they were on the point of storming the fort in the hillside from above, and would no doubt have done so had they not chanced to trample upon Grandma Curtiss' flower beds which caused this indignant lady to issue forth and put the entire gang to rout. The cave continued to be a safe refuge for the hillside gang until "Fatty" Hastings grew too big to squeeze through the entrance and sometimes got stuck just as the gang was ready to sally forth against the enemy, or blocked the whole crew when they were in retreat.

During the winter months Glenn gave his hand to making skate-sails, and became very proficient at it, and when summer came and the boys went on bird-nesting excursions in the woods, he was usually the daring one who allowed himself to be lowered by a rope over the cliff's edge or climbed to the topmost limbs of the big hickory trees. At school, mathematics was young Curtiss's strong point, and when finally he came to pass his final examinations in the high school, he topped his class in that study with a perfect score of one hundred, and in Algebra he stood ninety-nine. It is reassuring, however, to find that in spelling he was barely able to squeeze through with a percentage of seventy-five. Glenn sometimes slipped up on the figuring, but the principle was usually right; he had figured that out beforehand. The boys of Hammondsport used to say that Glenn would think half an hour to do fifteen minutes' work. One wonders what they would have said, if they had been told that in after years he was to think and plan and scheme for a year, and then when he was all ready, to wait hour after hour, day after day, to accomplish something requiring a little more than two hours' time; like his flight from Albany to New York, the first great cross-country flight made in America.

When Curtiss was twelve years old his family went to live in Rochester, New York, so that his sister might be able to attend a school for the deaf at that place. He went on working at Rochester after school hours and during vacation time, first as a telegraph messenger, then in the great Eastman Kodak works, assembling cameras. He was one of the very first boys hired by that establishment to replace men at certain kinds of work, and while the men had received twelve dollars a week, Glenn received but four dollars. Before long, however, he had induced his employers to make his work a piece-work job, and had improved the process of manufacture and increased the production from two hundred and fifty to twenty-five hundred a day. He was thus able to earn from twelve to fifteen dollars a week. It was while employed in the camera works at Rochester that Curtiss saved the life of a companion who had fallen through the ice on the Erie canal. When praised for his act of bravery he simply remarked: "I pulled him out because I was the nearest to him."

All during the time that Curtiss was working for others for wages, he continued to tinker making things and then taking them apart. Once he told some of his companions that he could make, out of a cigar box, a camera that would take a good picture. Of course they laughed at him and bet that he couldn't do it. But Glenn did do it, and a picture of his sister with a book was produced and is still unfaded, and in good condition, in possession of his family. He constructed a complete telegraph instrument out of spools, nails, tin, and wire and this so impressed the lady with whom the Curtisses boarded that she remarked to one of her friends that "Glenn Curtiss will make his mark in the world some day; you mark my words." This particular lady tells of the time that Glenn used to talk of airships, and he was not yet sixteen years old. Curtiss was fond of all sorts of sports, taking part in the games the boys would get up after school and on Saturdays. He liked to play ball, to run, jump, swim, and to ride a bicycle.

His time was too much taken up, however, with more productive efforts, such as the wiring of dwellings for electric light or telephones, to permit of much time being given to boyish sports.

He was most original and had a keen sense of humour. He was fond of an argument, and had one striking characteristic; once he had made up his mind as to the why and wherefore of a thing, he could never be induced to change it. To illustrate this trait; one day an argument arose between Glenn and another boy as to whether or not a whale is a fish, Glenn holding that it could be nothing but a fish. The other boy finally reenforced his argument by producing a dictionary to show that a whale is not a fish, whereupon Curtiss asserted that the dictionary was wrong and refused to accept it as authority.

Curtiss was always eager for speed–to get from one place to another in the quickest time with the least amount of effort. He was obsessed with the idea of travelling fast. One of the first things he remembers, says Curtiss, was seeing a sled made by one of his father's workmen for his son beat every other sled that dashed down the steep snow-clad hills around Hammondsport. He begged his father to let "Gene" make him a sled that would go faster than Linn's. "Gene" made the sled and Glenn painted it red, with a picture of a horse on it. Furthermore, he beat every sled in Hammondsport or thereabouts.

The bicycle became all the rage when Curtiss was growing into his early teens and nothing was more certain than that he should have one as soon as he could earn enough money to buy it. And when he got it he made it serve his purposes in delivering telegrams, newspapers, and such like. He developed speed and staying powers as a rider, and soon thought nothing of making the trip from Rochester to Hammondsport to see his grandmother, who still lived in the old home in that village. The roads of New York were not as good as they are nowadays, when the automobile forces improvements of the highways, but Curtiss rode fast nevertheless. In fact, he managed all his regular work this way. His idea was first, to find out just how to do it, and then do it. Then he would find out how fast a certain task could be performed, and get through with it at top speed. The surplus time he devoted to tinkering with something new.

Grandmother Curtiss finally prevailed upon him to go back to Hammondsport and live with her. For a time after his return he assisted a local photographer and his experience in photography gained at this time has since proved of great value to him, and, incidentally, to the history of aviation; for in photographing his experiments Curtiss' pictures have a distinct value, as much for being taken just at the right instant, as for their pictorial detail. Following his photographic employment, Curtiss took charge of a bicycle repair shop. It was a little shop down by the principal hotel in Hammondsport, but Curtiss foresaw the popularity and later the cheapness of the bicycle, and he believed the shop would do a good business. James Smellie owned the shop, but Curtiss' mechanical skill soon asserted itself and he became the practical boss. This was in 1897. George Lyon, a local jeweler, was a competitor of Smellie's in the bicycle business, and got up a big race around the valley, a distance of five miles over the rough country roads. When Smellie heard of the race he made up his mind that Curtiss could win it and went about arranging the equipment of his employee. That race has passed into the real history of the town of Hammondsport. Everybody in the town and the valley was there, and great was the excitement when the riders lined up for the start. They started from a point near the monument in front of the Episcopal church and within a few moments after the crack of the pistol they were all out of sight, swallowed up in the dust clouds that marked their progress up the valley. After a long interval of suspense a solitary rider appeared on the home stretch, hunched down over his handle-bars and riding for dear life, without a glance to right or left. It was Curtiss, who probably has never since felt the same thrill of pride at the shouts of the crowd. The next man was fully half a mile in the rear when Glenn crossed the finish-line.

This was Curtiss' first bicycle race, but later he acquired greater speed and experience and rode in many races at county fairs in the southern part of New York State. What's more, he won all of his races. This was good for his bicycle business, which thrived in the summer, but languished in the winter. During the dull period Curtiss took up electrical work, wiring houses, putting in electric bells, and doing similar work of a mechanical nature. An incident is told of his mechanical skill at this time that illustrates his inquisitive mind. An acetylene gas generator in one of the stores got out of order one day, and no one in the store could tell just how to repair it. Curtiss had never seen a gas generator, but that did not deter him from going at it. He studied it out in a little while and then put his finger on the trouble. After that the generator worked better than ever. A little later he decided to build a gas generator after his own ideas. He started with two tomato cans and built it.

This was the first appearance of Curtiss' two tomato cans. They played an important part in his subsequent experimental work, figuring all the way through from this first gas generator to the carburetor of a motorcycle, and at last to enlarge the water capacity of Charles K. Hamilton's engine on his aeroplane so that he might cool his engine better in making the record flight from New York to Philadelphia and return in the same day. In this first case the two tomato cans developed into an acetylene gas plant with several improvements, and his own home and shop were lighted by it. Later the plant was enlarged so as to furnish light for several business houses of Hammondsport.

[CHAPTER III BUILDING MOTORS AND MOTORCYCLE RACING]

In the spring of 1900 Curtiss embarked in the bicycle business for himself, opening a shop near his old place of employment. This shop soon came to be known as the "industrial incubator," because experiments of many kinds were tried there a hatching-place for all sorts of new machines. The first one developed was destined to open up to Curtiss a new field of action, one that furnished the opportunity for new speed records, and enlarged the scope of his activities beyond the limits of the little town and the valley, and spread before him possibilities as wide as the boundaries of the continent.

Curtiss had ridden a bicycle in races, and got the utmost speed out of it; but the bicycle, as a man-propelled vehicle, did not travel fast enough to suit him. He therefore set about devising means for increasing its speed possibilities. One day Smellie, his old employer, came into Curtiss' shop, tired out and perspiring from his efforts in pedaling his bicycle up the hill. "Glenn," he said, "I'm going to give the blamed thing up until they get something to push it." That was Curtiss' cue, and it promptly became his problem–getting something to push it! He determined to mount a gasoline engine on a bicycle, and at once began to search for the necessary castings. Finally he secured them and began the task of building a motor. Unfortunately, the man who sold him the castings sent no instructions for building a motor, so the problem was left to Curtiss and to those who interested themselves in his work. They studied and planned and made experiments, learning something new about motors all the while. Eventually, with the assistance of local mechanics, the castings were "machined" and the motor assembled.

Curtiss afterward described it as a remarkable contrivance; but it did the work. This motor had a two-inch bore and a two-an-a-half-inch stroke, and drove the bicycle wheel by a friction roller pulley. First, Curtiss made the pulley of wood, then of leather, and finally of rubber. It was tried first on the front wheel and then on the rear one, and so numerous were the changes in and additions to its equipment, that the bystanders and there was the usual number of these saw only the humorous side of the thing and declared that it looked like a sort of Happy Hooligan bicycle with tin cans hung on wherever there was room. The tomato can again came to the front in Curtiss' experiments, and now served to fashion a rough and ready sort of carburetor, filled with gasoline and covered over with a gauze screen, which sucked up the liquid by capillary attraction. Thus it vaporized and was conducted to the cylinder by a pipe from the top of the can.

Then came the first demonstration of a bicycle driven by power other than leg muscles, and it attracted almost as much attention in Hammondsport as the first bicycle road race which Curtiss had won some years before. The newfangled machine, which the village oracle declared could not be made to go unless the rider put his legs to work, did not promise much of a success on its initial trip. Curtiss started off for the post-office, but had to pedal all the way there, the motor refusing to do its part. Coming from the post-office, however, it began popping and shoved the wheels around at an amazing rate, while Curtiss sat calmly upright and viewed the excited citizens of Hammondsport as he sped by.

THE EVOLUTION OF AN AVIATOR

(A) POST CARD SENT BY CURTISS TO HIS WIFE, JANUARY 24, 1907

(B) CURTISS MAKING WORLD'S MOTORCYCLE RECORD, ORMOND

That was the beginning of Curtiss' motorcycle; but the ambitious inventor did not rest with the first success. Work at the "incubator" went on unceasingly. The young mechanical genius carried on his regular duties during the days but spent most of the nights in his experiments. Curtiss would not have said that he worked nights, but that he spent his evenings in "doping out" the best way to build something. He has never changed his habits in this respect. He still "dopes out" something for the next day or the next month while "resting" from his daylight duties; though the process would now be expressed in somewhat more scientific terms. In truth, one may say that Curtiss worked all the time. In office or shop hours, like other persons, he did what he had to do; while at other times he did what he wanted to do. Curtiss was different only in that he wanted to do those things which other people would call labor. Experimental work was recreation to Curtiss, and because of this mental attitude he was able to stick at a task day and night and keep up "steam" all the while.

Curtiss seldom planned on paper. Plans seemed to outline themselves in his active mind, and when, later, he became an employer of a number of men, he simply outlined his ideas, describing just what he wanted to accomplish, and left it to their ingenuity. Sometimes one of his assistants would ask him a question and after standing for minutes as if he had not heard, Curtiss would suddenly reply and outline a task which it would require all day to carry out. Once Curtiss had decided that a certain course of action would bring certain mechanical results, it usually turned out that way, and because of this and the further fact that he was as good a workman as he was a designer, the men he had gathered around him grew to regard his judgment as final and therefore went ahead with absolute confidence as to the results.

There was a remarkable spirit of cooperation in the "industrial incubator." This spirit continued through the early years of Curtiss' first business successes, and it obtains to-day in the big Curtiss aeroplane and motor factories at Hammondsport. The alertness of the men around Curtiss, and the atmosphere of cooperation may be due, in some measure, to the curious interest they always hold as to what he will do next and there is certain to be something happening out of the ordinary. Thus, work with Curtiss seldom becomes monotonous and without its surprises.

To go back to the first motor Curtiss built; it was quickly found to be too small, and he secured another set of castings, as large as he could get. With these he constructed a motor with a cylinder three and a half by five inches, and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds. This machine proved to be a terror. It is true that it exploded only occasionally, but when it did it almost tore itself loose from the frame. But it drove the motorcycle as fast as thirty miles an hour and gained such a remarkable reputation in Hammondsport that a story is still told in the town of the time Curtiss made his first trip with it, when it carried him through the village, up over the steep hills, through North Urbana and as far as Wayne, where it ran out of gasoline and came to a stop of its own accord.

Thus Curtiss went ahead with his work to construct and improve his motors, and improvement came with each successive one. The third motor was better suited to the needs of the bicycle and furnished better results. Meantime, Curtiss began to receive inquiries and even some orders, and business took a decidedly favorable turn. Judge Monroe Wheeler took a great liking to the young man, who used to come over to his office to get the judge's stenographer to typewrite his letters, and helped him to establish credit at the local bank, and in other ways. Half a dozen fellow-townsmen became interested enough in Curtiss' motorcycle experiments to put money into the business, and within a short time a little factory was built on the hill back of Grandma Curtiss' house. It was an inconvenient place to put up a factory, and all the heavy material was hauled up to it with some difficulty, but the light, finished product, which in this case could go under its own power, rolled down the steep grade without trouble. In spite of these little obstacles; in spite of the fact that Hammondsport is located at the end of a little branch railroad which seems to the visitor to run only as the spirit moves the engineer in spite of every handicap, the business grew rapidly.

Curtiss was, by this time, happily married and Mrs. Curtiss helped with the office work at the factory, which stood then, as it does to-day, at the very back door of the old Curtiss homestead on the hillside. Curtiss used to take out his best motorcycle in these days and go off alone to all the motorcycle races held in that section of the State. Incidentally, he scooped in all the prizes, for he had the fastest machine, and he was a finished rider. On Memorial Day in 1903, Curtiss ventured far afield for an event that brought him his first notices in the big newspapers of New York City. He entered and won a hill-climbing contest at New York City, on Riverside Drive, and immediately afterward mounted his wheel, rode up the Hudson to another race, at Empire City Track, and won that also. This gave him the American championship.

Later, at Providence, R. I., he established a world's record for a single-cylinder motorcycle, covering a mile in fifty-six and two-fifths seconds. While this was phenomenal speed, it was as nothing in comparison with the record he was soon to establish. He built a two-cylinder motor and on January 28, 1904, at Ormond Beach, Florida, he rode ten miles in eight minutes fifty-four and two-fifth seconds, and established a world's record that stood for more than seven years. Curtiss was not content even with this. He wanted to travel faster than man had ever traveled before. He had built a forty horse-power, eight-cylinder motor for a customer who wanted it to put in a flying machine which he was building, and in order to try out the motor Curtiss built an especially strong motorcycle, using an automobile tire on the rear wheel and a motorcycle tire on the front wheel. On a strong frame the big forty horsepower motor was mounted. It was not given a thorough try out at Hammondsport, for it was winter and snow lay deep on the roads. With the aid of some of his shopmen, Curtiss took the freak machine out on the snow-covered roads, merely for the purpose of seeing if it could be started as it was geared in the machine. It proved that it would start all right, and so it was hurriedly boxed and rushed to the train, which was actually kept waiting several minutes. Curtiss was going South to make new records, and even the railroad men on the little branch road from Hammondsport to Bath, felt an interest in his undertaking. This, by the way, is typical of the way things are done at Hammondsport. When there is need for rushing matters, the men work night and day without complaint. These last-moment rushes are often due to the giving of much thought to the details before commencing to build, and sometimes because, in building, improvements which must be incorporated suggest themselves. Curtiss' rule, as he expresses it, is: "What is the need of racing unless you think you are going to win; and if you are beaten before you start, why take a chance?" But there are other considerations for the builder of racing machines to take into account. If your competitors know what you are doing, and they will know, somehow, if you give them a little time, they will go you one better. Therefore, this belated activity at the Curtiss factory is not always without its motive. Take, for instance, the first big International race for the Gordon Bennett aviation trophy, which Curtiss won at Rheims, France, in 1909. In spite of the fact that Curtiss' motor was built in a great hurry, barely giving the necessary time to finish it and reach Rheims for the race, Bleriot, the chief French builder of the monoplane type, changed his motor as soon as he had read a description of the one Curtiss was to use.

The motorcycle which Curtiss had built and mounted with the eight-cylinder motor proved to be a world-beater the fastest vehicle ever built to carry a man. It was taken to Ormond Beach, Florida, where it was tried out on the smooth sandy shore, which stretches for miles, as level as a billiard table and almost as hard as asphalt. Here, on January 24, 1907, Curtiss mounted the heavy, ungainly vehicle and traveled a mile in twenty-six and two-fifth seconds, at the rate of one hundred and thirty-seven miles an hour! This stands to-day as the speed record for man and machine. Curtiss, without goggles and with no special precautions in the matter of costume, simply mounted the seat, took a two-mile running start before crossing the line, and was off. Bending so low over the handle-bars that he almost seemed to be lying flat and merged into a part of the machine itself, he flashed over the mile course in less time than it takes to read these dozen lines. This speed trial was the culmination of weeks of study, work, and experiment. Day after day, and even at night, Curtiss had schemed and worked; now to get the weight properly placed and balanced; here to strengthen the frame and overcome the danger from the torque, and the tendency to turn the machine over, and finally to obtain the right sort of tires and to put them on securely. Ordinary tires, on wheels revolving at such an amazing speed, would have been cast off the rims like a belt off a pulley, by the centrifugal force.

These and a thousand other details were worked out so thoroughly that the machine, when ready, required very little testing out. In describing the trial Curtiss said that he could see nothing but a streak of grey beach in front of him, a blur of hills on one side, and the white ribbon of foaming surf on the other. The great crowd that watched the smoking, whirring thing that flashed by as if fired from a great gun, caught but a fleeting glimpse of Curtiss.

The record could not be accepted as official, because the motor was too big and powerful to be classed as a motorcycle engine. It therefore stands as an absolutely unique performance, unequalled, and not even approached as regards speed, until three years later, when Barney Oldfield, driving a two hundred horse-power Benz automobile, covered a mile over the same course in twenty-seven and thirty-three hundredths seconds.

Curtiss had developed, improved, and exhausted the motorcycle as far as speed possibilities were concerned, and was soon to give it up for something of far greater potential possibilities–the aeroplane.

[CHAPTER IV BALDWIN'S BALLOON]

Thomas Scott Baldwin was engaged in building a dirigible balloon in California when he chanced to see a new motorcycle, the motor of which seemed to be exactly what he wanted to propel his new airship. He learned that it was the design and product of a man named Curtiss, at Hammondsport, N. Y., with whom he entered into correspondence. The result was that Captain Baldwin went to Hammondsport for a personal interview with the man who had turned out the motor.

Baldwin expected to find, as he afterward said, a big, important-looking manufacturer, and great was his surprise to find a quiet, unassuming young man, scarcely more than a youth. The jovial Baldwin and the unobtrusive Curtiss became great friends at once. They discussed motors of all sorts, but particularly motors suitable for dirigible balloons, then in the first stage of development. When Baldwin asked Curtiss the price of one of the type then used in the Curtiss motorcycle, he was surprised at its cheapness, and ordered one on the spot. This was built at once and proved successful. Later several other motors were built at the Curtiss factory for Baldwin, each one showing some improvement, and some of them designed to meet the increasing demand for a more powerful motor of light weight for use in dirigible balloons. As a natural consequence of Baldwin's success with the use of the Curtiss motor, it was but a short time until it came to be the best known motor in America for aeronautic work. At the St. Louis World's Fair, in 1904, Captain Baldwin's "California Arrow," the only successful airship out of all those which were brought from Europe and every part of America to contest for big prizes, was equipped with one of Curtiss' motors. Baldwin's success at St. Louis was a triumph for Curtiss, and soon all dirigible balloons operating in this country were driven by Curtiss motors.

Hammondsport was now to have a new sensation and to witness an experiment which eventually led to momentous developments. In order to test the power of the motors he was building for Captain Baldwin, and for the purpose of determining the efficiency of his aerial propeller, Curtiss constructed a "wind-wagon," a three-wheel vehicle with the motor and propeller mounted in the rear of the driver. When he took this queer contrivance out on the road for its first trial, the town of Hammondsport turned out to witness the fun. Consternation among the usually mild-eyed work horses spread throughout the little valley as the "wind-wagon" went scooting up and down the dusty roads, creating a fearful racket. Before the start was made an automobile was sent ahead to clear the way and to warn the drivers of other vehicles. The automobile, however, was quickly overhauled, passed, and left far in the rear by the whirring, spluttering, three-wheeled embryonic flying machine.

THE BALDWIN ARMY DIRIGIBLE–CURTISS MOTOR

Curtiss at front, at motor; Captain Thomas S. Baldwin at rear

NEARLY UP IN THE AIR

(A) The wind wagon Curtiss in 1904.

(B) Ice boat with aerial propeller

Protests by farmers, business-men and others quickly followed this experiment. They argued that it frightened the horses, made travel on the roads unsafe, and was "bad for business generally." As the machine had served its purpose with Curtiss, and had given Hammondsport its little diversion, the famous "wind-wagon" passed into history, and, like so many other of Curtiss' experiments, remains only in the memories of those who were directly interested or those who watched in idle curiosity.

Other airships were built by Baldwin and Curtiss from time to time, and these were used successfully in giving exhibitions throughout the United States. The work of these two pioneers of the air had attracted the attention of the United States Government, in the meantime, and great was the elation at Hammondsport when an order came from the War Department at Washington for a big dirigible balloon for the use of the Signal Corps. Baldwin was commissioned to build the balloon and Curtiss the motor to propel it. This was an important undertaking, and both Baldwin and Curtiss appreciated the fact. It marked the beginning of Governmental and military interest in aeronautics in this country, the possibilities of which were already engaging the attention of the military authorities of Europe. The success of this airship meant much to both men, and Baldwin and Curtiss worked all through the winter of 1904-05 to make it so, Baldwin, meanwhile, having moved to Hammondsport in order to be in touch with the Curtiss factory, where all the mechanical parts of his airships were being made.

In order to meet the specifications drawn up by the War Department, the big airship was required to make a continuous flight of two hours under the power of the motor, and be capable of manoeuvring in any direction. Curtiss realised that in order to fill these requirements a new type motor would be needed. He designed and set about building, therefore, a water-cooled motor, something which had not been attempted at the Curtiss factory up to this time, and the success of which marked a long step in advance. Although Baldwin had built thirteen dirigibles, all of which had been equipped with motors built by Curtiss, and all of which had been operated successfully in exhibitions, the Government contract was his most ambitious undertaking. About the balloon itself, there was never any doubt; the thing that clung constantly in the minds of these men who were bending every effort to the conquest of the air, was: "Will the motor do its work in a two-hours' endurance test, and will it furnish the necessary power to drive the big airship at a speed of twenty miles an hour?" The conditions under which the trial was to be made were entirely unique. The motor had to be suspended on a light but substantial framework beneath the great gas-bag, and from this framework the pilot and the engineer had to do their work.

The Army dirigible was completed on time and its test took place at Washington in the summer of 1905. Captain Baldwin acted as pilot and Curtiss as engineer. The airship met every specification and was accepted by the Government. A flight of two hours' duration was made over the wooded hills of Virginia, and this stands to-day as the longest continuous flight ever made by a dirigible airship in this country.

[PART II MY FIRST FLIGHTS by Glenn H. Curtiss]

[CHAPTER I BEGINNING TO FLY]

In 1905, while in New York City, I first met Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. Dr. Bell had learned of our light-weight motors, used with success on the Baldwin dirigibles, and wanted to secure one for use in his experiments with kites. We had a very interesting talk on these experiments, and he asked me to visit him at Bienn Bhreagh, his summer home near Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Dr. Bell had developed some wonderfully light and strong tetrahedral kites which possessed great inherent stability, and he wanted a motor to install in one of them for purposes of experimentation. This kite was a very large one. The Doctor called it an "aerodrome." The surfaces not being planes, it could not properly be described as an aeroplane. He believed that the time would come when the framework of the aeroplane would have to be so large in proportion to its surface that it would be too heavy to fly. Consequently, he evolved the tetrahedral or cellular form of structure, which would allow of the size being increased indefinitely, while the weight would be increased only in the same ratio.

Dr. Bell had invited two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy, to assist him, and they were at Baddeck when I first visited there in the summer of 1907. Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, of the United States Army, was also there. Naturally, there was a wide discussion on the subject of aeronautics, and so numerous were the suggestions made and so many theories advanced, that Mrs. Bell suggested the formation of a scientific organisation, to be known as the "Aerial Experiment Association." This met with a prompt and hearty agreement and the association was created very much in the same manner as Dr. Bell had previously formed the "Volta Association" at Washington for developing the phonograph. Mrs. Bell, who was most enthusiastic and helpful, generously offered to furnish the necessary funds for experimental work, and the object of the Association was officially set forth as "to build a practical aeroplane which will carry a man and be driven through the air by its own power."

THE AERIAL EXPERIMENT ASSOCIATION

Left to right: F.W. Baldwin, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, Glenn Curtiss, Alexander Graham Bell, J.A.D. McCurdy, Augustus Post

STARTING TO FLY

(A) F. W. Baldwin makes first public flight In America.

(B) The "June Bug," June, 1908.

(C) Baldwin in Aerial Association's Glider

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell was made chairman; F. W. Baldwin, chief engineer; J. A. D. McCurdy, assistant engineer and treasurer; and Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, secretary; while I was honored with the title of Director of Experiments and Chief Executive Officer. Both Baldwin and McCurdy were fresh from Toronto University, where they had graduated as mechanical engineers, and Baldwin later earned the distinction of making the first public flight in a motor-driven, heavier-than-air machine. This was accomplished at Hammondsport, N. Y., March 12, 1908, over the ice on Lake Keuka. The machine used was Number One, built by the Aerial Experiment Association, designed by Lieutenant Selfridge, and known as "The Red Wing." The experiments carried on at Baddeck during the summer and fall of 1907 covered a wide range. There were trials and tests with Dr. Bell's tetrahedral kites, with motors, and with aerial propellers mounted on boats. Finally, at the suggestion of Lieutenant Selfridge, it was decided to move the scene of further experiments to Hammondsport, N. Y., where my factory is located, and there to build a glider. I had preceded the other members of the Association from Baddeck to Hammondsport in order to prepare for the continuance of our work. A few days after my return I was in my office, talking to Mr. Augustus Post, then the Secretary of the Aero Club of America, when a telegram came from Dr. Bell, saying: "Start building. The boys will be down next week." As no plans had been outlined, and nothing definite settled upon in the way of immediate experiments, I was somewhat undecided as to just what to build. We then discussed the subject of gliders for some time and I finally decided that the thing to do was to build a glider at the factory and to take advantage of the very abrupt and convenient hills at Hammondsport to try it out. We therefore built a double-surface glider of the Chanute type.

As almost every schoolboy knows in this day of advanced information on aviation, a glider is, roughly speaking, an aeroplane without a motor. Usually it has practically the same surfaces as a modern aeroplane, and may be made to support a passenger by launching it from the top of a hill in order to give it sufficient impetus to sustain its own weight and that of a rider. If the hill is steep the glider will descend at a smaller angle than the slope of the hill, and thus glides of a considerable distance may be made with ease and comparative safety.

Our first trials of the glider, which we built on the arrival of the members of the Experiment Association, were made in the dead of winter, when the snow lay deep over the hillsides. This made very hard work for everybody. It was a case of trudging laboriously up the steep hillsides and hauling or carrying the glider to the top by slow stages. It was easy enough going down, but slow work going up; but we continued our trials with varied success until we considered ourselves skilful enough to undertake a motor-driven machine, which we mounted on runners.

[CHAPTER II FIRST FLIGHTS]

It was my desire to build a machine and install a motor at once, and thus take advantage of the opportunity furnished by the thick, smooth ice over Lake Keuka at that season of the year. But Lieutenant Selfridge, who had read a great deal about gliders and who had studied them from every angle, believed we should continue experimenting with the glider. However, we decided to build a machine which we believed would fly, and in due time a motor was installed and it was taken down on Lake Keuka to be tried out. We called it the "Red Wing," and to Lieutenant Selfridge belongs the honour of designing it, though all the members of the Aerial Experiment Association had some hand in its construction. We all had our own ideas about the design of this first machine, but to Lieutenant Selfridge was left the privilege of accepting or rejecting the many suggestions made from time to time, in order that greater progress might be made. A number of our suggestions were accepted, and while the machine as completed cannot properly be described as the result of one man's ideas, the honour of being the final arbiter of all the problems of its design certainly belongs to Lieutenant Selfridge.

Now that the machine was completed and the motor installed, we waited for favourable weather to make the first trial. Winter weather around Lake Keuka is a very uncertain element, and we had a long, tiresome wait until the wintry gales that blew out of the north gave way to an intensely cold spell. Our opportunity came on March 12, 1908. There was scarcely a bit of wind, but it was bitterly cold. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Selfridge was absent, having left Hammondsport on business, and "Casey" Baldwin was selected to make the first trial. We were all on edge with eagerness to see what the machine would do. Same of us were confident, others sceptical.

Baldwin climbed into the seat, took the control in hand, and we cranked the motor. When we released our hold of the machine, it sped over the ice like a scared rabbit for two or three hundred feet, and then, much to our joy, it jumped into the air. This was what we had worked for through many long months, and naturally we watched the brief and uncertain course of Baldwin with a good deal of emotion. Rising to a height of six or eight feet, Baldwin flew the unheard-of distance of three hundred and eighteen feet, eleven inches! Then he came down ingloriously on one wing. As we learned afterward, the frail framework of the tail had bent and the machine had flopped over on its side and dropped on the wing, which gave way and caused the machine to turn completely around.

But it had been a successful flight and we took no toll of the damage to the machine or the cost. We had succeeded! that was the main thing. We had actually flown the "Red Wing" three hundred and eighteen feet and eleven inches! We knew now we could build a machine that would fly longer and come down at the direction of the operator with safety to both.

It had taken just seven weeks to build the machine and to get it ready for the trial; it had taken just about twenty seconds to smash it.

But a great thing had been accomplished. We had achieved the first public flight of a heavier-than-air machine in America!

As our original plans provided for the building of one machine designed by each member of the Association, with the assistance of all the others, the building of the next one fell to Mr. Baldwin, and it was called the "White Wing." The design of the "Red Wing" was followed in many details, but several things were added which we believed would give increased stability and greater flying power. The construction of the "White Wing" was begun at once, but before we could complete it the ice on the lake had yielded to the spring winds and we were therefore obliged to transfer our future trials to land. This required wheels for starting and alighting in the place of the ice runners used on the "Red Wing." An old half-mile race track a short distance up the valley from the Lake was rented and put in shape for flights. The place was called "Stony Brook Farm," and it was for a long time afterward the scene of our flying exploits at Hammondsport.

It would be tiresome to the reader to be told of all the discouragements we met with; of the disheartening smashes we suffered; how almost every time we managed to get the new machine off the ground for brief but encouraging flights, it would come down so hard that something would give way and we would have to set about the task of building it up again. We soon learned that it was comparatively easy to get the machine up in the air, but it was most difficult to get it back to earth without smashing something. The fact was, we had not learned the art of landing an aeroplane with ease and safety–an absolutely necessary art for every successful aviator to know. It seemed one day that the limit of hard luck had been reached, when, after a brief flight and a somewhat rough landing, the machine folded up and sank down on its side, like a wounded bird, just as we were feeling pretty good over a successful landing without breakage.

Changes in the details of the machine were many and frequent, and after each change there was a flight or an attempted flight. Sometimes we managed to make quite a flight, and others and more numerous merely short "jumps" that would land the machine in a potato patch or a cornfield, where, in the yielding ground, the wheels would crumple up and let the whole thing down. Up to this time we had always used silk to cover the planes, but this proved very expensive and we decided to try a substitute. An entirely new set of planes were made and the new covering put on them. They looked very pretty and white as we took the rebuilt machine out with every expectation that it would fly. Great was our surprise, however, when it refused absolutely to make even an encouraging jump. For a time we were at a loss to understand it. Then the reason became as plain as day; we had used cotton to cover the planes, and, being porous, it would not furnish the sustaining power in flight. This was quickly remedied by coating the cotton covering with varnish, rendering it impervious to the air. After that it flew all right. I believe this was the first instance of the use of a liquid filler to coat the surface cloth. It is now used widely, both in this country and in Europe.

We had a great many minor misfortunes with the "White Wing," but each one taught us a lesson. We gradually learned where the stresses and strains lay, and overcame them. Thus, little by little, the machine was reduced in weight, simplified in detail, and finally took on some semblance to the standard Curtiss aeroplane of today.

All the members of the Aerial Experiment Association were in Hammondsport at this time, including Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. We had established an office in the annex which had been built on the Curtiss homestead, and here took place nightly discussions on the work of the day past and the plans for the day to follow. Some of the boys named the office the "thinkorium." Every night the minutes of the previous meeting would be read and discussed. These minutes, by the way, were religiously kept by Lieutenant Selfridge and later published in the form of a bulletin and sent to each member. Marvellous in range were the subjects brought up and talked over at these meetings! Dr. Bell was the source of the most unusual suggestions for discussion. Usually these were things he had given a great deal of thought and time to, and, therefore, his opinions on any of his hobbies were most interesting. For instance, he had collected a great deal of information on the genealogy of the Hyde family, comprising some seven thousand individuals. These he had arranged in his card index system, in order to determine the proportion of male and female individuals, their relative length of life, and other characteristics. Or, perhaps, the Doctor would talk about his scheme to influence the sex of sheep by a certain method of feeding; his early experiences with the telephone, the phonograph, the harmonic telegraph, and multiple telegraphy. At other times we would do a jig-saw puzzle with pictures of aeroplanes, or listen to lectures on physical culture by Dr. Alden, of the village. Then, for a change, we would discuss, with great interest and sincerity, the various methods of making sounds to accompany the action of a picture, behind the curtain of the moving-picture show, which we all had attended. Motorcycle construction and operation were studied at the factory and on the roads around Hammondsport. McCurdy used to give us daily demonstrations of how to fall off a motorcycle scientifically. He fell off so often, in fact, that we feared he would never make an aviator. In this opinion, of course, we were very much in error, as he became one of the first, and also one of the best aviators in the country. Atmospheric pressure, the vacuum motor, Dr. Bell's tetrahedral construction, and even astronomical subjects all found a place in the nightly discussions at the "thinkorium."

Of course there were many important things that took up our attention, but we could not always be grave and dignified. I recall one evening somebody started a discussion on the idea of elevating Trinity Church, in New York City, on the top of a skyscraper, and using the revenue from the ground rental to convert the heathen. This gave a decided shock to a ministerial visitor who happened to be present.

When summer came on there were frequent motorcycle trips when the weather did not permit of flying, or when the shop was at work repairing one of our frequent smashes. "Casey" Baldwin and McCurdy furnished a surprise one day by a rather unusual long-distance trip on motorcycles. "Let's go up to Hamilton, Ontario," said Baldwin, probably choosing Hamilton as the destination because he was charged with having a sweetheart there.

"All right," answered McCurdy.

Without a moment's hesitation the two mounted their wheels, not even stopping to get their caps, and rode through to Hamilton, a hundred and fifty miles distant, buying everything they required along the way. They were gone a week and came back by the same route.

A favourite subject of talk at the "thinkorium," at least between McCurdy and Selfridge, was on some of the effects of the "torque" of a propeller and whenever this arose we would expect the argument to keep up until one or the other would fall asleep.

After the nightly formal sessions of the members of the Association the courtesy of the floor was extended to any one who might be present for the discussion of anything he might see fit to bring up. Later we would adjourn to Dr. Bell's room, where he would put himself into a comfortable position, light his inevitable pipe, and produce his note books. In these note books Dr. Bell would write down everything his thoughts on every subject imaginable, his ideas about many things, sketches, computations. All these he would sign, date, and have witnessed. It was Dr. Bell's custom to work at night when there were no distracting noises, though there were few of these at Hammondsport even during the daylight hours; at night it is quiet enough for the most exacting victim of insomnia. Dr. Bell often sat up until long after midnight, but he made up for the lost time by sleeping until noon. No one was allowed to wake him for any reason. The rest of us were up early in order to take advantage of the favourable flying conditions during the early morning hours. Dr. Bell had a strong aversion to the ringing of the telephone bell the great invention for which he is responsible. I occasionally went into his room and found the bell stuffed with paper, or wound around with towels.

"Little did I think when I invented this thing," said Dr. Bell, one day when he had been awakened by the jingling of the bell, "that it would rise up to mock and annoy me."

While the Doctor enjoyed his morning sleep we were out on "Stony Brook Farm" trying to fly. We had put up a tent against the side of an old sheep barn, and out of this we would haul the machine while the grass was still wet with dew. One never knew what to expect of it. Sometimes a short flight would be made; at others, something would break. Or, maybe, the wind would come up and this would force us to abandon all further trials for the day. Then it was back to the shop to work on some new device, or to repair damages until the wind died out with the setting of the sun. Early in the morning and late in the evening were the best periods of the day for our experimental work because of the absence of wind.

On May 22, 1908, our second machine, the "White Wing," was brought to such a state of perfection that I flew it a distance of one thousand and seventeen feet in nineteen seconds, and landed without damage in a ploughed field outside the old race track. It was regarded as a remarkable flight at that time, and naturally, I felt very much elated.

[CHAPTER III THE "JUNE BUG" FIRST FLIGHTS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN TROPHY AND FIRST EXPERIMENTS WITH THE HYDROAEROPLANE]

Following the success of the "White Wing" we started in to build another machine, embodying all that we had learned from our experience with the two previous ones. Following our custom of giving each machine a name to distinguish it from the preceding one, we called this third aeroplane the "June Bug." The name was aptly chosen, for it was a success from the very beginning. Indeed, it flew so well that we soon decided it was good enough to win the trophy which had been offered by The Scientific American for the first public flight of one kilometer, or five-eights of a mile, straightaway. This trophy, by the way, was the first to be offered in this country for an aeroplane flight, and the conditions specified that it should become the property of the person winning it three years in succession. The "June Bug" was given a thorough try-out before we made arrangements to fly for the trophy, and we were confident it would fulfill the requirements.

The Fourth of July, 1908, was the day set for the trial. A large delegation of aero-club members came on from New York and Washington, among whom were Stanley Y. Beach, Allan E. Hawley, Augustus Post, David Fairchild, Chas. M. Manley, Christopher J. Lake, A. M. Herring, George H. Guy, E. L. Jones, Wilbur E. Kimball, Captain Thomas S. Baldwin and many other personal friends. The excitement among the citizens of Hammondsport in general was little less than that existing among the members of the Aerial Experiment Association, and seldom had the Fourth of July been awaited with greater impatience.

THE FIRST MACHINES

(A) "The White Wing," Baldwin driving, 1908.

(B) Selfridge's "Red Wing" on the ice, Lake Keuka

CURTISS' FIRST FLIGHT FOR THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN TROPHY

(July 4, 1908)

When Independence Day finally dawned it did not look auspicious for the first official aeroplane flight for a trophy. Clouds boded rain and there was some wind. This did not deter the entire population of Hammondsport from gathering on the heights around the flying field, under the trees in the valley and, in fact, at every point of vantage. Some were on the scene as early as five o'clock in the morning, and many brought along baskets of food and made a picnic of it. The rain came along toward noon, but the crowd hoisted its umbrellas or sought shelter under the trees and stayed on. Late in the afternoon the sky cleared and it began to look as if we were to have the chance to fly after all. The "June Bug" was brought out of its tent and the motor given a try-out. It worked all right. The course was measured and a flag put up to mark the end. Everything was ready and about seven o'clock in the evening the motor was started and I climbed into the seat. When I gave the word to "let go" the "June Bug" skimmed along over the old race track for perhaps two hundred feet and then rose gracefully into the air. The crowd set up a hearty cheer, as I was told later for I could hear nothing but the roar of the motor and I saw nothing except the course and the flag marking a distance of one kilometer. The flag was quickly reached and passed and still I kept the aeroplane up, flying as far as the open fields would permit, and finally coming down safely in a meadow, fully a mile from the starting place. I had thus exceeded the requirements and had won the Scientific American Trophy for the first time. I might have gone a great deal farther, as the motor was working beautifully and I had the machine under perfect control, but to have prolonged the flight would have meant a turn in the air or passing over a number of large trees. The speed of this first official flight was closely computed at thirty-nine miles an hour.

Dr. Bell had gone to Nova Scotia, unfortunately, and, therefore, did not witness the Fourth of July flight of the "June Bug." The other members, however, were all present. It was a great day for all of us and we were more confident than ever that we had evolved, out of our long and costly experiments, a machine that would fly successfully and with safety to the operator. Lieutenant Selfridge was particularly enthusiastic, and I recall when Mr. Holcomb, special agent for a life insurance company, visited the field one day and heard Selfridge talk about flying.

"You must be careful, Selfridge," said Mr. Holcomb, "or we will need a bed for you in the hospital of which I am a trustee."

"Oh, I am careful, all right," replied Selfridge, but it was only a few days later when he left Hammondsport for Washington, and was killed while flying as a passenger with Orville Wright at Fort Meyer.

In Selfridge we lost not only one of the best-posted men in the field of aeronautics, a student and a man of practical ideas, but one of our best-loved companions and co-workers, as well.

Three machines had thus far been built and flown, first the "Red Wing," designed by Lieutenant Selfridge; next the "White Wing," by Baldwin, and last the "June Bug," by me. It was now McCurdy's turn and he designed a machine which he named the "Silver Dart." While this was building we decided to take the "June Bug" down to the lake, equip it with a set of pontoons, or a boat, and attempt to fly from the water. It was my idea that if we could design a float that would sustain the aeroplane on an even keel and at the same time furnish a minimum of resistance, we would be able to get up enough speed to rise from the water. Besides, the lake would afford an ideal flying place, and, what was more important still, a fall or a bad landing would not be nearly so likely to result in injury to the aviator.

Accordingly, we mounted the "June Bug" on two floats, built something like a catamaran, and re-named it the "Loon." It required some time to construct light and strong floats and it was not until the beginning of November, 1908, that we were ready for the first attempt to fly from the water ever made in this or any other country. The "Loon" was hauled down to the lake from the aerodrome on a two-wheeled cart, there being no wheels for rolling it over the ground. I remember we had to build a platform on the cart and to strengthen the wheels to carry the weight of nearly one thousand pounds which the added equipment had brought the total weight up to.

This first experimental hydroaeroplane was a crude affair as compared with the machine in which I made the first successful flight from and landing upon the water, more than three years later at San Diego, Cal. The cleaner lines, the neat, light-weight boat and the other details of the Curtiss hydroaeroplane offer as striking a contrast to the "Loon" as the modern locomotive offers to the crude, clumsy affairs that now exist only in the museums. So great is the difference that one is inclined to marvel that we had any success whatever with the first design.

We made many attempts to rise from the water in the "Loon," but owing to the great weight were unable to make any real flights, although the observers on shore were sure that the pontoons were sometimes clear of the water. By the end of November our experiments had convinced every one of us that we needed more power and more time than we had at our disposal just then. The best motor we had at our command was able to deliver only enough power to drive the "Loon" at twenty-five miles an hour on the water. This was not enough to get the machine into the air, unless assisted by a strong head wind, and we were not anxious to try flying in a strong wind.

In the meantime McCurdy's machine, the "Silver Dart," had been completed and mounted on wheels. The first flight was made by McCurdy on December 12, 1908, over the "Stony Brook" flying field. The "Silver Dart" was practically the same as the "June Bug." Shortly after this it was shipped to Dr. Bell's place at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, where McCurdy and "Casey" Baldwin used it all through the winter in practice, making flights from the ice and covering all the country thereabouts. McCurdy estimates that in his some two hundred flights in the "Silver Dart," he covered more than a thousand miles.

[CHAPTER IV FIRST FLIGHTS IN NEW YORK CITY]

As a result of the winning of the Scientific American Trophy, the Aeronautical Society of New York City placed an order in the winter of 1908-09 for an aeroplane to be demonstrated at Morris Park Track, New York City, in the spring.

Plans were outlined for enlarging the Hammondsport factory and work commenced on the machine ordered by the Aeronautical Society. It was the plan of this Society to purchase the aeroplane and have one or more of its members taught to fly it. The machine was finished in due time, thoroughly tried out at Hammondsport before it was shipped to New York, and finally sent to the old Morris Park Race Track, where the Aeronautical Society had arranged for the first public exhibition ever held in the history of aviation. There, on June 26, 1909, I had the honour of making the first aeroplane flights in New York City, in the machine bought by the Aeronautical Society.

The Society intended to make Morris Park the scene of aviation meets and of experiments with gliders, but the grounds proved too small and I recommended a change to some other place in the vicinity of New York City, where there was plenty of open country and where the danger from unexpected landings would be minimized. I looked over all the suitable places around New York City and finally decided upon Mineola, on Long Island. The Hempstead Plains, a large, level tract lying just outside Mineola, offered an ideal place for flying and the Aeronautical Society machine was brought down there from Morris Park.

There was such a fine field for flying at Mineola that I decided to make another try for the Scientific American trophy, which I had won on the previous Fourth of July at Hammondsport with the "June Bug." I wanted that trophy very much, but in order to become possessed of it I had to win it three years in succession, the conditions being changed from year to year to keep pace with the progress and development of aviation. The second year's conditions required a continuous flight of more than twenty-five kilometers (about sixteen miles) in order to have the flight taken into account in awarding the prize, which was to go to the person making the longest official flight during the year.

I believed I could make a fine showing at Hempstead Plains and preparations were made for the attempt. The aeroplane was put together near Peter MeLaughlin's hotel and a triangular course of one and a third miles was measured off. After I had made a number of trial flights over the course I sent formal notice to the Aero Club of America that all was ready for the official flight, and the Club sent Mr. Charles M. Manley down as official representative to observe the trial for the Scientific American trophy.

On July 17th, 1909, a little more than a year from the first official flight of the "June Bug" at Hammondsport, we got out on the field at Mineola at sunrise, before the heavy dew was off the grass, and made ready. It was a memorable day for the residents of that particular section of Long Island, who had never seen a flying machine prior to my brief trial flights there a few days before. They turned out in large numbers, even at that early hour, and there was a big delegation of newspapermen from the New York dailies on hand. Flying was such a novelty at that time that nine-tenths of the people who came to watch the preparations were sceptical while others declared that "that thing won't fly, so what's the use of waiting 'round." There was much excitement, therefore, when, at a quarter after five o'clock, on the morning of July 17, I made my first flight. This was for the Cortlandt Field Bishop prize of two hundred and fifty dollars, offered by the Aero Club of America to the first four persons who should fly one kilometer. It took just two and a half minutes to win this prize and immediately afterward I started for the Scientific American trophy.

The weather was perfect and everything worked smoothly. I made twelve circuits of the course, which completed the twenty-five kilometers, in thirty-two minutes. The motor was working so nicely and the weather man was so favourable, that I decided to keep right on flying, until finally I had circled the course nineteen times and covered a distance of twenty-four and seven-tenths miles before landing. The average speed was probably about thirty-five miles an hour, although no official record of the speed was made.

Great was the enthusiasm of the crowd when the flight ended. I confess that I, too, was enthusiastic over the way the motor had worked and the ease with which the machine could be handled in flight. Best of all, I had the sense of satisfaction that the confidence imposed in me by my friends had been justified.

As the machine built for the Aeronautical Society had thus met every requirement, I agreed to teach two members to fly at Hempstead Plains. Mr. Charles F. Willard and Mr. Williams were the two chosen to take up instruction, and the work began at once. Mr. Willard proved an apt pupil and after a few lessons mastered the machine and flew with confidence and success, circling about the country around Mineola.

These flights at Mineola gave that place a start as the headquarters for aviators, and it soon became the popular resort for everyone interested in aviation in and near the city of New York.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN TROPHY

[PART III MY CHIEF FLIGHTS AND THE WORK OF TO-DAY by Glenn H. Curtiss]

[CHAPTER I THE RHEIMS MEET FIRST INTERNATIONAL AEROPLANE CONTEST]

Prior to the first flights in New York City I had formulated plans for an improved machine, designed for greater speed and equipped with a more powerful motor. I wanted to take part in the first contest for the Gordon Bennett Aviation cup at Rheims, France, August 22 to 29, 1909. This was the first International Aviation Meet held, and much was expected of the French machines of the monoplane type. Great was my gratification, therefore, when I received word from the Aero Club of America, through Mr. Cortlandt Field Bishop, who was then president, that I had been chosen to represent America at Rheims. [1]

[1]It is interesting to note that Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm, the sole American entrant for the Gordon Bennett Balloon Cup in 1906; Mr. Edgar Mix, the only representative of America in the balloon contest in 1909, and Mr. Charles Weymann, the only entrant from America in the Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup race of 1911, held in England, all won.

Without allowing my plans to become known to the public I began at once to build an eight-cylinder, V-shaped, fifty horse-power motor. This was practically double the horse-power I had been using. Work on the motor was pushed day and night at Hammondsport, as I had not an hour to spare. I had kept pretty close watch on everything that had been printed about the preparations of the Frenchmen for the Gordon Bennett race and although it was reported that Bleriot, in his own monoplane, and Hubert Latham, in an Antoinette monoplane, had flown as fast as sixty miles an hour, I still felt confident. The speed of aeroplanes is so often exaggerated in press accounts that I did not believe all I read about Bleriot's and Latham's trial flights.

The motor was finished, but there was no time to put it in the new machine and try it out before sailing. It was, therefore, given a short run on the block, or testing-frame, hurriedly packed, and the entire equipment rushed to New York barely in time to catch the steamer for France.

The time was so short between the arrival of our steamer and the opening of the meet that in order to get to Rheims in time to qualify, we had to take the aeroplane with us on the train as personal baggage. Thanks to the kindness of the French railway officials, who realised our situation, and evidently had imbibed some of the prevailing aviation enthusiasm, we arrived at Rheims in quick time. In those early days of aviation there was not the keen partisanship for monoplane or biplane that one finds everywhere to-day; nor was there the strong popular feeling in France in favor of the monoplane that exists today. An aeroplane was simply an aeroplane at that time, and interesting as such, but naturally all Frenchmen favored their compatriots who were entered in the race, particularly Bleriot, who had just earned world-wide fame by his flight across the English channel. The Frenchmen, as well as Europeans in general, fully expected Bleriot to win with his fast monoplane.

My own personal hopes lay in my motor. Judge of my surprise, therefore, upon arriving at Rheims, to learn that Bleriot, who had probably heard through newspaper reports that I was bringing over an eight-cylinder motor, had himself installed an eight-cylinder motor of eighty horse-power in one of his light monoplanes. When I learned this, I believed my chances were very slim indeed, if in fact they had not entirely disappeared. The monoplane is generally believed to be faster than the biplane with equal power. I had just one aeroplane and one motor; if I smashed either of these it would be all over with America's chances in the first International Cup Race. I had not the reserve equipment to bring out a new machine as fast as one was smashed, as Bleriot and other Frenchmen had. Incidentally, there were many of them smashed during the big meet on the Plain of Bethany. At one time, while flying, I saw as many as twelve machines strewn about the field, some wrecked and some disabled and being hauled slowly back to the hangars, by hand or by horses. For obvious reasons, therefore, I kept out of the duration contests and other events, flying only in such events as were for speed, and of a distance not to exceed twenty kilometers, which was the course for the Gordon Bennett contest in 1909.

It is hard enough for any one to map out a course of action and stick to it, particularly in the face of the desires of one's friends; but it is doubly hard for an aviator to stay on the ground waiting for just the right time to get into the air. It was particularly hard for me to keep out of many events at Rheims held from day to day, especially as there were many patriotic Americans there who would have liked to see America's only representative take part in everything on the programme. I was urged by many of these to go out and contest the Frenchmen for the rich prizes offered and it was hard to refuse to do this. These good friends did not realise the situation. America's chances could not be imperilled for the sake of gratifying one's curiosity, or national pride. On top of the urgings of my American friends to go out and fly and take chances of having a whole machine when the day for the Gordon Bennett should arrive, I was penalised for not starting in the speed race, the Prix de la Vitesse, the penalty being one-twentieth of the time made when I should start in this event. However, I made a number of trial flights and ten official ones, during the meet, without mishap, except a sprained ankle. This was the result of running through growing grain at the time of landing and being thrown out of the machine. I was also fortunate in being the only aviator who took part in this first big meet to land at the hangar after each flight.

During this period of waiting, and making explanations to enthusiastic Americans who could not understand why I did not fly all the time, my mechanician, "Tod" Shriver, [2] attracted a tremendous amount of attention from the throngs that visited the hangars because he worked in his shirt sleeves. They thought "Tod" picturesque because he did not wear the French workman's blouse. Shriver used to say that if he were picturesque in shirt sleeves there were about fifty million perfectly good Americans across the Atlantic who formed probably the most picturesque crowd on earth.

[2]Tod Shriver, or "Slim" as he was known to all American aviators because he was very tall and slender, went to Rheims as a mechanic before taking up flying himself. He was successful as an aviator and accompanied Captain Thomas Baldwin to the Orient in the spring and summer of 1911. This trip created great excitement among the Chinese, who had never seen the "foreign devils" fly before. Captain Baldwin tells a story of the crowd that witnessed the flights in Tokyo, Japan, which he describes as numbering seven hundred thousand persons! In proof of this he states that advices received from Japan in the spring of 1912 report that the crowd had not entirely dispersed even at that time! "Tod" Shriver flew in many places in the United States and in the winter of 1911 met his death in Puerto Rico. He fell while flying at Ponce. His death was a shock to his many friends. [Note by AUGUSTUS POST.]

In the try-outs it became evident to the Frenchmen that my aeroplane was very fast and it was conceded that the race for the Gordon Bennett Cup would lie between Bleriot and myself, barring accidents. After a carefully timed trial circuit of the course, which, much to my surprise, I made in a few seconds less than M. Bleriot's time, and that, too, with my motor throttled down slightly, I gained more confidence. I removed the large gasoline tank from my machine and put on a smaller one in order to lessen the weight and the head-resistance. I then selected the best of my three propellers, which, by the way, were objects of curiosity to the French aviators, who were familiar only with the metal blades used on the Antoinette machine, and the Chauviere, which was being used by M. Bleriot. M. Chauviere was kind enough to make a propeller especially fitted to my aeroplane, notwithstanding the fact that a better propeller on my machine would lessen the chances of the French flyers for the cup. However, I decided later to use my own propeller, and did use it and won.

August 29 dawned clear and hot. It was agreed at a meeting of the Committee, at which all the contestants were present, that each contestant should be allowed to make one trial flight over the course and that he might choose his own time for making it, between the hours of ten o'clock in the morning and six o'clock in the evening. The other starters were Bleriot, Lefebre, and Latham for France, and Cockburn for England. As I have already stated, Bleriot was the favourite because of his trip across the English channel and because of his records made in flights at various places prior to the Rheims meet.

As conditions were apparently good, I decided to make my trial flight shortly after ten o'clock. The machine was brought out, the engine given a preliminary run, and at half past ten I was in the air. Everything had looked good from the ground, but after the first turn of the course I began to pitch violently. This was caused by the heat waves rising and falling as the cooler air rushed in. The up and down motion was not at all pleasant and I confess that I eased off on the throttle several times on the first circuit. I had not then become accustomed to the feeling an aviator gets when the machine takes a sudden drop. On the second round I got my nerve back and pulled the throttle wide open and kept it open. This accounts for the fact that the second lap was made in faster time than the first. The two circuits were made safely and I crossed the finish line in seven minutes, fifty-five seconds, a new record for the course.

Now was my chance! I felt that the time to make the start for the Cup was then, in spite of the boiling air conditions, which I had found existed all over the course and made flying difficult if not actually dangerous. We hurriedly refilled the gasoline tank, sent official notice to the judges, carefully tested the wiring of the machine by lifting it at the corners, spun the propeller, and the official trial was on. I climbed as high as I thought I might without protest, before crossing the starting line probably five hundred feet so that I might take advantage of a gradual descent throughout the race, and thus gain additional speed. The sun was hot and the air rough, but I had resolved to keep the throttle wide open. I cut the corner as close as I dared and banked the machine high on the turns. I remember I caused great commotion among a big flock of birds which did not seem to be able to get out of the wash of my propeller. In front of the tribunes the machine flew steadily, but when I got around on the back stretch, as we would call it, I found remarkable air conditions. There was no wind, but the air seemed fairly to boil. The machine pitched considerably, and when I passed above the "graveyard," where so many machines had gone down and were smashed during the previous days of the meet, the air seemed literally to drop from under me. It was so bad at one spot that I made up my mind that if I got over it safely I would avoid that particular spot thereafter.

Finally, however, I finished the twenty kilometers in safety and crossed the line in fifteen minutes, fifty seconds, having averaged forty-six and one-half miles an hour. When the time was announced there was great enthusiasm among the Americans present, and every one rushed over to offer congratulations. Some of them thought that I would surely be the winner, but of this I was by no means certain. I had great respect for Bleriot's ability, and besides, Latham and his Antoinette might be able to make better speed than they had thus far shown. In a contest of this sort it is never safe to cheer until all the returns are in. I confess that I felt a good deal like a prisoner awaiting the decision of a jury. I had done my best, and had got the limit of speed out of the machine; still I felt that if I could do it all over again I would be able to improve on the time. Meantime Cockburn, for England, had made a start but had come down and run into a haystack. He was only able to finish the course in twenty minutes, forty-seven and three-fifth seconds. This put him out of the contest.

Latham made his trial during the afternoon but his speed was five or six miles an hour slower than my record. The other contestants were flying about thirty-five miles an hour, and were, therefore, not really serious factors in the race.

It was all up to M. Bleriot. All day long he tinkered and tested, first with one machine and then another; trying different propellers and making changes here and there. It was not until late in the afternoon that he brought out his big machine, Number 22, equipped with an eight-cylinder water-cooled motor, mounted beneath the planes, and driving by chain a four-bladed propeller, geared to run at a speed somewhat less than that of the engine. He started off at what seemed to be a terrific burst of speed. It looked to me just then as if he must be going twice as fast as my machine had flown; but it must be remembered that I was very anxious to have him go slow. The fear that he was beating me was father to the belief.

As soon as Bleriot was off Mr. Cortlandt Field Bishop and Mr. David Wolfe Bishop, his brother, took me in their automobile over to the judges' stand. Bleriot made the first lap in faster time than I had made it, and our hearts sank. Then and there I resolved that if we lost the cup I would build a faster aeroplane and come back next year to win it.

WINNING THE GORDON BENNET CONTEST IN FRANCE

(A) Curtiss flying at Rheims, (B) The welcome home to Hammondsport

Copyright, 1910, by Photo News Co.

"A POSITION HIGHER THAN THE PRESIDENT'S"

President Taft watching Curtiss fly, Harvard Meet, 1910

Again Bleriot dashed past the stand and it seemed to me that he was going even faster than the first time. Great was my surprise, therefore, when, as he landed, there was no outburst of cheers from the great crowd. I had expected a scene of wild enthusiasm, but there was nothing of the sort. I sat in Mr. Bishop's automobile a short distance from the judges' stand, wondering why there was no shouting, when I was startled by a shout of joy from my friend, Mr. Bishop, who had gone over to the judges' stand.

"You win! You win!" he cried, all excitement as he ran toward the automobile. "Bleriot is beaten by six seconds!"

A few moments later, just at half past five o'clock, the Stars and Stripes were slowly hoisted to the top of the flagpole and we stood uncovered while the flag went up. There was scarcely a response from the crowded grand stands; no true Frenchman had the heart to cheer. A good, hearty cheer requires more than mere politeness. But every American there made enough noise for ten ordinary people, so that numbers really counted for very little in the deep feeling of satisfaction at the result of the first great contest in the history of aviation. Mr. Andrew D. White, accompanied by Mrs. Roosevelt and Miss Ethel Roosevelt, came over to our car and congratulated me. Quentin Roosevelt, who had been in a state of excitement throughout the day, declared it "bully," while his brother Archie wanted to be shown all about the working of the machine. M. Bleriot himself, good sportsman that he is, was among the first to extend congratulations to America and to me personally.

There was a reason beyond the mere patriotism why the Americans felt so happy over the result; it meant that the next international race would be held in the United States, and that the best foreign machines would have to come across the ocean to make a try for the cup the following year.

In commenting upon the result the Paris Edition of the New York Herald said that the race had rehabilitated the biplane; that while the lightness and bird-like lines of the monoplane had appealed to the crowd as the ideal representation of artificial flight, "the American aviator proved that the biplane not only possessed qualities of carrying weight and undoubtedly of superior stability, but that, if need be, it can develop speed equal to, if not superior to, its smaller rival."

Offers of engagements to fly in Germany and Italy came pouring in. To accept these meant a good deal of money in prizes, for it had been proven that I had the fastest aeroplane in the world. I accepted some of them, as I had learned that the conditions for flying at the big meets in Europe were almost ideal and that there was a tremendous amount of interest everywhere, among all classes. A big meet was organized at Brescia, Italy, and I went there from Rheims.

Here I carried my first passenger, the celebrated Italian poet and author, Gabriele D'Annunzio. He was wildly enthusiastic over his experience, and upon being brought back to earth said with all the emotion of his people: "Until now I have never really lived! Life on earth is a creeping, crawling business. It is in the air that one feels the glory of being a man and of conquering the elements. There is the exquisite smoothness of motion and the joy of gliding through space–It is wonderful! Can I not express it in poetry? I might try."

And he did express it in poetry, a beautiful work published sometime later.

After winning the Grand Prize at Brescia and taking a wonderful motor trip over the Alps with Mr. Bishop, I hurried home to America to look after my business affairs, about which I had not had time even to think during the Rheims and Brescia meets.

NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST

Delegations of enthusiastic friends met Mr. Curtiss in New York, among them members of the Aero Club of America and other representative organisations. There followed a series of luncheons and dinners which seemed without end. Among all these the luncheon given by the Aero Club of America at the Lawyers' Club was notable because every one present showed such a warm interest in the success of American aeronautics, and such a firm determination not only to keep the trophy in this country, but to defend it the next year in an aviation meet that should be even greater than that with which Rheims had led the way.

But the real celebration took place in the little village of Hammondsport, the place where Mr. Curtiss was born and reared, and where he knew every man, woman, and child. The men in the factory and all his other warm friends got together and decided that there must be something out of the ordinary when he got back to town. They planned a procession all the way from Bath to Hammondsport, a distance of ten miles, with fireworks along the route. But a heavy rain came on just in time to spoil the fireworks plan, so they engaged a special train and this passed through a glow of red fire all the way home from Bath. At the Hammondsport station there was a carriage to draw him up the hill to his home, and fifty men furnished the motive power. There were arches with "Welcome" in electric lights, banners, fireworks, and speeches. Through the pouring rain there was a continuous procession of his friends and acquaintances–townspeople who had always given him their loyal support and the men from the shop who had made his success possible.

It was after eleven o'clock when the crowd dispersed–an almost unholy hour for Hammondsport.–AUGUSTUS POST.

[CHAPTER II HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION FIRST AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL MEET, AT LOS ANGELES]

I was not permitted to remain long in Hammondsport, although there was much work for me to do there in the way of planning improvements in the factory, as well as on my aeroplane, which had now come to be known throughout the world by reason of winning the Gordon Bennett Cup. There were tempting offers from all quarters to give exhibitions with the flying machine, which up to that time had been seen in but few places in this country. Some of these offers were accepted because I could not afford to reject them. Moreover, it required a great deal of money to run the shop, and there was no commercial demand for aeroplanes. They were, as yet, valuable only as "show machines," to see which the public was willing to pay goodly sums. For a long time preparations had been going on at New York City to celebrate the tri-centenary of the discovery of the Hudson river, and the centenary of the first steamboat trip on that stream by Fulton in the Clermont. It had been the idea of the originators of the Hudson-Fulton celebration–an idea that was expressed in the tentative plans published long before the celebration itself–that the new conquest of the air should be recognised, in some way, at the same time. At first it was intended that some sort of airship should accompany the naval parade the entire length of the Hudson, with a replica of Hendrik Hudson's Half Moon leading the way, Robert Fulton's old steamboat Clermont following, and the airship hovering above them thus furnishing a striking illustration of the wonderful advancement in the means of locomotion in a hundred years, and signalising the new science of air navigation. With this end in view the Celebration Committee engaged the Wright Brothers and myself to bring aeroplanes to New York, furnishing us with every facility on Governor's Island, in the Lower Bay, from which point all flights were to be made.

But aerial navigation in the fall of 1909 was not such a sure and certain thing as all that. Much depended upon the wind and weather, and it was soon demonstrated that the best that could be hoped for at the time of the celebration would be flights made at such times as the wind would permit. Day after day the public waited anxiously for flights to be made up the Hudson from Governor's Island, but day after day the wind blew up or down the Hudson in such blasts that it was not deemed safe to attempt a trip. For it must be remembered that there is scarcely a more difficult course anywhere in the country than over the Hudson river in the vicinity of New York. On both sides of the river, which is a swift-running stream, rise lofty hills, and at some places precipitous cliffs called the Palisades. On the New York side are miles upon miles of lofty apartment houses along Riverside Drive. If the wind blows across the river, either from the east or west, dangerous currents and eddies suck down through the canon-like streets, or over the steep Palisades, making flying extremely hazardous. For this reason there has never, even up to this time (August, 1912), been any flying to speak of over the Hudson, and for these reasons, the great river will not become a popular flying course for aeroplanes until they are so constructed as to be able to defy the treacherous, puffy wind currents. The hydroaeroplane, however, may navigate the course with safety, as it is perfectly safe in one of these machines to fly within a few feet of the water where there is the least danger from contrary air currents.

So much was printed in the New York newspapers while we were waiting for propitious weather that the public was keyed up to expect great things from the aeroplanes–far greater than the aeroplane could accomplish. Bulletins were posted by the newspapers from day to day, informing the public that flights would surely be made "to-day" provided the wind abated. In the meantime interest was doubly stimulated by the announcement of a ten-thousand-dollar prize for the first air-flight over Fulton's course, from New York to Albany, or from Albany to New York. One of the paintings made at the time as an "advance notice," I remember, showed so many aerial dreadnaughts in the sky, passing down the river by the Palisades at the same time, that one was forced to wonder how all of them were going to find room to navigate. However, the atmosphere had cleared long before the actual flight was made down the Hudson, the following summer.

In spite of the disappointment felt by the public at not seeing a fleet of aeroplanes sporting over the Hudson daily during the Hudson-Fulton celebration, there were many other things to divert the attention of New York's five millions and some few hundred thousands of visitors from this and other countries. The week of pomp and pageantry culminated in the most wonderful marine and land parades ever staged in this country, and seldom, if ever, excelled in the Old World. The marine parade extended all the way up to Albany, and at every stopping place there was a repetition, on a smaller scale, of the scenes of enthusiasm and general holiday spirit that had prevailed in the Metropolis. New York City was decorated as no one had ever seen it decorated before, and the great fleet of over a hundred warships that swung at anchor in the Hudson were visited by thousands by day and were outlined in myriads of electric lights at night, disguising their ominous guns in soft shadow and giving them a peaceful and almost fairy-like appearance. Then there were the dirigible balloons to command the attention of the crowds that thronged Riverside Drive waiting for the aeroplanes. They, too, were after the rich prize offered by the New York World. They furnished the only real contest during the Hudson-Fulton celebration. There were two of them, one entered by the intrepid Captain Thomas Baldwin, and the other by a Mr. Tomlinson. These were housed in great tents raised within an enclosure at Riverside Drive and One Hundred and Nineteenth street, behind a high fence, on which was painted "Hudson-Fulton Flights." This was the center of interest for great crowds for days during the period of waiting. Captain Baldwin, always popular with the people wherever he goes, was the centre of interest with the crowds that stood around the sheds, watching the mild, blunt noses of the big dirigibles as they bobbed and swayed with the gusts that swept around Grant's Tomb, reminding one of the ceaseless weaving of a restless elephant. But the elements seemed to be as much against the dirigibles as against the aeroplanes. Tomlinson made a start, after a long wait, but came to grief almost at once, while Captain Baldwin fared but little better. His trip extended but a few miles up the river, when he was forced to come down, thus ending the chances of the dirigibles.

The aeroplanes were scarcely more fortunate. October winds around New York are most unruly things, and at that particular period seemed worse than usual. Weather-wise folk learned after awhile to look out at the flags on the high buildings; if they stood out straight from the staff, the people went about their business, knowing there would be no flying that day. But every one kept an ear cocked for the firing of a big cannon on Governor's Island, the signal that a flight was about to be made. Even these were deceiving, for there were so many salutes being fired by the great fleets in the river and bay, that no one could tell when to give heed to gun signals. So the crowds sat along Riverside Drive, or depended upon the unhappy and over-worked policemen for word of the aeroplanes. Some people were disposed to hold the policemen personally responsible for the failure of the airships to fly. "You'd think," said one of the blue-coated guardians on Riverside Drive, "that I was keepin' 'em back, the way these people go at me. They blame me and not the wind!"

The wind held out and the week of festivities ended; still there had been no flying. I could not remain in New York any longer, as I had accepted an engagement some time before to fly at St. Louis. I was obliged therefore, much to my chagrin, and the disappointment of the crowds, to leave the city without making a flight up the river, although I did make a short flight over Governor's Island.

Mr. Wilbur Wright, however, remained in New York, and during the following week made a magnificent flight up the river from Governor's Island to Grant's Tomb and return, a distance of about twenty miles. This gave the larger part of New York's millions their first glimpse of an aeroplane in flight.

At St. Louis we gave a very successful meet. There were flights by Captain Baldwin, Lincoln Beachey, and Roy Knabenshue, in their dirigible balloons, and myself in my aeroplane. The weather conditions were favourable, and St. Louis turned out enthusiastic throngs to witness the exhibitions.

The Pacific Coast, always progressive and quick to seize upon every innovation, no matter where it may be developed, had been clamoring for some time for an aviation meet. The enterprising citizens of Los Angeles got together and put up a large sum of money to bring out from Europe and the eastern part of the United States, a number of representative aviators for an international meet, the first ever given in this country. Louis Paulhan, one of the most celebrated French aviators, was brought over with a biplane and a monoplane, and there were a number of American entries, including Charles F. Willard and myself. Los Angeles furnished the first opportunity for a real contest in this country between the French and American machines, and these contests aroused immense interest throughout the country.

The importance of the Los Angeles meet to the aviation industry in this country was very great. The favourable climatic conditions gave opportunities for every one to fly in all the events, and the wide publicity given to the achievements of Paulhan and others, especially to the new world's altitude record established by the French aviator, stimulated interest throughout the country. There was cross-country flying such as had not been seen in this country, brilliant exhibitions of altitude flying, and speed contests of the hair-raising variety. Sometimes it takes just such a public demonstration as the Los Angeles meet not only to spread the news of the general progress of mechanical flight, but to show the builders of aeroplanes themselves just what their machines are capable of.

It was at the Los Angeles meet, by the way, that Charles F. Willard coined that apt and picturesque phrase which soon was used the world over in describing air conditions. Willard had made a short flight and on coming down declared the air "was as full of holes as a Swiss cheese." This made a great hit with the newspapermen, who featured it, using it day after day in their stories until it went the rounds of the press of the world. There were special articles written on "holes in the air," and interviews of prominent aviators to determine how it feels to fall into "a hole in the air."

The expression was more picturesque than accurate, for it is not necessary to explain, in this advanced stage of aviation, that there are no "holes" in the atmosphere. If there were a hole in the atmosphere, a clap of thunder would result, caused by the rushing in of the surrounding air to fill the vacuum. The only holes in the air are the streaks that follow a rifle bullet or a flash of lightning. The real cause of the conditions described by Willard, and which has since probably been responsible for the death of several well known aviators, is a swift, downward current of air, rushing in to fill a vacuum that follows a rising current from a heated area. The hot air rises and the cool air rushes down to take its place. An aeroplane striking one of these descending currents drops as if the entire atmospheric support had been suddenly removed, and if it be not high enough, may strike the ground with fatal results to the aviator. Every experienced airman has met these conditions. They are especially noticeable over water, streaks of calm water showing where the up-currents are just starting, and waves or ripples where the down-currents strike the surface.

The representative of the Aero Club of America at the Los Angeles meet was Mr. Cortlandt Field Bishop, of New York, who had been at Rheims the previous summer when I won the Gordon Bennett Cup and who had been of inestimable assistance to me at that time. Mr. Bishop had his oft-expressed wish to fly gratified at Los Angeles. He was taken up by Louis Paulhan several times, and Paulhan also took Mrs. Bishop for her first aerial ride. Great crowds came out at the Los Angeles meet, and they for the first time in the history of aviation in this country expected the aviator to fly and not to fall. Paulhan did some wonderful cross-country flying, and as a climax to the week of aerial wonders, he established a world's altitude record by ascending 4,165 feet. This was regarded as marvellous at that time. Since then the mark has been successively raised by Brookins, Hoxsey, Le Blanc, Beachey, Garros and others. Legagneux now (September, 1912) holds the record at 18,760 feet.

Interest in aviation was keen following the Los Angeles meet and I decided to try for the New York World's ten-thousand-dollar prize, which was still open, for a flight down the Hudson from Albany to New York City. Notwithstanding all the natural obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of the undertaking, the conditions were so fair as to stops, time-limit, etc., and it was so obviously a prize offered to be won, that I considered it worth a serious effort.

I fully realised that the flight was much greater than anything I had yet attempted, and even more difficult than Bleriot's great flight across the English channel from France to England, news of which was still ringing throughout the world, and even greater than the projected flight from London to Manchester, England, and for which a prize of fifty thousand dollars had been offered. Although the course covered about the same distance as the London-Manchester route, there was not the difficulty of landing safely over the English route. The Hudson flight meant one hundred and fifty-two miles over a broad, swift stream, flowing between high hills or rugged mountains the entire distance and with seldom a place to land; it meant a fight against treacherous and varying wind currents rushing out unawares through clefts in the mountains, and possible motor trouble that would land both machine and aviator in the water with not much chance of escape from drowning, even if uninjured in alighting.

[CHAPTER III FLIGHT DOWN THE HUDSON RIVER FROM ALBANY TO NEW YORK CITY]

To fly from Albany to New York City was quite an undertaking in the summer of 1910. I realised that success would depend upon a dependable motor and a reliable aeroplane. In preparation for the task, therefore, I set the factory at Hammondsport to work to build a new machine. While awaiting the completion of the machine, I took a trip up the Hudson from New York to Albany to look over the course and to select a place about half way between the two cities where a landing for gasoline and oil might be made, should it become necessary.

There are very few places for an aeroplane to land with safety around New York City. The official final landing place, stipulated in the conditions drawn up by the New York World, was to be Governor's Island, but I wanted to know of another place on the upper edge of the city where I might come down if it should prove necessary. I looked all over the upper end of Manhattan Island, and at last found a little meadow on a side hill just at the junction of the Hudson and Harlem rivers, at a place called Inwood. It was small and sloping, but had the advantage of being within the limits of New York City. It proved fortunate for me that I had selected this place, for it later served to a mighty good advantage.

There was quite a party of us aboard the Hudson river boat leaving New York City one day in May for the trip to Albany. As an illustration of the scepticism among the steamboat men, I remember that I approached an officer and asked several questions about the weather conditions on the river, and particularly as to the prevailing winds at that period of the year. Incidentally, I remarked that I was contemplating a trip up the river from New York to Albany in an aeroplane and wanted to collect all the reliable data possible on atmospheric conditions. This officer, whom I afterward learned was the first mate, answered all my questions courteously, but it was evident to all of us that he believed I was crazy. He took me to the captain of the big river boat and introduced me, saying: "Captain, this is Mr. Curtiss, the flying machine man; that's all I know," in a tone that clearly indicated that he disclaimed all responsibility as to anything I might do or say.

Copyright, 1910, by The Pictorial News Co.

THE ALBANY-NEW YORK HUDSON FLIGHT

(A) Start of the flight at Albany. Mrs. Curtiss and Augustus Post standing by Curtiss. (B) Over West Point Military Academy–"The new kind of invader."

Copyright, 1910, by The Pictorial News Co.

THE HUDSON FLIGHT

Over Storm King

The captain was very kind and courteous, asking us to remain in the pilot house, where we might get a better view of the country along the way, and displaying the keenest interest in the project. He answered all our questions about the winds along the Hudson and seemed to enter heartily in the spirit of the thing until we approached the great bridge at Poughkeepsie and I began to deliberate whether it would be better to pass over or beneath it in the aeroplane. Then it seemed really to dawn upon the captain for the first time that I was actually going to fly down the river in an aeroplane. He apparently failed to grasp the situation, and thereafter his answers were vague and given without interest. It was "Oh, yes, I guess so," and similar doubtful expressions, but when we finally left the boat at Albany he very kindly wished me a safe trip and promised to blow the whistle if I should pass his boat.

Albany afforded a better starting place than New York, because there were convenient spots where one might land before getting well under way, should it become necessary. This was not true of the situation at New York City. As to the advantage of prevailing winds, it seemed to be in favour of Albany as the starting place, and I finally decided to have everything sent up to the capital city. On my way up I had stopped at Poughkeepsie, in order to select a landing place, as at least one stop was deemed necessary to take on gasoline and to look over the motor. We visited the State Hospital for the Insane, which stands on the hill just above Poughkeepsie, and which seemed to be a good place to land. Dr. Taylor, the superintendent, showed us about the grounds, and when told that I intended stopping there on my way down the river in a flying machine, said with much cordiality: "Why, certainly, Mr. Curtiss, come right in here; here's where all the flying machine inventors land."

Notwithstanding the Doctor's cordial invitation to "drop in on him," we went to the other side of Poughkeepsie, and there found a fine open field at a place called Camelot. I looked over the ground carefully, locating the ditches and furrows, and selected the very best place to make a safe landing. Arrangements were made for a supply of gasoline, water, and oil to be brought to the field and held in readiness. It was fortunate that I looked over the Camelot field, for a few days later I landed within a few feet of the place I had selected as the most favoured spot near Poughkeepsie. This is but one thing that illustrates how the whole trip was outlined before the start was made, and how this plan was followed out according to arrangement.

I shall always remember Albany as the starting place of my first long cross-country flight. My machine was brought over from Hammondsport and set up; the Aero Club sent up its official representatives, Mr. Augustus Post and Mr. Jacob L. Ten Eyck, and the newspapers of New York City sent a horde of reporters. A special train was engaged to start from Albany as soon as I got under way, carrying the newspapermen and the Aero Club representatives, as well as several invited guests. It was the purpose to have this train keep even with me along the entire trip of one hundred and fifty-two miles, but as it turned out, it had some trouble in living up to the schedule.

The aeroplane, christened the "Hudson Flier," was set up on Rensselaer Island. It was now up to the weather man to furnish conditions I considered suitable. This proved a hard task, and for three days I got up at daybreak, when there is normally the least wind, ready to make an early start. On these days the newspapermen and officials, not to mention crowds of curious spectators, rubbed the sleep out of their eyes before the sun got up and went out to Rensselaer Island. But the wind was there ahead of us and it blew all day long. The weather bureau promised repeatedly, "fair weather, with light winds," but couldn't live up to promises. I put in some of the time in going over every nut, bolt, and turnbuckle on the machine with shellac. Nothing was overlooked; everything was made secure. I had confidence in the machine. I knew I could land on the water if it became necessary, as I had affixed two light pontoons to the lower plane, one on either end, and a hydro-surface under the front wheel of the landing-gear. This would keep me afloat some time should I come down in the river.

We bothered the life out of the weather observer at Albany, but he was always very kind and took pains to get weather reports from every point along the river. But the newspapermen lost faith; they were tired of the delay. I have always observed that newspapermen, who work at a high tension, cannot endure delay when there is a good piece of news in prospect. One of those at Albany during the wait, offered to lay odds with the others that I would not make a start. Others among the journalists believed I was looking for free advertising, and when another of the advertised starters for the World prize reached Albany he was greeted with: "Hello, old man, are you up here to get some free advertising, too?" One of the Poughkeepsie papers printed an editorial about this time, in which it said: "Curtiss gives us a pain in the neck. All those who are waiting to see him go down the river are wasting their time." This was a fair sample of the lack of faith in the undertaking.

The machine was the centre of interest at Albany during the wait. It seemed to hold a fascination for the crowds that came over to the island. One young fellow gazed at it so long and so intently that he finally fell over backwards insensible and it was some time before he was restored to consciousness. Then one of the newspapermen dashed a pail of water over him and at once sent his paper a column about it. They had to find something to write about and the countryman, the flying machine, and the fit made a combination good enough for almost any newspaper-man to weave an interesting yarn about.

Our period of waiting almost ended on Saturday morning, May 30th. The "Hudson Flier" was brought out of its tent, groomed and fit; the special train provided by the New York Times to follow me over the New York Central, stood ready, with steam up and the engineer holding a right-of-way order through to New York. The newspapermen, always on the job, and the guests were watching eagerly for the aeroplane to start and set out on its long and hazardous flight.

Then something happened–the wind came up. At first it did not seem to be more than a breeze, but it grew stronger and reports from down the river told of a strong wind blowing up the river. This would have meant a head gale all the way to New York, should I make a start then. Everything was called off for the day and we all went over and visited the State Capitol. The newspapermen swallowed their disappointment and hoped for better things on the morrow.

Sunday proved to be the day. The delay had got somewhat on my nerves and I had determined to make a start if there was half a chance. The morning was calm and bright–a perfect summer day. News from down the river was all favourable. I determined it was now or never. I sent Mrs. Curtiss to the special train and informed the World representative and the Aero Club officials that I was ready to go. Shortly after eight o'clock the motor was turned over and I was off!

It was plain sailing after I got up and away from Rensselaer Island. The air was calm and I felt an immense sense of relief. The motor sounded like music and the machine handled perfectly. I was soon over the river and when I looked down I could see deep down beneath the surface. This is one of the peculiar things about flying over the water. When high up a person is able to see farther beneath the surface.

I kept a close lookout for the special train, which could not get under way as quickly as I had, and pretty soon I caught sight of it whirling along on the tracks next to the river bank. I veered over toward the train and flew along even with the locomotive for miles. I could see the people with their heads out the windows, some of them waving their hats or hands, while the ladies shook their handkerchiefs or veils frantically. It was no effort at all to keep up with the train, which was making fifty miles an hour. It was like a real race and I enjoyed the contest more than anything else during the flight. At times I would gain as the train swung around a short curve and thus lost ground, while I continued on in an air line.

All along the river, wherever there was a village or town, and even along the roads and in boats on the river, I caught glimpses of crowds or groups of people with their faces turned skyward, their attitudes betokening the amazement which could not be read in their faces at that distance. Boatmen on the river swung their caps in mute greeting, while now and then a river tug with a long line of scows in tow, sent greetings in a blast of white steam, indicating there was the sound of a whistle behind. But I heard nothing but the steady, even roar of the motor in perfect rhythm, and the whirr of the propeller. Not even the noise of the speeding special train only a few hundred feet below reached me, although I could see every turn of the great drive-wheels on the engine.

On we sped, the train and the aeroplane, representing a century of the history of transportation, keeping abreast until Hudson had been past. Here the aeroplane began to gain, and as the train took a wide sweeping curve away from the bank of the river, I increased the lead perceptibly, and soon lost sight of the special.

It seemed but a few minutes until the great bridge spanning the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, came into view. It was a welcome landmark, for I knew that I had covered more than half the journey from Albany to New York, and that I must stop to replenish the gasoline. I might have gone on and taken a chance on having enough fuel, but this was not the time for taking chances. There was too much at stake.

I steered straight for the centre of the Poughkeepsie bridge, and passed a hundred and fifty feet above it. The entire population of Poughkeepsie had turned out, apparently, and resembled swarms of busy ants, running here and there, waving their hats and hands. I kept close watch for the place where I had planned to turn off the river course and make a landing. A small pier jutting out into the river was the mark I had chosen beforehand and it soon came into view. I made a wide circle and turned inland, over a clump of trees, and landed on the spot I had chosen on my way up to Albany. But the gasoline and oil which I had expected to find waiting for me, were not there. I saw no one for a time, but soon a number of men came running across the fields and a number of automobiles turned off the road and raced toward the aeroplane. I asked for some gasoline and an automobile hurried away to bring it.

I could scarcely hear and there was a continual ringing in my ears. This was the effect of the roaring motor, and strange to say, this did not cease until the motor was started again. From that time on there was no disagreeable sensation. The special train reached the Camelot field shortly after I landed and soon the newspaper-men, the Aero Club officials, and the guests came climbing up the hill from the river, all eager to extend their congratulations. Henry Kleckler, acting as my mechanic, who had come along on the special train, looked over the machine carefully, testing every wire, testing the motor out, and taking every precaution to make the remainder of the journey as successful as the first half. The gasoline having arrived, and the tank being refilled, the special train got under way; once more I rose into the air, and the final lap of the journey was on.

Out over the trees to the river I set my course, and when I was about midstream, turned south. At the start I climbed high above the river, and then dropped down close to the water. I wanted to feel out the air currents, believing that I would be more likely to find steady air conditions near the water. I was mistaken in this, however, and soon got up several hundred feet and maintained about an even altitude of from five hundred to seven hundred feet. Everything went along smoothly until I came within sight of West Point. Here the wind was nasty and shook me up considerably. Gusts shot out from the rifts between the mountains and made extremely rough riding. The worst spot was encountered between Storm King and Dunderberg, where the river is narrow and the mountains rise abruptly from the water's edge to more than a thousand feet on either side. Here I ran into a downward suction that dropped me in what seemed an interminable fall straight down, but which as a matter of fact was not more than a hundred feet or perhaps less. It was one of Willard's famous "holes in the air." The atmosphere seemed to tumble about like water rushing through a narrow gorge. At another point, a little farther along, and after I had dropped down close to the water, one blast tipped a wing dangerously high, and I almost touched the water. I thought for an instant that my trip was about to end, and made a quick mental calculation as to the length of time it would take a boat to reach me after I should drop into the water.

The danger passed as quickly as it had come, however, and the machine righted itself and kept on. Down by the Palisades we soared, rising above the steep cliffs that wall the stream on the west side. Whenever I could give my attention to things other than the machine, I kept watch for the special train. Now and then I caught glimpses of it whirling along the bank of the river, but for the greater part of the way I out-distanced it.

Soon I caught sight of some of the sky-scrapers that make the sky-line of New York City the most wonderful in the world. First I saw the tall frame of the Metropolitan Tower, and then the lofty Singer building. These landmarks looked mighty good to me, for I knew that, given a few more minutes' time, I would finish the flight. Approaching Spuyten Duyvil, just above the Harlem river, I looked at my oil gauge and discovered that the supply was almost exhausted. I dared not risk going on to Governor's Island, some fifteen miles farther, for once past the Harlem river there would be no place to land short of the island. So I took a wide sweep across to the Jersey side of the river, circled around toward the New York side, and put in over the Harlem river, looking for the little meadow at Inwood which I had picked out as a possible landing place some two weeks before.

There I landed on the sloping hillside, and went immediately to a telephone to call up the New York World. I told them I had landed within the city limits and was coming down the river to Governor's Island soon.

I got more oil, some one among the crowd, that gathered as if by magic, turned my propeller, and I got away safely on the last leg of the flight. While I had complied with the conditions governing the flight by landing in the city limits, I wanted to go on to Governor's Island and give the people the chance to see the machine in flight.

From the extreme northern limits of New York to Governor's Island, at the southern limits, was the most inspiring part of the trip. News of the approach of the aeroplane had spread throughout the city, and I could see crowds everywhere.

New York can turn out a million people probably quicker than any other place on earth, and it certainly looked as though half of the population was along Riverside Drive or on top of the thousands of apartment houses that stretch for miles along the river. Every craft on the river turned on its siren and faint sounds of the clamour reached me even above the roar of my motor. It seemed but a moment until the Statue of Liberty came into view. I turned westward, circled the Lady with the Torch and alighted safely on the parade ground on Governor's Island.

General Frederick Grant, commanding the Department of the East, was one of the first officers who came up to extend congratulations and to compliment me on the success of the undertaking. From that moment I had little chance for anything except the luncheons and dinners to which I was invited. First came the luncheon at the Astor House given by the New York World, and then the big banquet at the Hotel Astor, presided over by Mayor Gaynor and attended by many prominent men interested in aviation. The speeches were all highly laudatory, of course, and there were many predictions by the orators that the Hudson river would become a highway for aerial craft, as it had for steam craft when Fulton first steered the old Clermont from New York to Albany.

On the trip down from Albany I carried a letter from the mayor of that city to Mayor Gaynor, and delivered it in less time than it would have taken the fastest mail train. My actual flying time was two hours, fifty-one minutes, the distance one hundred and fifty-two miles, and the average speed fifty-two miles an hour.

From Albany to Poughkeepsie is eighty-seven miles, and by making this in a continuous flight I had, incidentally, won the Scientific American trophy for the third time. It now became my personal property, and its formal presentation was made at the annual dinner of the Aero Club of America for that year.

NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST

The newspapers made much of Mr. Curtiss' flight, drawing comparisons between the Hudson river course and the flight made by Bleriot across the English channel, and the trip of Paulhan from London to Manchester, which he had just accomplished a flight of about the same distance, for which he received fifty thousand dollars from the London Daily Mail.

The New York Times offered a large prize for a flight from New York to Philadelphia and return, immediately afterward, which Charles K. Hamilton won, and also offered a prize of twenty-five thousand dollars for a flight between New York and Chicago, which was never won. Mr. W. E. Hearst was also moved to offer fifty thousand dollars for a flight between New York and a point on the Pacific Coast, the offer standing open for one year. This flight was accomplished by Calbraith P. Rodgers, but was not concluded within the time limit.

There was, naturally, an outburst of editorial comment from newspapers all over the United States, not only long and scholarly leaders, but brief, snappy paragraphs that make the press of this country an interesting record of public feeling and sentiment on all extraordinary achievements. For instance, the St. Louis Times spoke of the passing of the new aerial menace over West Point where cadets were studying the history of military science along ancient lines, and the Chicago Inter-Ocean chuckled over how this latest achievement "would jar old Hendrik Hudson."

Copyright, 1910, by The Pictorial News Co.

THE HUDSON FLIGHT

(A) Stop at Poughkeepsie. (B) Finish, at Governor's Island

THE EVOLUTION OF THE HYDRO

(A) The first hydro in the world–the "June Bug" on pontoons, Hammondsport, November 5, 1908. (B) Developing Hydro at San Diego Curtiss and Ellyson in hydro of winter, 1911; dual control–either of two military aviators may steer. (C) Curtiss Landing in hydro at Cedar Point, Ohio.

The Newark News declared that "the Indian canoe, the Half moon, the Clermont and the Curtiss biplane each represented a human achievement that marked an epoch," while the Providence News believed that "valuable as was astronomer Halley's naming of a comet, Mr. Curtiss has accomplished something of more practical value to the world" and the York Gazette compared the flight down the Hudson Valley by the aeroplane to the conquest of the North Pole. There were other interesting points of view taken by the press, the Birmingham News, for instance, expressing the opinion that the New York World was extravagant, as "it had paid $10,000.00 for Curtiss' ticket from Albany to New York, when it might have brought him down by train for $4.65." The Battle Creek Enquirer said that Mr. Curtiss ought to go into politics, for "a man who can soar as high, stay up as long, travel as far, light as safely, all on wind, would have the rest of them tied to the post." But the Savannah News intimated that nobody could blame Mr. Curtiss from flying away from the Albany Legislature at the rate of a mile a minute. The Birmingham Age-Herald declared that the way was paved for other and greater flights, even across the Atlantic ocean, and indeed, the ocean flight now seemed to the press a not far distant possibility. The Rochester Chronicle-Democrat argued that the bench and bar would now have an opportunity for the exercise of all their legal ability to settle the question "who owns the air!" But it was left to the Houston Post to break into poetry in the following outburst of local pride:

"The wonder is that Curtiss did

Not pass New York and onward whiz

Southwest by south, half south, until

He got where Houston, Texas, is."

But perhaps the most characteristic comments were those like that of the New York Evening Mail:

"In every newspaper that you picked up yesterday you read a thrilling account of the great achievement of Glenn H. Curtiss. The detailed description of his wonderful flight stirred every emotion in you. Chills ran up your spine and tears of joy came to your eyes as you read on and on of the courage of the man who propelled his airship at a speed of fifty-three miles an hour at a height of a thousand feet above the earth. He realised all of the time that a broken bolt or some little thing gone wrong might dash him to death." It is of course quite impossible to give even a small proportion of the bright comments that were made by the newspapers not only of this country, but even by the foreign press. The New York Times sent a special train to follow the flight, on which I rode as the representative of the Aero Club of America. Here is my report in the Times:

"7:02–A. M. Mr. Curtiss started from Van Rensselaer Island, Albany. Jacob L. Ten Eyck official starter for Aero Club of America.

7:03–Passed over the city limits of Albany.

7:20–New Baltimore.

7:26–Twenty-one miles. The Times special train caught up with aeroplane.

7:27–Milton Hook brick yards. Wind still. Aeroplane flying about 45 miles per hour. Passed lighthouse on west side of Hudson River.

7:32–Stockport. Twenty-four miles.

7:35–Hudson. Twenty-nine miles. Aeroplane flying high. Catskill Mountain houses could be seen in the distance. Machine flying steady, water was calm, small ripples along the surface.

7:36–Thirty miles. The Times special train passed through tunnel parallel with 'plane.

7:40–2 Tower 81, New York Central Railroad. Greensdale ferry.

7:41–Catskill on west shore of Hudson River. Flying high.

7:44–Water trough in centre of track. Train equal with 'plane. Linlithgo Station.

7:46–Germantown steamer dock. Aeroplane flying well.

7:48–Passed old steamboat on west side of the river. Germantown Station. Aeroplane pitched when foot oil pump was used. Slight ripples on the water.

7:51–The Times special train running parallel with aeroplane.

7:53–Tivoli. Forty-four miles. Aeroplane 1,000 feet high. Wind slightly from the west.

7:58–Barrytown. Forty-nine miles. Aeroplane about 800 feet high, descending a little lower until about 400 feet high.

8:03–Kingston. Brick yards on west shore of river. Mr. Curtiss is flying very near The Times special train, within perhaps 100 yards.

8:04–Aeroplane turns toward west. Heads a little more into the wind and crosses to the west side of the river at high speed.

8:05–Private yacht dock on east side of river. Aeroplane flying high again.

8:06–Rhinecliff: Ferry. Fifty-four miles. Aeroplane has been flying one hour and four minutes. Seems to be flying well.

8:08–Passing Tower 67, New York Central Railroad.

8:08–The Times special train passed through tunnel. Mr. Curtiss goes back to west side of river, flying over ice-houses.

8:11–Passed lighthouse in middle of river. The aeroplane seems to be rising and falling slowly on the varying currents of air. River is very wide at this point. There are large stone crushers on the west shore, and a large stone building of an institution on the bank of the river.