Public-domain ebook
by Curtiss, Glenn Hammond; Post, Augustus
Language: en1,016 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Biographies·History - Modern (1750+)·Engineering & Technology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #66511.
The Curtiss Aviation Book is a biographical narrative that charts the life of Glenn H. Curtis, from his modest upbringing in the vineyard‑strewn village of Hammondsport, New York, through his early jobs as a telegraph messenger and camera assembler, to his emergence as a speed champion on land, water, and in the air. The opening pages frame his story as a lesson for “future pilots,” emphasizing the qualities, perseverance, quick thinking, and a harmony with nature, that the author believes define a true “Flying Man.” By interweaving anecdotes of childhood contests, inventive tinkering, and daring feats, the text sets up a portrait of a man who turned a boy’s love of speed into groundbreaking achievements, including the first international air‑speed championship.
Written in the earnest, didactic style of early twentieth‑century popular nonfiction, the book blends factual detail with moral encouragement. Its language is straightforward yet occasionally florid, reflecting the period’s optimism about technology and the “new race” of aviators. Readers who enjoy historic accounts of invention, young‑adult inspirational tales, or a glimpse into the mindset of early aviation pioneers will find this work both informative and motivating.
The opening · free to read
The time has come when the world is going to need a new type of men–almost a new race. These are the Flying Men. The great dream of centuries has come true, and man now has the key to the sky. Every great invention which affects the habits and customs of a people brings about changes in the people themselves. How great, then, must be the changes to be brought about by the flying machine, and how strangely new the type of man that it carries up into a new world, under absolutely new conditions!
Each year there will be more need of flying men; so that in telling this story of a pioneer American aviator, his struggles, failures, and successes, it has been the desire to keep in mind not only the scientific elders who are interested in angles of incidence, automatic stability and the like, but also the boys and girls–the air pilots of the future. It is hoped that there will be in these introductory chapters–for whose writing, be it understood, Mr. Curtiss is not responsible a plain unvarnished story of an American boy who worked his way upward from the making of bicycles to the making of history, an inspiration for future flights, whether in imagination or aeroplanes, and that even the youngest reader will gain courage to meet the obstacles and to overcome the difficulties which Glenn H. Curtiss met and overcame in his progress to fame.
Here is a man who is a speed marvel who has beat the world at it. First on land, riding a motorcycle, next in a flying machine, and finally in a machine that was both water and air craft, which sped over the surface of the sea faster than man had ever travelled on that element, and which rose into the air and came back to land with the speed of the fastest express train; a man who traveled at the rate of one hundred and thirty-seven miles an hour on land, fifty-eight miles an hour on the water and who won the first International speed championship in the air.
More than that, they may see what sort of a boy came to be the speed champion and to know some of the traits that go to make the successful airman, for it is said of the great aviators, as of the great poets, they are born flying men, and not developed. The successful flying man and maker of flying machines, such as Glenn H. Curtiss has shown himself to be, realises how dangerous is failure, and builds slowly. He builds, too, on his experience gained from day to day; having infinite patience and dogged perseverance. And yet a great aviator must be possessed of such marvelous quickness of thought that he can think faster than the forces of nature can act, and he must act as fast as he thinks.
He must be so completely in harmony with Nature and her moods that he can tell just when is the right time to attempt a dangerous experiment, and so thoroughly in control of himself that he can refuse to make the experiment when he knows it should not be made, even though urged by all those around him to go ahead. He must feel that nothing is impossible, and yet he must not attempt anything until he is sure that he is ready and every element of danger has been eliminated, so far as lies in human power. He must realise that he cannot change the forces of nature, but that he can make them do his work when he understands them. Some of these qualities must be inbred in the man, but the life-story of Glenn H. Curtiss shows how far energy, courage, and tireless perseverance will go toward bringing them out.
It is from among the country boys that the best aviators will be found to meet the demands of the coming Flying Age. They have been getting ready for it for a long time long before the days of Darius Green. Does any one now read "Phaeton Rogers," that story of the inventive boy back in the eighties, and recall the "wind-wagon" which was one of his many inventions? There were many like him then, and there are more like him now; always tinkering at something, trying to make it "go," and go fast. And there are many of these who are building up, perhaps without knowing it, the strong body, the steady brain, courage, perseverance, and the power of quick decision the character of the successful airmen of the future.
The history of aviation is very brief, expressed in years. In effort it covers centuries. First come the inventors, a calm, cautious type of men, holding their ideas so well in trust that they will not risk their lives for mere display and the applause of the crowd. Then the exploiters, eager for money and fame; men who develop the possibilities of the machines, always asking more and getting more in the way of achievement with each new model built. Though covering a period of less than a half score of years, aviation already has its second generation of flyers, pupils trained by the pioneers, young and ambitious, eager to explore the new element that has been made possible by their mentors. From the country districts, where the blood is red, the brain steady and the heart strong, will come many an explorer of the regions of the air. Just as the city boy in developing the wireless telegraph strings his antennae on the housetops and the roofs of the giant skyscrapers, so will the country boy develop his glider or his aeroplane in the pasture lands and on the steep hillsides of his own particular territory, and we shall have a race of flying men to carry on the development of the flying machine until it shall reach that long dreamed-of and sought-for perfection.
Glenn Hammond Curtiss was born at Hammondsport, New York, May 21, 1878. His middle name shows his connection with the pioneer family for which the town is named. Then Hammondsport was a port for canal boats that came up Lake Keuka; nowadays it is an airport for the craft of the sky. It is a quaint little town, lying on the shores of a beautiful lake that stretches away to Penn Yann, twenty miles to the north. Glenn's old home was called Castle Hill. It was nearly surrounded by vineyards and fruit trees. It was once the property of Judge Hammond, who built the first house in Hammondsport. On this site now stands the Curtiss factories.
All about Hammondsport are the great vineyards that have made the town famous for its wine, for Hammondsport is in the very heart of the grape-growing section of New York State. These vineyards give the boys of Hammondsport a fine opportunity to earn money each year, and Glenn was always among those who spent the vacation time in tying up grape vines, and in gathering the fruit on Saturdays and at other odd times.
Some of the neighbours' children picked wintergreen and flowers, and sold them to the summer excursionists. One time Glenn was invited to go with them. He sold six bunches for sixty cents. His mother applied the amount toward a pair of shoes in order to teach him the use and value of money. He was then three years old and wore a fresh white dress and a blue sash.
Glenn was afterwards taught how to prune and tie vines and gather fruit and at harvest time he was often seen with pony and wagon making a fast run to the station to get the last load of grapes on the train.
With the care of his sister and the work on the home vineyard, life was not all play, for Glenn was "The Man of the House," after his father's death, which occurred when he was four years old. At this time, he went with his mother and sister, to live with his grandmother who lived on the outskirts of the village.
Hammondsport is divided by the main street, and the boys of the two sections, like the boys in cities, were always at war. The factional lines were tightly drawn and many were the combats between the up-town boys and the low-town boys. The hill boys had a den in the side of a bank that sloped down from Grandma Curtiss' yard, walled in with stones of a convenient size. This gave them good ammunition and a great advantage in time of battle.
Among the members of the up-town gang were, "Fatty" Hastings and "Short" Wheeler, "Jess" Talmadge and "Cowboy" Wixom and Curtley, as the boys called Curtiss. He was captain of the band, because he had a sort of ownership of the den. Thus the war waged until one day they punctured Craton Wheeler's dog "Pickles," which so infuriated the enemy of the lower village that they were on the point of storming the fort in the hillside from above, and would no doubt have done so had they not chanced to trample upon Grandma Curtiss' flower beds which caused this indignant lady to issue forth and put the entire gang to rout. The cave continued to be a safe refuge for the hillside gang until "Fatty" Hastings grew too big to squeeze through the entrance and sometimes got stuck just as the gang was ready to sally forth against the enemy, or blocked the whole crew when they were in retreat.
During the winter months Glenn gave his hand to making skate-sails, and became very proficient at it, and when summer came and the boys went on bird-nesting excursions in the woods, he was usually the daring one who allowed himself to be lowered by a rope over the cliff's edge or climbed to the topmost limbs of the big hickory trees. At school, mathematics was young Curtiss's strong point, and when finally he came to pass his final examinations in the high school, he topped his class in that study with a perfect score of one hundred, and in Algebra he stood ninety-nine. It is reassuring, however, to find that in spelling he was barely able to squeeze through with a percentage of seventy-five. Glenn sometimes slipped up on the figuring, but the principle was usually right; he had figured that out beforehand. The boys of Hammondsport used to say that Glenn would think half an hour to do fifteen minutes' work. One wonders what they would have said, if they had been told that in after years he was to think and plan and scheme for a year, and then when he was all ready, to wait hour after hour, day after day, to accomplish something requiring a little more than two hours' time; like his flight from Albany to New York, the first great cross-country flight made in America.
When Curtiss was twelve years old his family went to live in Rochester, New York, so that his sister might be able to attend a school for the deaf at that place. He went on working at Rochester after school hours and during vacation time, first as a telegraph messenger, then in the great Eastman Kodak works, assembling cameras. He was one of the very first boys hired by that establishment to replace men at certain kinds of work, and while the men had received twelve dollars a week, Glenn received but four dollars. Before long, however, he had induced his employers to make his work a piece-work job, and had improved the process of manufacture and increased the production from two hundred and fifty to twenty-five hundred a day. He was thus able to earn from twelve to fifteen dollars a week. It was while employed in the camera works at Rochester that Curtiss saved the life of a companion who had fallen through the ice on the Erie canal. When praised for his act of bravery he simply remarked: "I pulled him out because I was the nearest to him."
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