History of AirplanesThe year 1919 was memorable in the history of aviation for the first successful flight across the Atlantic, achieved by aviators of the United States Navy using NC flying boats, jointly developed by the United States Navy and the Curtiss Engineering Corporation, the N in the designation standing for navy and the C for Curtiss. [...]
Curtiss “Cruiser”.
Top Speed: n.a.
Engine: two Curtiss eight-cylinders
Wingspan: 75.8 feet
Weight: over 4,000 pounds
Specifications from “Practical Aviation,” by Charles Hayward, 1919
Designed for sporting rather than for military use, the design and equipment of the Curtiss “cruiser”, afford an indication of the trend that development undoubtedly will take once the war is over. It [...]
Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of 1912 was the Curtiss flying-boat. Glenn Curtiss, who won the James Gordon Bennett race in 1909, had succeeded in rising from the water in 1913 with a similar biplane fitted with a central pontoon float instead of a wheeled under-carriage. This he made into a genuine flying-boat, consisting [...]
The most famous and widely used American airplane of the World War One era. In the 1920’s countless ‘barnstormers’ flew Jennies in flight exhibitions all over the United States. The Curtiss tractor was identified by its manufacturers as Model JNB-4 and was been largely used for training purposes during the war.
Specifications from “Practical Aviation,” [...]
Under the American system of training aviators, the pupil goes into the air directly on completing his course of ground instruction, that is, in the details of the mechanism, theory, and assembly of the aeroplane, instead of as in the French system, being obliged to get his preliminary “flying in a penguin, or practically wingless [...]
Resting on its undercarriage of 4 equally-spaced wheels, the Pfitzner monoplane might be compared to a flying grocery cart, with very long, rectangular wings.
In the early part of January, 1910, the monoplane designed by Mr. A. L. Pfitzner and built at the Curtiss aeroplane factory at Hammondsport, N. Y., was completed and flown. [...]
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The primitive biplane circled the course over Long Island’s Hempstead Plains ten times, covering fifteen miles, and then came down. The pilot was hungry. As Glenn Curtis put it: “I felt hungry and it was time for breakfast. Even an aeroplanist has to eat, and after making ten evolutions of the [...]
The great inventor Alexander Graham Bell, by then extremely wealthy, established the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) in October 1907 to bring bright young engineers together in a creative environment. The AEA, composed of Bell as mentor, Douglas McCurdy, Frederick Baldwin, Lt. Thomas Selfridge, and Glenn Curtiss, went on to build aircraft as a team [...]
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Curtiss O-1 Falcon (1920’s)
East Boston Airport
1936
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Curtiss Falcon (1930’s)
East Boston Airport
1936