Glenn Curtiss: The Forgotten Eagle

Support for Glenn Curtis The Forgotten eagle is provided in part by the Savitch agency of Binghamton providing a full range of insurance services to the local community for over 50 years. On Sunday July 4th 19 8. Over 2000 people flooded this field in Hammon's port in New York to see if man could fly. It had been nearly five years since the Wright Brothers Kittyhawk success but still most Americans had never seen an airplane in flight. But this man would prove that human flight was possible. And his story more than any other man of his time is the story of the birth of aviation in America.

You. See. Glenn Curtis would become America's first aviation hero. A larger than life figure who embodied the spirit of the country. A self-taught and remarkably intuitive inventor. It would be Curtis who would propel the airplane into the modern age. Gwen Kertesz was probably the dominant figure of early aviation in the Americas that same kind of ridiculous because the Wright brothers obviously were first and yet Kurdish Shaab very quickly was able to move past the rights

technologically and he certainly moved past the rights commercially within 10 years. He would become the king of the aviation industry. By the end of World War 1 courtesans operation expanded to a number of factories half a dozen or more number had over 5000 employees. It was heads and shoulders over any other aviation company in this nation. The time. And that was to set the standard for which later companies were to evolve too. And it would be Curtis who would be the first to prove that the airplane could be a weapon for modern warfare. The Navy is no longer battleships. Just carriers and destroyers and support ships to protect and support the carriers and the carrier is in effect the product of Glencross. But none of it would come easy. Curtis would become embroiled in one of the most bitter and controversial lawsuits of the 20th century.

A fight that would pit him against the Legends of Flight. The Wright brothers from the moment he stuck his head up with the Junebug bug on July 4th 1998. He was under fire from the riots in court. Well there's no question that the first 10 years of airplane were tremendously colored by the the fight over who is going to control the emerging industry. Some very strong feelings there. All right Katie Curtis whose dying day. The airplane is not the only case where where for whatever reason to distill things down to such a superficial level that we tend to forget the way it really evolved and the people that really contribute to it. And as much as I was one of three officers of the Navy selected to fly when the Navy on its face. And I've stuck to the naval aviation assets. Some people call me a

walking history. I learned to fly a kite flying. Kites and consequently was associated with them all along. Get out of Iraq. I don't live plan ever got credit for all that you did and so far as the present history of aviation is. For. Lua Curtis Hammon's port was paradise on earth an artist and musician. She drew inspiration from her days spent on Cuca lake and hiking through the glen that carved its way through the valley. Lewis cherish the village so much but in 1878 she named her first born child after the Gorge and the town's founder. Glen hamin. Curtis. Would never feel a closeness with his mother

and would never have the opportunity to know his father or grandfather. Both would die within months of each other. When Glen was just four years old he would spend most of his childhood being shuffled back and forth between his mother and his grandmother and they were two very different women. My mother was artistic. She painted She played music. She was very polite. She couldn't manage money. She was attractive. She had gentleman friends she could ice skate. She was an expert driver of horses. And yet it's grandma that Glenn was always closest to grandma was a minister's widow. She was hardworking She was practical she could deal with people. She'd been a vignette on the property to help keep the family going. She seems to be the one who in many ways sort of brought up the children. As a boy. Glen was often distant and melancholy. He spent much of his time alone in the woods near his home climbing trees or on the banks of the lake.

But he did show a remarkable ability for figuring out how things work. He would often roam the village with a screwdriver repairing doorbells and lamp fixtures. But the loss of his father and grandfather forced Curtis into early manhood. He would become protective of his younger sister or ruther. Who had lost her hearing to an infection when she was six. He would spend hours helping her learn to read lips and teaching her finger spelling. When a friend would later say. Always seemed a little older than the rest of us. On one occasion Glahn was out and boy fell through the ice on the canal. Granted it was only a mere teenager at the time as the one who pulled him out. He said Let's go out later while I was the closest one too and that's why I pulled him out. When he took him home he found out that there was no heat in the house. There was no food in the house.

The mother was sick. The house was cold. There was nothing to eat. He went home and got his mother and they packaged up charcoal and milk and sugar things like that. Took it over to the family. When Curtis was 14. He finished the eighth grade. He would never return to school. That summer he became swept up in a craze that had captured the country's imagination. It was Mendus craze in America more than a craze. It actually changed the way Americans when there was a store in Chicago that sold a thousand bicycles and day to this the horse population market in the United States. Actually the bicycle and the like took three cars. So the bicycle was a big deal in Antarctica and grandeurs one of the masters of the bicycle.

Curtis joined the Hammon's Park Boys a group of racers that included his friend tank waters. It wasn't long tank would tell a reporter before Gwen was the number one racer in the group. His sister said that it was at this time that really his passion was he had to go past. What's the purpose of racing. One would say unless you think you can win. And Curtis seldom lost. When would you be home eating dinner. A friend would say before the rest of the crowd even came in. One evening while returning home from a race Glen spied a young girl picking grapes and asked her for a drink of water. Hopelessly shy. Curtis had never before asked the girl for a date. But he was immediately smitten. By 17 year old Lena. She accepted and five months later Curtis found himself in front of Lena's parents

asking for her hand in marriage. Lina's mother hesitated. But her father approved. Don't worry. He said. That boy's going places in. 19 01 married with a young child Curtis decided to settle down. He began designing and building his own brand of bicycles. And open a shop in the village but he didn't stop racing and continued to experiment with ways to make his bikes go faster. Later that year he went to the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo. And what Glenn they among other things was he went into the hall of industry and they the first time in his life he saw as they called it those days. Called. And when he came home he wrote to the Times company in Buffalo and ordered a mail order engine while it came in. Ralph caftan needed milling it didn't have any instructions he didn't

have a carburetor. He was disgusted. Well he was the boy who could fix just about anything. So I rig it up and. Hooked it up to one of his bicycles and created the first motor cycle and perhaps the first motor vehicle ever seen Hammonds Paul. Curtis started racing his motorcycle throughout the northeast and quickly gained fame as a fearless competitor. He was well known in the field and in some ways he was sort of the evil Knievel of his day. He was known as a racer. He was known as a daredevil. People were shocked to see the things that he would do out there on the track or the costs around the road. He got to be known as the healthy rider because of the chances that he would take what people often didn't realize is that Glenn went out beforehand and studied the course. So he turned the course into an ally instead of fighting it as an enemy. And yes he took chances he pushed the envelope but he never made a move unless he had

calculated that he was pretty sure he could do it safely. But having made that calculation he pushed it right to the limit. At night. Glenn and Alina would keep a silent vigil over the crib of their son Carlton. Who had suffered since birth from congenital heart disease. On February 8th 1992. Carlton died in the arms of his father. He was just 11 months old. Working hard to bury his grief. Glen poured himself into his work. He decided to design and build his own engines. He began playing with light aluminum alloys that allowed him to increase the power to weight ratio on his motorcycles and experimented with the placement of the engine in the frame opting for a low and central setting with his own machine and his own engine.

Curtis set out to conquer the racing world. On Memorial Day 19 0 3 Cardus traveled to New York City. Well he got into a hill climb and he beat off the hedge drum and another professional. Shane with an Indian back he beat everybody. Wish they had time and won a gold medal then. Or across town to Yonkers jump into a ten mile race won the race. That will be back then. The American and the Caribbean all on the same day. I think this did his business no harm whatsoever. And very quickly people say well I want have hurt his motorcycle when Kurdish rights almost overnight Glenn Curtis became America's most sought after designer of motorcycles and lightweight engines in his own quest to win. Curtis had tapped into the country's growing fascination with speed orders from around the world flooded his small factory in

Hammon's port in December of 1983. The Curtis motorcycle company which now had over 100 employees. Was moving full bore and Curtis was at the center of it all. So busy was Curtis that he probably never noticed the reports on December 8th of the failed aerial experiments on the Potomac River in Washington D.C.. Professor Samuel Langley had become America's foremost aviation expert by the turn of the century. His flying model aerodromes as he called them had been highly successful. In 1983 he had spent $50000 of government money to build a full scale man carrying aerodrome. On December 8th with his machine mounted on a houseboat. Langley attempted a launch in what he had hoped would be the first successful heavier than air flight.

And in a fabulously well documented fiasco Langley airplane. Falls neatly into the Atlantic with. Its. Highly young engineer Charles Manley at the controls and the press lampooned and pilloried. This guy in such a prominent way. That. He basically just got out of Vietnam. He was just disgraced. New York Times headline was Langley's folly and they editorialized that. It On To show with the engineers mathematicians and after work for nine. Ten thousand years before you actually can get a cleaned up again. Langley's aerodrome was packed up and stored away in the basement of the Smithsonian. Just 10 days later. Orville and Wilbur Wright would make their historic first flights at Kitty Hawk but many newspapers feeling duped by Langley hesitated to report the Wright's monumental feat and the rights were in no hurry to expose their

success or their aircraft to anyone. Both Langley's failure and the right success would soon play a key role in Curtis's life. But as he handed out Christmas hams to his employees Cardus focused only on building better engines and making his motorcycles faster. But his life was about to take an incredible turn with a visit from an aviation superstar in his day. Tom Foreman was with really a kind of larger than life character. He was one of the sensations at this time. He probably had the largest outdoor act of anybody dealing with that era. You know. While there are Cody here some of these people who travel around. And set up shop. In a town and people would pay me that. Baldwin had been searching for years for an engine that would make his dirge Jubal's more powerful. Now remember that Curtis was always striving to improve the power to weight ratio for racing

purposes. Well that's exactly what you wanted if you wanted to get up in the air actually in those days. So a powerful lightweight engine was exactly what Baldwin needed to power. He had the original. Baldwin was so impressed with Curtis that he decided to move his operations to Hammond's port and set up alongside Curtis's factory. It wasn't long before other aviators were drawn to Hammon's port and to Curtis's world famous engines. Privately. Glen considered most aviator's crackpots. But he did like Captain Baldwin and began following him to his air shows. On a windy day in September of 1996. Curtis and Baldwin were in Dayton Ohio shortly after take off Baldwin's blimp was overtaken by a strong gust of wind.

Curtis and others in the crowd grabbed hold of the tethering cords to pull Baldwin back to the field. It was at this moment when Curtis found himself running alongside Wilbur Wright who had joined in to help. Neither man had ever met each other face to face but were familiar with each other's works. Curtis and Baldwin would spend the evening at Wright's bicycle shop. A council meeting would differ greatly in later years. All that is known are these facts. Curtis. At this moment in his life he had never set foot on an air ship and had shown no interest in flying. And the Wright brothers. Nearly three years after Kittyhawk. Had yet to publicly display their airplane. Though impossible for them to know at this time. This chance encounter of early aviation Giants would become the center of an icy battle over the

ownership of the air. At 29 years old Curtis's life had already become more than he had ever dreamed. His company was not producing the finest lightweight engines and motorcycles in America and he was considered one of the premier racers in the country. But his life was about to take a dramatic turn. One evening while Captain Baldwin tested a new engine Curtis sheepishly asked if he could try to ship out from Baldwin said take up my boy. Curtis went up and that changed his life. When he landed he no longer thought that plane was the crap crackpots. Although plenty of crackpots were like it. But he came down

and he said two or three things to his name. First of all he's wonderful. And second he said but there's no place to go. And third he said I think I can make it. Then Curtis immediately went to work developing a more powerful motor for Baldwin and the other blimps that now hovered over Hammon's port. He designed an eight cylinder V-shaped engine. The world's first V8 motor. The V8 was an immediate hit. And although Curtis was now enamored with flying he had not yet let go of his craving for speed. Now the motorcycle engine had gone into an s. Now he had an airship engine and he said to the fellows in the shop. What do you suppose would happen if I took this be a forty horsepower engine and put it on a motorcycle. And they said you'd kill yourself. And he said well let's try it out. In January 1997 Curtis took a specially designed motorcycle

equipped with his V8 motor to the Florida speed carnival in Ormond Beach. The officials would not agree to let Curtis ride this monstrosity in the races fearing someone especially Curtis would be killed. But they did agree to give him an official time. He got back in Baldwin and tank waters to prop him up while he started the engine and pushed him along down the beach while he got the speed up. He had a two mile run in. He crossed the starting line. Twenty six to two seconds later he crossed the finish line one mile down the beach. It took him another mile to stop and he went a hundred and thirty six miles an hour. A motorcycle never went that fast again for 30 years. An automobile hadn't even gone that fast. Curtis was officially dubbed the fastest man in the world. The Chicago Herald claimed the only rival to Curtis was a speeding bullet.

As for Glenn he calmly shrugged it off as satisfying his craving for speed. But Curtis his wife Lena during the loss of another member of her family. Pleaded for Gwen to stop racing. He agreed. Besides his focus had already begun to shift skyward. It was at this moment in time when one of the world's preeminent scientists and inventor of the telephone descended upon Kennedy. You know one thing that people don't remember is the extraordinary role that Alexander Graham Bell played in the development of the airplane. His assistant. Said. That. Now that. It handed over the telephone. Coming across it pretty much by accident. He was quite sure that that bell always what I've devoted most of his time to the development of. A flight. Bell had been a good friend and supporter of Samuel Langley and had been greatly hurt by Langley's lampooning from the press. He also was critical of the Wright Brothers increasing secrecy over their airplane. Bell himself had been

working for years on developing a kite that would carry a man aloft. He was now convinced that one of Curtis's engines was the final piece he needed to launch his dreams into action. He pressed Curtis hard to join a group of engineers that he was assembling to put man into the air. For Curtis It was very interesting to go back and work at this turning point in his life where we've had a tremendous success with motorcycles more orders and it's already made a fair amount of money. And. Here this. Amany. Guy. Inventor of the telephone and safe and a real dignitary now not even beyond the town of spavin County to town. Yes is essentially asking him to join. Forces. On Curtis Mathes still seen as a real long shot kind of an impossible dream. In the end Curtis agreed to join the group for one year. In September of 1987. Five men including Bell two Canadian

engineers. And Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge along with Glen Curtis formed the aerial experiment Association shortly after joining the IAEA. Curtis wrote a letter to the Wright Brothers offering them a free engine for their aircraft. Well surely he hoped to develop more business and sell future engines as a result of this. But the right's responded with thanks by saying that they were satisfied with the engines that they had. Well the fact is that the Kurdish engines were far superior and much better power to weight ratio. I think also though that die in their mind they were probably trying to protect their interest. They were concerned that no one else would be able to have any sort of position on their work and on their product. In December of 1997 the IAEA tested Belz

tetrahedral Kayte in Nova Scotia. The kite flew only briefly but Bell was satisfied with the test. He agreed that the group should continue experimentation. But with a more conventional style aircraft. Each group member would have the chance to design and fly their own machine. Via a moved its headquarters to Hammon's port and began like the Wright Brothers years earlier experimenting with gliders. On January 15th 1908 Thomas Selfridge wrote to the Wright brothers asking for advice for attaching material to the wing frames and where the center of pressure fell on the wings. The brothers answered kindly referring the IAEA to their patent. The Wright Brothers at this point knew of the CIA's existence but didn't fear losing ground to anyone. They felt that again the newgroup would not be

able to progress very rapidly. It took us five years to solve these problems is going to take them at least that long. However the brothers were wrong. The group working together pooling ideas and building on each other's strengths had already prepared the first airplane for testing. In March 19 0 8 the IAEA pulled on a frozen lake. Their first creation. They called it the Red Wing the Red Wing took off from the ice on skis fitted to the fuselage and flew straight but briefly before landing hard 317 feet later. A few days later. Another test ended quickly with a crash. The Red Wing was finished. The group was happy with the Redwings test but knew their next effort would need to include a device to control the craft while in the air. The Wright

Brothers had been the first to solve this problem with their wing warping system. The one they now held a patent on the IAEA was familiar with the right design but felt that a better solution was possible. They went back about an hour from its roots. And. And this part. How does how he get most of the credit on the team for really thinking about it. Alexander Graham Bell suggested that lateral control could be achieved by placing triangular tips on the ends of both the lower and upper wings. They call them the ailerons or little wings. On May 18th. The EPA tested their second aircraft the white wing. After several successful though relatively short flights. The ailerons proved to control the plane. There's no question that the year was solving the same problem that the Wright Brothers were trying to solve.

As it happens they just came up with a much more practical and better way of doing it once people thought what you are going. To accomplish. That was not worth it. There is no other method that ever you know we were just nobody aside from the Wright brothers. The idea of two things knowing that. Something else significant happened to the right wing which was that Curtis's birthday his 30th birthday. He took it his first flight and the experienced pilots Baldwins operate had maybe more like a light. This boy was startled by the amount of skill that could demonstrate that could his. 30th birthday on his first attempt. That was a great celebration. Jay athing McCurdy took it out next and wrecked it. And as they looked at the wreckage they said we could fix this in about two weeks but

at no point we've learned what we need and we know what we want to do next. Glenn it's your turn now. You're going to be the lead designer on all three. Get busy. What can we do to help you. Curtis went to work on ways to make the airplane fly better. And of course faster. He shortened the wings made the body more compact and pushed the pilot forward to give him more control over the wing flaps. He also added steerable landing gear. Curtis and the others worked fast putting their new airplane together in just over a month. Curtis had a reason. He wasn't just building an airplane. He was chasing history and another trophy for his mantle. A year earlier Scientific American magazine had set forth a challenge to anyone who would fly an airplane in public.

And that the back story behind that thinking American trophy magazine was really trying to get the Wright brothers to display their plight. This trip was really designed for the Wright Brothers and there is correspondence from the publisher of Scientific American editors and American encouraging the Wright brothers to fly their plane. When Curtis and his go to Scientific American a ham and the hot day and they don't really want to go out to him it's important. They don't really believe that these guys really have an airplane and they use their styling to actually write another letter to the Wright brothers to give them one final chance they say well we'll postpone these these guys. You know vainer course of Alexander Graham Bell but they are just very skeptical. But the Wright brothers refused Orval wrote the editors on June 30th. I have not been able to think of a way of changing our machines so that it could compete for the Scientific American trophy within the next month or two. All of our machines have been designed for starting from a track personally

Orville continued I think the flying machines of the future will start from Tracks Curtis said. Advertise it. Tell everyone who's interested in aviation. Bring a crowd. Heyman's bought it will prove to the world that we can really fly. This is the first. Publicly advertised flight plane the Western Hemisphere. I have probably calculated 50 people out of the population of the United States which is maybe 80 90. And maybe seen an airplane fly one. So. By and large. No. Ever seen an airplane fly. On July 4th 19 0 8 Hammon's Port New York seemed to become the center of the universe. Its population nearly triple. Reporters photographers and the film crew along with the dignitaries from up and down the East Coast

gathered in the cow field of Stony Brook Farm. At 7 p.m. the June bug with Glen Curtis in the pilot's seat. Rev Dave smuggler. The best account of all my favorite account. Actually Written by. Alexander and. Son in law. Al. Himself. Can be there. That day. Scott and I went there. Suddenly the group of people around the machine scattered into the fields. There was a sharp loud world and a cloud of dust. Then before we realized what it was doing it glided upwards into the air to stand in the gathering dusk of a mountain valley in your own country to see a man fly over you. Is the experience of a lifetime.

Us. Sailing down the straight line am that one kilometer mark. He had seen a photographer setting up a shot of the one kilometer mark and it seemed to take him off. He flew over the photographer over the mark. And kept going. Curtis landed well past the finish line guaranteeing himself the scientific american trophy. But he had proven much more than that. He had shown that manned flight was more than just a rumor. From the beaches of Kitty Hawk. The film of his flight was shown in movie houses across the country. The Junebug and Glenn Curtis were now the most famous airplane and aviator in America. But Curtis would soon find that the Wright Brothers were not ready to pass the baton quite yet.

The flight of the Junebug and the public fervor that followed jolted the Wright brothers who still had not publicly displayed their airplane. The Wright Brothers were quite startled that bell and his group had been able to be so successful in such a short period of time from Europe about two or more. I think it's time for you to send a letter. To Bell and the others and point out to them. That seven months ago any questions and information from us and we did provide them with some information available that they should recognize that our willingness to provide information and their mission to them and to use all. That as long as they are finding themselves to them. We're going to leave them alone. But if anybody tries to make money on it then they. Curtis assured Orrville that at the moment he and the other members of the

IAEA had no intention of exhibiting their airplane for money or in selling one for profit. Was that true. Certainly they had discussed it from time to time and certainly not too many months afterwards they were embarking on exploiting the commercial possibilities of the airplane. Had they however stolen anything from the right. No absolutely not. In their letter the right said refer them to you. Previously published documents and had provided one fact which there is no evidence that the IAEA ever actually used. Now that still leaves the question of whether the airplane is created by the ACA And later is vastly modified. Vigeland Curtis would have infringed on the right path. This would be the center of a struggle between Curtis and the Wright Brothers.

Was the aileron a separate and original improvement over the Wright Brothers wing warping system. Which their patent protected. While as far as Kertesz was concerned this was a far superior feature. It was not part of the wing. It was demonstrably not part of the wing. And besides Curtis said well if they had thought of it they would have done it. They would have used it so it's clear that this was not in their mind so to his mind this was an utterly new feature that was clearly not covered by the right. Patenting is a very interesting area. By granting. Exclusive right. You prohibit so-called free riders people from coming along and just copying what you did when you put a lot of money and time and effort into it by having a system like that you're going to provide an incentive for people to innovate and that that's the end. That's. The idea. Behind the patent system isn't at its core it's a very good idea.

But the patent the Wright brothers were granted was surprisingly broad. Giving them ownership of their wing warping system and any other ways of controlling the airplane at that point enough is good. Again the right weather is such a broad patent control over the airplane that essentially it didn't it didn't encourage innovation at all. What it ended up doing is stifling innovation all of them are all white dedicated innovators and grand kurtas happens to be one of them. We're basically set out of the game. With faith in the system. Curtis changed his mind. In 1989 he built and sold a copy of the June bug to the Aero Club of America. A group of wealthy and prominent businessmen who were looking for an airplane of their own to experiment with. It was that transaction that really sent the right. Absolutely through the roof even more than the June bank. There's nothing much they can do about it. But once money starts changing hands. Patent rights kick and all of that. And

it was on that basis that day that they brought legal action initially and. In August still chasing gold Curtis sailed to France and the first international air meet ever. Curtis would enter only one event but the most prestigious. But Gordon Bennett trophy would be given to the fastest airplane in the world. He was the only American at the meet and was going against the best aviators in Europe. This is the biggest thing in aviation yet. I just can't because it hasn't been an incredible thing that many of the big campaign producers in France have put up prize money. Kings and Queens from just all over Europe and dignitaries and every kind came I think over the course of the event they had. Something like. A quarter of a million people attended and as though the meet were not

exciting enough it really turned electrical when the Wright Brothers deliberately timing it to coincide with the meet announced day assault against Gwen Curtis. Basically for everything he had they wanted his money. They wanted the airplanes he had already made and sold surrendered and destroyed. And they wanted him out of business. And the other pilots were quite incensed. They saw the courtesy plane as being probably the area that the right airplane. And they also saw this as having a chilling effect on the development of new airplanes. But Curtis brushed off the suit as a bluff. He cabled his wife and Hammon's board who had been served the papers. Not to worry no one here he wrote believes there has been any infringement. Curtis has chances to win the Gordon Bennett Cup seems slim. He was going

against Louis Bleriot. Who had stunned the world with his flight over the English Channel. All had come to Remes with five of his own aeroplanes. A crew of nine and a personal chef. During one of his practice laps he ran into a lot of turbulence and was barely able to hang on to the airplane. It was even worse because he had sprained his ankle a few days before. But when he landed he found out that that was the best way he had had. So he said well that turbulence must be good for me for some reason and I ready to fly. And he said go to the judges and took off in or around that cause he had an old motorcycle and went in and that man said to him glad when that race on the court. That's how I've seen the way motorcycle races are what he did actually. He got up and he got up high and then dove for the starting line

in order to pick up speed and then caught the pilot so close that he shocked everybody in the crowd and he went around twice. And when he landed he found that he had the new world speed record over 46 miles per hour. I probably still had to fly. When he heard that Curtis was coming he had a special 80 horsepower V8 engine a pad specifically to beat back criticism challenge. That he made the first lap. Americans with GLAD looked at their watches and said Glenn you speak of time and say well that's it. It's all the way we all completed his second lap he landed. And they waited and they waited and all of a sudden the band's walk up the Star-Spangled Banner and the American flag started to go up the flag pole had fallen way behind on the second lap. And Curtis was the winner.

Curtis was anointed champion aviator of the world on both sides of the Atlantic. He returned to Hammon's port after two weeks as the toast of France. An exhausted hero. But Curtis also knew he was approaching a gathering storm. By. That. Time. The rights. Had developed a lot of animosity. Turkey is ready with a young upstart. It totally surprised them by working at 88. Coming up playing that fast. And I think they realized Randi he pose a threat to their hopes for getting a full backing and getting this sort of. Troughing man. In January of 1910. The Wright Brothers were awarded a temporary injunction. Preventing Curtis from building flying or exhibiting his airplane for profit. Since his flight in the June

bug Curtis had shifted his plan from building motorcycles to building airplanes. Now he had nothing to build and a plant careening toward bankruptcy. Curtis tried repeatedly to settle this feud with the Wright brothers out of court. But they refused. By the end of the year. His future in aviation looked grim. One evening while in New York City a man approached Curtis. I see they have your back against the wall don't they. When you need help come and see me. Stan Curtis turned to a friend and asked who the man was. You're joking aren't you. Surely you recognize Henry Ford. In early 1911. Curtis was allowed to post bond and resume aviation work while his case was appealed.

But with a year with no income and a company in ruins Curtis was cash poor and desperate and he knew that he was going to have to do something desperate in order to resume and retain any sort of place in the business and maybe even insolvency in his own life. So he set his sights on the ten thousand dollar New York World prize which was for the first flight in either direction by any type of aircraft between Albany and New York City. Even the notion seemed ridiculous. No one not the Wright brothers know the Europeans had attempted a flight of this magnitude. In 1910. The airplane was still a novelty and attraction seen at carnivals and the idea that you could travel over unknown terrain for a hundred and fifty miles and actually transport someone from one place to another. Well this was I mean this was fairly close to an thinkable.

Curtis realized he would need to construct an airplane like no other. His airplane would have to be strong enough to handle the changes in weather conditions that he would endure over the 156 mile distance from Albany to Manhattan. And he knew that he would have to equip his plane with flotation devices in case he needed to ditch it in the Hudson River. On May 26 CURTIS Why the New York World newspaper and told them he was ready to try for the prize. Curtis's every movement was now being tracked by the nation's newspapers. Just after 7:00 a.m. on Sunday May 29. Curtis took off from Rensselaer island in Albany. After being grounded for over a year by the Wright Brothers sued. The renewed sensation of

flight put Kurdish cities. Using the Hudson River as a guide. And tracking a new york Central Railroad with photographers and his wife Lena on board. Curtis headed south toward Poughkeepsie for his one allowed stop. After filling his tank with gas and oil borrowed from tracking motorists. Curtis was back in the air by 8:30. Shortly after 11:00 o'clock Curtis found himself within reach of the outstretched arms of the Statue of Liberty. Thousands. Upon thousands of people. Turn out. Everywhere in Manhattan. After. A few sation. Hard to exaggerate what a Faces facing. People on in the Hudson people out on their balconies. In Manhattan. And. He flies around the Statue of Liberty. Island. And. Give you a sense of it. It's. Like kind of six. Pages. Of. Text and photos in The New York Times that were. Copied And they ever devoted to a

single news event. When he touched down on Governor's Island. He had succeeded in winning the $10000 prize and vaulted himself back into the throne as King of the air. And you know when we look back at that flight again this is a largely forgotten plane on that day. People in Manhattan who witnessed that. Had to have a new understanding of airplane. It was not not a toy at the fairgrounds anymore. You see the beginning of an understanding that it can be very useful. I think that's worth a lot. Making that. Step. Is. Not. A single innovation in and of itself but to help people along to see what the technology can do because one of the most important pieces in its development and that's a piece that Cloncurry is contribute in that way with the success of his Albany to New York City flight Kurdish had really established himself at the forefront of the American aviation world. He had demonstrated

that he had a superior aircraft and that he had superior skills and he was also demonstrating that he was in for the long haul. Yes he might be in trouble with the rights but he was in the aero business and he was in the business to sell way of planes and he was making good airplanes and he was going to continue to take the lead in the field. Over the next four years. Curtis his contribution to the development of the modern airplane was unparalleled. That winter he set up camp in San Diego Bay Training the first Navy pilots and developing aircraft under their guidance. He oversaw the first experimentation with aircraft that could take off and land from the ship. Curtis's vision for the future of the aeroplane will transform the way America went to war. In the summers. Curtis would be back in a Hammons for developing and testing the

hydroplane and the flying boat. He realized there weren't that many places to land or take off in the United States at that time. But he lived in the Finger Lakes. And have. Lots of lakes and rivers which have flat surfaces and nothing in the way. It was only logical to him to use those as airports. Very few people remember. That. In 1948. Curtis. Designed and built a fly on. Three engines. For the purpose of attempting transatlantic. Flight. He also had. The idea of speed. What was astonishing to me. Fastest plane existing at that time made up at 60 miles an hour. What he was talking about something over 400 miles an hour fly in the ocean. Things like that which we frankly couldn't believe

would ever come off. Curtis's imagination was unstoppable and he had an uncanny ability to bring the best out of the people around him. People just really admired him and and loved working with him. And I think one of the reasons why one of the at one of his coworkers explained it that Curtis had this great capacity for working with TVs. He was a friendly guy really an inventor. But when he was working with other people he always would respectfully listen to other people and genuinely listen and if you can make everybody feel like they're contributing even if many of the ideas are coming from him he had this very generous way about it. That's how ideas came I think he thought best that way. I think he would love to be working with a bunch of guys. Figuring out a problem and just thrive on that. But his feud with the Wright Brothers continued in 1912. Wilbur Wright died suddenly from typhoid. A grieving Orrville

publicly blamed the stress from the Curtis lawsuits for his brother's early death. Orville made no secret of the fact that he wanted Curtis out of business. In June of 1914 the same judge that had ruled in favor of the rights four years earlier ordered Curtis to shut down but Curtis refused to give in and took steps that would create controversy for nearly the next 100 years. In August. Curtis accepted an offer from the Smithsonian Institution to rebuild the original Langley aerodrome that had crashed 10 years earlier in the Potomac. And. That caused a bit of a controversy. From one standpoint the Smithsonian was interested interested in perhaps salvaging. Samuel Langley's reputation reputation. Other people are saying that Curtis is simply trying to find a way to get around the right patterns associated with

the aircraft. If they could prove that there was another airplane capable of flight before the Wright brothers then perhaps it would have some kind of an effect on fighting the patent battles for Curtis ever taking place. It certainly has served to anger off all right. As it stirred up a major controversy to this day people aren't sure how much. Chris had to modify the airplane in order to get to fly or not there are those who say they modified very little. There are others who say it was modified quite a bit for Curtis's part. He had one goal in mind keeping his company alive. In the end the Langley fiasco had no effect on the ongoing court battles. However. The Smithsonian did place a label that said that Laili machine was the first aircraft capable of manned carrying flight stating that had actually flown carrying a man but it was the first one capable of it. This was. The. Ultimate. Affront. To. The right.

And. Particularly where he sighed very much as just yet another attempt to take away from what the right thing to accomplish. And in fact one thing that a lot of people don't know is that he was so mad at the Smithsonian for even participating in this that he refused for many many years to give them the right flyer. He gave it to Britain instead. Finally with nowhere else to go. Curtis accepted Henry Ford's offer for help. The rights of base and he won a very serious injunction that basically locked down any form of lateral control. This is 1914 and it pretty much looked like Curtis was done for there's no way to get around to saying they basically had a patent on how to control the airplane lateral access and Henry Ford who was watching all of this offer Curtis the use of his very sharpest lawyer Benton crisp and the lawyer is looking at it said well we found something interesting here.

We have had these adverse judgments about the adverse judgment cover simultaneous operations of your ailerons which correspond to the simultaneous operations of the warming. So suppose you make the elevator an operation non-simultaneous and if they want to get you for that they've got to start suing all over again from the beginning. So Curtis identified idea. I can easily make them non-simultaneous I did and started the process all over again. This would be the final salvo in the patent wars. Orville would press on. With. In 1917. With America's entry into World War One. U.S. government ordered that all patents be Buddh. Allowing anyone to manufacture planes. And the Curtis airplane company would become the nation's leader. The British and the Canadians were the first to really take advantage of the created. They wanted

it as a trainer. It certainly was not up to standing in back with you. And besides. They knew about it need to train a lot of people fast. Curtis was in a position where he was prepared to produce a lot of planes fast. It's been figured that 95 percent of US and Canadian pilots in the Great War were trained down period Jennings. But Curtis was convinced that naval aviation was the future of his business and concentrated his efforts on producing better and more useful Navy flying boats. And he kept at it with the flying boats until the onset of war and one he had air supplying both to a large enough to be effectively used for Southern anti-something patrolling. Solti's while most of the British Navy French navy Italian navy the Russian navy to name a few and our Navy. And therefore the only American aircraft to see combat. In one month as a as Finegold. The war would be the pinnacle of Curtis's career. And he was the most trusted

name in the industry. This is an incredible. Feat of. And we haven't ever seen anything like that in American history of how fast an industry developed as it developed under Curtis from late 1980. 1920. Maybe from burnout but most likely missing the intimacy of the work that had now become industrialized. Curtis walked away from aviation. He spent the next 10 years mostly in Florida hunting and fishing and spending time with his wife and son. He continued to invent. Designing the first travel trailers and developing land outside of Miami and St. Petersburg. In 1929 in an incredible bit of irony in. The Curtis airplane company and the right aeronautical corporation merged. Forming

the Curtis Wright corporation. Becoming by far the largest airplane manufacturer in the world. Orvil also long removed from aviation. Complained that the name right should have come first. On Memorial Day 1930 on the 20th anniversary of his Albany to New York flight. Curtis retraced the route for the press. To touch the controls only briefly. Handing the airplane over to the younger pilot before landing. Just a few weeks later. While recovering from surgery. Curtis developed a heart embolism and died suddenly. He was only 52 years old. He was laid to rest in Hammons port just a few yards away from where the June bug touched down 22 years before. Orville Wright outlived Curtis by 16 years and fought hard for the rest of his life to preserve the Wright Brothers legacy. Before he died.

Orville finally allowed the Smithsonian to have the original right flyer but only after securing a promise from the museum that the plane be forever hung higher and more prominently than any other aircraft in the museum over time. Glenn Curtis and the other pioneers of aviation slowly became lost in the shadow of the Wright Brothers legend. Today. Any visitor to San Diego will look across the bay and there you will see one of the largest ships in the world. The USS Nimitz board where its important North Island Wyat North Island well because North Island is today one of the most powerful military bases in the world and it's there. Why.

Because Curtis went there in 1911 and began found in naval aviation and began or actually continued his incredible story of aviation in the United States. If it wasn't for Glenn Curtis aviation at least in America probably in the world would not have developed as rapidly as extensively. And as effectively. Yes. Aircraft would have developed they would have improved. Yes the aviation business. Would have developed and taken its place on this. But Curtis was in many ways the driving force behind all of that. If it hadn't been for him somebody else would have done it. Eventually. But Curtis made it happen. When it did. After Curtis's death John Towers wrote. As long

as the airplanes of tomorrow travel down the eternal bypass of their wings in the sunlight and the sounds of their engines at night will forever be a symbol of that man's greatness. You. See. HER don't you think we. Do. Do. You. Do.

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