Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early as 1904, he began to manufacture engines for airships, and with his V8 engine in the Curtiss V-8 motorcycle, on January 24, 1907, Curtiss set an unofficial world speed record, for all kinds of vehicles, that was not broken until 1911.
In 1907, Curtiss joined the Aerial Experiment Association, a pioneering research group, founded by Alexander Graham Bell at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, to build flying machines. On July 4, 1908, he flew nearly a mile with the AEA June Bug, recording the first public flight in North America. It won him the Scientific American prize, and also a lawsuit with the Wright Brothers, who had declined to fly in public.
In 1909, Curtiss won the Gordon Bennett Aviation Trophy at the world's first international air meet in France, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne. In 1910 he made the first long-distance flight in the U.S., across NY state. His contributions in designing and building aircraft, like the use of ailerons, led to the formation of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, which later merged into the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. His company built aircraft for the U.S. Army and Navy, and, during the years leading up to World War I, his experiments with seaplanes led to advances in naval aviation. Curtiss civil and military aircraft were some of the most important types in the interwar and World War II eras.
Early life Glenn Curtiss was born in 1878 in Hammondsport, New York, situated on the southern tip of Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in New York. His mother was Lua Curtiss née Andrews and his father was Frank Richmond Curtiss, a harness maker who had arrived in Hammondsport with Glenn's grandparents in 1876. Glenn's paternal grandparents were Claudius G. Curtiss, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, and Ruth Bramble. Glenn Curtiss had a younger sister, Rutha Luella, also born in Hammondsport.
Although his formal education extended only to eighth grade, his early interest in mechanics and inventions was evident at his first job at the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (later Eastman Kodak Company) in Rochester, New York.Roseberry 1972, p. 10. His job at the factory was to stencil numbers on the paper backing of the film manufactured by the company. He figured out how to speed up the process of stenciling and built a "stencil machine": a rack with a brush on a hinge which would stencil one hundred paper strips with a single stroke of the brush. This improved his throughput ten times, and eventually the company adopted his invention.C. R. Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight, 1991, p. 10
Curtiss also built a rudimentary camera to study photography.
Bicycles and motorcycles
Curtiss began his career as a Western Union bicycle messenger, a bicycle racer, and bicycle-shop owner. In 1901, he developed an interest in motorcycles when internal combustion engines became more available. In 1902, Curtiss began manufacturing motorcycles with his own single-cylinder engines. His first motorcycle's carburetor was adapted from a tomato soup can containing a gauze screen to pull the gasoline up by capillary action.Post, August. "The Evolution of a Flying-Man" , The Century: A Popular Quarterly, Volume 81, 1911, pp. 13–14. Retrieved: July 20, 2010.Curtiss, Glenn Hammond and August Post. The Curtiss Aviation Book . New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912 (reprint). . Retrieved: July 20, 2010."Glenn Curtiss" . Popular Science, March 1927, p. 130. ISSN 0161-7370. In 1903, he set a motorcycle land speed record at for one mile (1.6 km). When E.H. Corson of the Hendee Mfg Co (manufacturers of Indian motorcycles) visited Hammondsport in July 1904, he was amazed that the entire Curtiss motorcycle enterprise was located in the back room of the modest "shop". Corson's motorcycles had just been trounced the week before by "Hell Rider" Curtiss in an endurance race from New York to Cambridge, Maryland.Harvey 2005, p. 254.
On January 24, 1907,Scientific American, Volume 96, Number 6, February 1907, p. 128 Curtiss set an unofficial world record of , on a V-8-powered motorcycle of his own design and construction in Ormond Beach, Florida. The air-cooled F-head engine was intended for use in aircraft.House 2003, p. 40. He remained "the fastest man in the world", the title the newspapers gave him, until the Blitzen Benz in 1911,Roseberry 1972, p. 57. and his motorcycle record was not broken until 1930. This motorcycle is now in the Smithsonian Institution."Curtiss V-8 Motorcycle". Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Collections. Retrieved: February 24, 2011. Curtiss's success at racing strengthened his reputation as a leading maker of high-performance motorcycles and engines.Hatch 2007, p. 36.
Aviation pioneer
Curtiss, motor expert In 1904, Curtiss became a supplier of engines for the California "aeronaut" Tom Baldwin, who inspired Curtiss to pursue aviation. In that same year, Baldwin's California Arrow, powered by a Curtiss 9 HP V-twin motorcycle engine, became the first successful dirigible in America.Roseberry 1972, p. 41.
In 1907, Alexander Graham Bell invited Curtiss to develop a suitable engine (Curtiss B-8) for heavier-than-air flight experimentation. Bell regarded Curtiss as "the greatest motor expert in the country"Roseberry 1972, p. 71. and invited Curtiss to join his Aerial Experiment Association (AEA).
AEA aircraft experiments
Between 1908 and 1910, the AEA produced four aircraft, each one an improvement over the last. Curtiss primarily designed the AEA's third aircraft, Aerodrome #3, the famous June Bug, and became its test pilot, undertaking most of the proving flights. On July 4, 1908, he flew to win the Scientific American Trophy and its $2,500 prize."Glenn H. Curtiss" . centennialofflight.net, 2003. Retrieved: July 20, 2009. This is considered to be the first pre-announced public flight of a heavier-than-air flying machine in America. The flight of the June Bug propelled Curtiss and aviation firmly into public awareness. On June 8, 1911, Curtiss received U.S. Pilot's License #1 from the Aero Club of America, because the first batch of licenses were issued in alphabetical order; Wilbur Wright received license #5. At the culmination of the Aerial Experiment Association's experiments, Curtiss offered to purchase the rights to Aerodrome #3, essentially using it as the basis of his Curtiss No. 1, the first of his production series of pusher aircraft.Casey 1981, p. 38.
The pre-war years
Aviation competitions After a 1909 fall-out with the AEA, Curtiss joined with A. M. Herring (and backers from the Aero Club of America) to found the Herring-Curtiss Company in Hammondsport. During the 1909–1910 period, Curtiss employed a number of demonstration pilots, including Eugene Ely, Charles K. Hamilton, J. A. D. McCurdy,Carroll Grey 2013, "Cicero Flying Field" Augustus Post, and Hugh Robinson. Another pilot, Tod Shriver, was employed by Curtiss in his factory as early as 1906. Shriver played a similar role for Curtiss that Charlie Taylor had served for the Wright Brothers, seeing to the factory and being all around shop foreman; he later went with Curtiss to France where the latter won the speed competitions. Aerial competitions and demonstration flights across North America helped to introduce aviation to a curious public; Curtiss took full advantage of these occasions to promote his products.Casey 1981, pp. 65–67.
In August 1909, Curtiss took part in the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne aviation meeting at Reims, France, organized by the Aéro-Club de France, and sponsored by Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald. The Wrights, who were selling their machines to customers in Germany at the time, decided not to compete in person. Several Wright Model A customer aircraft (modified with a landing gear) were at the meet, but they did not win any events. On August 28, 1909, flying his No. 2 biplane, Curtiss won the overall speed event, the Gordon Bennett Cup, completing the 20-km (12.5-mile) course in just under 16 minutes at a speed of , six seconds faster than runner-up Louis Blériot.Casey 1981, p. 50.
On May 29, 1910, Curtiss flew from Albany to New York City to make the first long-distance flight between two major cities in the U.S. For this flight, which he completed in just under four hours including one stop to refuel, he won a $10,000 prize offered by publisher Joseph Pulitzer and was awarded permanent possession of the Scientific American Trophy.Roseberry, 1991, pp. 139, 207, 278Molson, 1995, p. 4Mitchell, 2001, p. 7 His flight was followed by a photographer on a special train chartered by The New York Times, which covered the venture by the "dapper daredevil" with their first front-page photograph, showing Curtiss’s takeoff from the outskirts of Albany, and six pages inside the issue.
In June 1910, Curtiss provided a simulated bombing demonstration to naval officers at Hammondsport. Two months later, Lt. Jacob E. Fickel demonstrated the feasibility of shooting at targets on the ground from an aircraft with Curtiss serving as pilot. One month later, in September, he trained Blanche Stuart Scott, who was possibly the first American woman pilot. The fictional character Tom Swift, who first appeared in 1910 in Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle and Tom Swift and His Airship, has been said to have been based on Glenn Curtiss.Dizer 1982, p. 35. The Tom Swift books are set in a small town on a lake in upstate New York.Karenko, J. P. "Tom Swift and his Motorcycle" . tomswift.info, August 1, 2006. Retrieved: September 8, 2009.
Patent dispute
A patent lawsuit by the Wright Brothers against Curtiss in 1909 continued until it was resolved during World War I. Since the last Wright aircraft, the Wright Model L, was a single prototype of a "scouting" aircraft, made in 1916, the U.S. government, desperately short of combat aircraft, pressured both firms to resolve the dispute. Of nine suits Wright brought against Curtiss and others and the three suits brought against them, the Wright Brothers eventually won every case in courts in the United States.
Naval aviation
On November 14, 1910, Curtiss demonstration pilot Eugene Ely took off from a temporary platform mounted on the forward deck of the cruiser USS Birmingham. His successful takeoff and ensuing flight to shore marked the beginning of a relationship between Curtiss and the Navy that remained significant for decades.Curtiss, 1922, pp. 117-118 At the end of 1910, Curtiss established a winter encampment at San Diego to teach flying to Army and Naval personnel, effectively the first military aviation school. His trainees included Lt. Theodore Ellyson, who became U.S. Naval Aviator #1, and three Army officers, 1st Lt. Paul W. Beck, 2nd Lt. George E. M. Kelly, and 2nd Lt. John C. Walker Jr.,Mitchell, 2001, pp. 62, 66, 68 and 1912 graduate Chikuhei Nakajima, founder of Nakajima Aircraft Company. The original site of this winter encampment is now part of Naval Air Station North Island and is referred to by the Navy as "The Birthplace of Naval Aviation".