Glenn Curtiss – Little known facts of an aviation legend!

I must confess that although I was born in Dayton, Ohio, and I certainly respect the Wright Brothers accomplishments, my true admiration and devotion goes to the aviation genius of Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the Father of U.S. Naval Aviation. http://glennhcurtissmuseum.org/

Both the Wright Brothers and Glenn H. Curtiss had bicycle shops before entering into the designing and building of flying machines. Curtiss was known as the 'Fastest man on Earth,' when he installed his own air-cooled, 40-horse-power, V-8 engine on a bicycle and went 136 miles per hour on Ormond Beach, Florida in 1907!

There are numerous Curtiss accomplishments that you probably already know about, but there are some little known achievements that are really important in history too.

One of Glenn Curtiss' students was Emory Conrad Malick. On March 20, 1912, while attending the Curtiss Aviation School on North Island, San Diego, California, 31 year old Malick became the first Africian American person to get a pilot's license in the United States with F.A.I. License #105. After earning his pilot's license, Malick obtained, assembled and improved upon a Curtiss "pusher" biplane that in 1914 he flew over Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania becoming the first pilot to soar through the skies of Snyder and Northumberland. Counties.He also built and flew his own gliders.

In the Philadelphia area, Mr. Malick transported passengers for his Flying Dutchman Air Service, and he worked in aerial photography with the Aero Service Corporation and Dallin Aerial Surveys. He was an airplane mechanic (license #924), as well as a carpenter and master tile-layer.

Malick was born on December 29, 1881 and unfortunately passed away at the age of 77 in 1958, when he slipped on some ice on a sidewalk in Philadelphia, PA. His story needs to be remembered and his skill and determination to rise above discrimination is also to be admired.

I often think about students who are asked to write essays and reports during Black History Month and hope they would be reminded that there are so many men and women to write about who achieved great success in aviation: Bessie Coleman, the first black women to receive an International Pilot's License; The Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces during World War II; Emory Malick and many more. They had the perseverance to overcome any obstacle and press on to success.

Another interesting student for Glenn Curtiss was Blanche Stuart 'Betty' Scott. She was his first and only female student.

She had an adventuresome spirit, always interested in a challenge and was driving at an early age. She drove a car from New York to San Francisco in 1910. The idea of a woman driving coast to coast attracted the attention of a member of the Curtiss exhibition flying team and she was invited to learn to fly.

According to articles written, Curtiss wasn't keen on a "stunt" of teaching a woman to fly, but gave in. Unbeknownst to his student, he had placed a block of wood on the throttle which didn't allow full power for take-off speed. During a pre-flight inspection, she found it and removed it, thereby getting airborne for her first flight. Curtiss wasn't pleased, but eventually soloed her.

When instruction was completed, she was later invited to join the Exhibition Team and was called, 'The Tomboy of the Air.' Her first appearance was on October 24, 1910.

She went on to become the first woman test pilot for the Glenn L. Martin Company and retired from active flying in 1916. She later received her first ride in a P-80 jet aircraft with Chuck Yeager. In 1954, she went to work for the United States Air Force Museum in public relations. Scott passed away in January, 1970.

Glenn H. Curtiss got his start in aviation when he brought his piston-engine expertise to the Aerial Experimental Association (AEA) formed in 1908 by Alexander Graham Bell.  In 1908, the first Curtiss aircraft was named the June Bug.

In 1909, air races were sponsored in the U.S. by the magazine Scientific American and in Rheims, France offering cash prizes and the International Aviation Cup, known as the Gordon Bennett Trophy: Curtiss won both races.

Curtiss showed up in Rheims with one plane, a plane he called the Golden Flyer, two mechanics and a simple tent, while others flaunted backup planes, lots of extra parts, full machine shops, decorated hangars and fancy cooking facilities.

Curtiss won the race just seconds ahead of Bleriot around the two-lap triangular 6.2-mile course, averaging 47 miles per hour, due to his tight precision turns and was declared the Champion Aviator of the World.

A Curtiss plane was used to make the first takeoff and landing on the deck of a U. S. Navy ship in 1911. He received the prestigious Collier Trophy and the Aero Club Gold Medal that same year.

Another Curtiss design, the NC-4 (Navy Curtiss 4), made the first transatlantic crossing in 1919. The length of fuselage was 68-feet, 3-inches and a wingspan of 126-feet powered by four 400 horsepower Liberty V-12 engines, three mounted forward and one pusher.

Glenn Curtiss is such an inspiration to me, although he was the Wrights' principal target in numerous American patent infringement law suits involving wing-warping and the aileron. And although frustrated by the Wrights' litigations, he pressed on and succeeded in becoming the leading aircraft manufacturer in the United States before World War I in 1916. His most famous aircraft was the JN "Jenny" biplane trainer powered with a Curtiss OX-5.

Curtiss created the first amphibian aircraft in the United States and the seaplane was considered to be his chief contribution to aviation. He had received over 500 patents for inventions used in aviation, including: ailerons, the step on floats for seaplanes, dual controls in aircraft, not to mention the V-12 engine that the Rolls Royce Allison and eventually the Merlin descended.

Because of his continuous, exceptional contributions to the American aviation industry, Curtiss was presented the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1930, before he sadly passed away on July 23, that same year, at the young age of 52, from an embolism following an emergency appendectomy.

See you on our next flight!