Status as an Early Bird required documentary evidence of solo flight in heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft before December 17, 1916, the thirteenth anniversary of the Wrights' first sustained flight at Kitty Hawk. Many of the 600-odd men and women who qualified in those pre-World War years built their own planes and taught themselves to fly, as did the Wrights and Curtiss. Notwithstanding the Wrights' hold on first place, Curtiss held America's first pilot's license. The Wrights were Nos. 2 and 3.
Governors Island, headquarters of the First Army at the time, became a base for early aviation because it was open and flat, and its approaches were free of obstructions. Wilbur Wright was the first to use it, for a flight around the Statue of Liberty in September 1909 - a historic first flight over water - and a month later a flight to Grant's Tomb in upper Manhattan and back. In the years that followed there were flights between the Island and Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and St. Louis as well as Curtiss's own history-making flight from Albany. The field was also the first training ground for the U.S. military's air squadrons.
Curtiss, who had previously made bikes and raced motorcycles, designed
and built his plane in Hammondsport, New York. He flew the 152 miles
from Albany to the Island in 1910, setting an endurance record and
taking a $10,000 prize offered by Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New
York World. Steve Doherty, an upstate New York aviation buff, is
building a reproduction of Curtiss's plane - an open framed contraption
that looks more like a kite than an airplane - in hopes of recreating
the flight from Albany on its 100th anniversary in 2010. (Curtiss had
the foresight to realize that airplanes would need airports, which
would take time to develop, so he then designed a plane to land on water and sold models to the U.S. Navy, Russia and several foreign countries.)
While the Wright brothers' accomplishment at Kitty Hawk dominates the story of American aviation, and Wilbur's flights from Governors Island are an oft-told piece of Island history, Curtiss was close behind and the rivalry between him and the Wrights was intense. At one point the Wrights sued him (and others) for violating their patents on airplane engines, but in 1929 the Curtiss and Wright aeronautical companies merged to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, still in the heavy equipment business but no longer making airplanes.
Both the Wrights and Curtiss made demonstration flights in 1909 in the 300th anniversary celebration of Henry Hudson's exploration of New York Harbor and the river - a precedent for Governors Island's role in the upcoming 400th anniversary commemoration.
While the Wright brothers' accomplishment at Kitty Hawk dominates the story of American aviation, and Wilbur's flights from Governors Island are an oft-told piece of Island history, Curtiss was close behind and the rivalry between him and the Wrights was intense. At one point the Wrights sued him (and others) for violating their patents on airplane engines, but in 1929 the Curtiss and Wright aeronautical companies merged to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, still in the heavy equipment business but no longer making airplanes.
Both the Wrights and Curtiss made demonstration flights in 1909 in the 300th anniversary celebration of Henry Hudson's exploration of New York Harbor and the river - a precedent for Governors Island's role in the upcoming 400th anniversary commemoration.