New York

112

Glenn H. Curtiss Museum, Hammondsport, NY

42° 23′ 49.23″ N, 77° 13′ 58.00″ W

The Lesser-Known Aviator and Fastest Man on Earth

The Wright brothers are undoubtedly the best-known aviation pioneers, and others like Blériot, Lindbergh, Earhart, Mongolfier, and Yeager are household names. But none of their names appear on pilot license number 1 issued by the Aero Club of America in 1911 (Figure 112-1). That distinction goes to Glenn Curtiss, the fastest man in the world on a motorcycle in 1907 at 219 kph, and a little-known aviation pioneer who had a very large impact on how we fly today.

Figure 112-1. Pilot license number 1

In 1907, Alexander Graham Bell asked Curtiss to join his Aerial Experiment Association and help him design and build aircraft (for more on Bell, see Chapter 4). Curtiss was invited because he was an expert in making lightweight internal combustion engines for his motorcycles and for dirigibles. Together, Bell and Curtiss built a number of aircraft culminating in the June Bug. On July 4, 1908, the June Bug flew over 1,500 meters to win the Scientific American trophy.

The flight was important because although the Wright brothers had been flying their aircraft since 1903, they were secretive and allowed almost no one to see their plane in flight. Curtiss’s public demonstration of the June Bug caused a sensation.

In 1909 Curtiss went to France and narrowly beat Louis Blériot to the Gordon Bennett Trophy, flying at almost 75 kph. He went on to found the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company.

By 1911, Curtiss had developed a viable seaplane and demonstrated it to the U.S. Navy. Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss plane from the USS Birmingham and later landed on the USS Pennsylvania, using an arrester cable to stop the plane. Curtiss himself flew a seaplane out to meet the USS Pennsylvania. He landed next to it—the plane was hoisted aboard, Curtiss ate lunch, and he and the plane descended into the sea and flew away. For those exploits, and for development of naval aircraft, aerial bombing, and flying boats capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Curtiss is known as the “Father of Naval Aviation.”

The Glenn H. Curtiss museum in Curtiss’s hometown of Hammondsport, New York, covers his life and contribution to aviation. The museum has a large collection of significant aircraft, including many originals. The oldest original airplane is the 1917 Standard J-1 training aircraft that used a Curtiss engine; there’s also a 1919 Curtiss Seagull flying boat. The museum has a restored 1917 Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny”—over 7,000 Jennys were made during the First World War, and aviation pioneers Lindbergh and Earhart both learned to fly in one.

The museum has a beautiful reproduction of the June Bug. The original aircraft was converted to a float plane; it accidentally sank in 1909.

There’s a large collection of aircraft engines made by Curtiss and others, including a 1912 Curtiss Model “S” capable of 60 horsepower and a Pratt & Whitney R-4360. Eight of these enormous Pratt & Whitney engines powered Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose (see Chapter 117).

The collection is rounded out by motorcycles, including a reproduction of the 1907 Curtiss 8 Cylinder on which Curtiss became the “Fastest Man on Earth” (with no helmet!).

Practical Information

More details of Glenn Curtiss and his life, and complete visiting information, is available from the museum’s website at http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/.

The Aileron

All aircraft have three possible movements: yaw, pitch, and roll. The yaw is the rotation of the aircraft around a vertical axis; the pitch is the rotation of the aircraft around a left-right axis, typically through the wings; and the roll is the rotation of the aircraft around a longitudinal axis from the front to the rear of the aircraft.

Many early aircraft had yaw and pitch controls: the yaw was controlled by the rudder and the pitch by the elevators. On the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer, the elevator was mounted on the front and the rudder at the back. To control roll, the Wright brothers invented a technique called wing warping.

Wing warping involved actually bending the ends of the wings in opposite directions to roll the aircraft by changing the air flow across the wing tips. One wing tip would bend downward, increasing lift, while the other wing tip bent upward, decreasing lift, and the plane would roll. Since the Wright Flyer had flexible fabric wings, it was possible to bend the ends to roll the aircraft. By controlling roll and yaw at the same time, the Wright brothers were able to make controlled turns in their aircraft.

But wing warping only works if the wing is flexible. Modern aircraft control roll by using ailerons: movable surfaces at the ends of the wings (see Figure 112-2 for a basic diagram). The ailerons perform the same creation of lift on one wing and loss of lift on the other as the Wrights’ wing warping technique, but ailerons can be attached to a fixed, solid wing.

Figure 112-2. Basic flight controls

The June Bug had ailerons for roll control, and the Aerial Experiment Association was issued a patent for the invention in 1911. This led to a patent battle between the Wrights, who had patented wing warping for roll control, and Curtiss. Ultimately, the patent dispute was settled by the U.S. government because the development of aircraft had become vital to the First World War effort, and in 1929 the companies of Curtiss and the Wrights were merged.