Curtiss – The Hammondsport Era 1907-1915

Glenn Hammond Curtiss (1878–1930) was the dominant personality in the pioneer era of American aviation. To the Wrights goes to the honour of the first powered aeroplane flight in 1903, but the achievements of Curtiss spanned several decades and took the aeroplane from its strut, wire, and fabric configuration to the forerunners of modern transport aircraft. Curtiss’s accomplishments over the years almost overshadow those of the Wrights, and in the field of marine aviation he is without peer. 

Born in Hammondsport, New York, Curtiss personified the turn-of-the-century inventor tinkerer. His first interest was bicycles and bicycle racing. Soon he was building light engines to convert his machines into motorcycles. In 1904 Thomas Scott Baldwin had Curtiss build a special engine for his airship, the California Arrow, and Hammondsport was never the same again. 

In 1907 Curtiss became director of experiments of the Aerial Experiment Association founded by Alexander Graham Bell and first achieved powered flight in his Red Wing on March 12, 1908. On July 4, 1908, piloting the June Bug, Curtiss won the Scientific American trophy for the first recorded flight in excess of one kilometre. In 1909 he won the world’s aeroplane speed record in his Golden Flier at Rheims, France. 

By 1913 Curtiss was the largest manufacturer of aircraft in the United States. 

Planes built by Curtiss made the first carrier takeoffs and landings, carried the first autopilot, and were used to train most of America’s pilots during World War I

Curtiss: The Hammondsport Era 1907–1915 accurately documents Curtiss’s formative years from the first Aerial Experiment Association glider to the refined flying boats used during World War I. Featuring 160 photographs and 42 three-view scale drawings, this book is an essential part of the record of American aircraft development and will be of value to all aviation buffs, historians, and model builders. 

LOUIS S. CASEY, former curator of aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, has been researching Curtiss aircraft for twenty years, interviewing former Curtiss associates, and studying the aircraft themselves at the museum’s restoration facility. He has produced the most complete record of Curtiss aircraft models, performance specifications, and construction details ever assembled; and from the Smithsonian archives he has chosen a number of rare photographs to give readers a clear picture of the sequence of Curtiss designs.

Source: publisher’s summary printed on the cover