Glenn Curtiss

On 4 July 1908 Curtiss flew the Aerial Experiment Association's June Bug about a mile at Hammondsport, New York, winning the Scientific American Trophy for the first public flight of a kilometre by an American aeroplane. At the Reims meeting in August 1909 he won the Gordon Bennett Cup for speed, covering the 20 kilometres in 15 minutes 50 3/5 seconds, about six seconds ahead of Louis Blériot. On 29 May 1910 he flew from Albany to New York City, roughly 150 miles with two stops, and won the New York World's $10,000 prize.

In January 1911 Curtiss opened a flying school and test station on North Island at San Diego, where Army and Navy officers trained under him, and by late January his float-equipped biplane had risen from and alighted on San Diego Bay. The Navy later asked him for a hydroaeroplane able to leave and land on either land or water, and Lieutenant Ellyson records that it was delivered on time. Curtiss aeroplanes flown by Eugene Ely also made the first take-off from a warship (14 November 1910) and the first landing on one (18 January 1911), and Britannica credits Curtiss with pioneering flying boats in the United States.

By the First World War Curtiss's firm was a leading American aircraft maker, and Britannica records it as a major supplier of flying boats to the United States and allied governments and a leading builder of aircraft engines, notably the OX-5. Its JN-4 'Jenny' became a standard American military training and general-purpose aircraft, and a multi-engine Curtiss flying boat, the NC-4, made the first flight across the Atlantic in 1919.

Curtiss began building his own motorcycle engines around 1900. In January 1907 at Ormond Beach, Florida, he rode a mile at about 136 miles an hour on a motorcycle with an eight-cylinder engine, and Britannica calls him the fastest man on earth that day; by his own account it was not accepted as an official record because the engine was too large for a motorcycle. In 1904 the airship builder Thomas Baldwin bought a Curtiss engine for the California Arrow, which Britannica identifies as Curtiss's entry into aeronautics.

Before the Albany-New York flight in May 1910, Curtiss travelled the Hudson, chose a refuelling field at Poughkeepsie and a fallback meadow at Inwood in upper Manhattan, and fitted pontoons in case he had to come down on the river. He says he rose at daybreak for three days and was called off by wind; Flight reports that he had been waiting on the weather for some days. On the flight he landed near Poughkeepsie for fuel and again beside the Harlem River, short of Governor's Island, when his oil ran low.

Scouting landing places and refuelling points in advance, and waiting several days for suitable weather, is consistent with planning orientation; the preparations come mainly from Curtiss's own account, while Flight independently confirms the waiting, the stops and the landing near Spuyten Duyvil. Planning Orientation

In August 1909 the Wright Brothers sued the Aeronautic Society of New York over the Curtiss machine, and on 3 January 1910 Judge Hazel granted them a preliminary injunction against Curtiss and the Herring-Curtiss Company. The Second Circuit reversed it on 14 June 1910 because the affidavits conflicted, but after a final hearing the district court ruled for the Wright Company on 21 February 1913, and the Second Circuit affirmed on 13 January 1914. Curtiss testified that his ailerons kept lateral balance 'without the use of any other element'; the courts found that his machine infringed the Wrights' patent.

In the autumn of 1910 Curtiss, by his own account, gave up public contest flying to work on flight from water. On 29 November 1910 he wrote to the Secretaries of War and Navy offering to train officers at his California station without charge; Lieutenant Ellyson says the Navy accepted at once and that this was the start of its practical interest in aviation. The training camp opened on North Island on 17 January 1911, and within weeks a Curtiss biplane on floats was rising from San Diego Bay.

Moving from contest flying to a new line of work and offering it to the Army and Navy before they had asked is consistent with opportunity sensing; the Navy's acceptance is confirmed independently of Curtiss by Ellyson, though Ellyson is a sympathetic participant. Opportunity Sensing