LICENSE NUMBER 1

Flight Journal, Apr 2004 by House, Kirk W

Curtiss flying schools were enormously popular and were now training pilots in San Diego and Hammondsport, and Ellyson was setting up camp at Keuka Lake to experiment with the first USN aircraft. With the world's first practical seaplane, Curtiss was soon enthusiastically marketing "aerial yachts." Then, three years and 17 days after his 30th birthday, the U. S. Aero Club issued him license number 1.

A captain of industry

Proud though he was of his "hydroaeroplane" (for which he won the first Collier Prize), Curtiss threw himself into creation of the flying boat and won the second Collier Prize. A year later, he shared the second Langley Medal with Gustave Eiffel. He was obviously on a roll.

The flying boats and the early JN "Jenny" were already in production when the Great War erupted. Curtiss, perhaps the only American maker poised for truly large-scale production, was suddenly swamped with orders for hundreds and then thousands of airplanes from Britain, Russia, Canada and the U.S. His exhibitions, which were aimed at promoting his products, ceased as Curtiss crisscrossed the continent to build and buy factories, set up licenses and subcontracts and work with military missions. In barely a decade, he had gone from being a hell-raising motorcycle racer and builder to a formidable business entity and a force to be reckoned with.

In 1915/'16, Curtiss sold a controlling interest in his company for seven million dollars in cash and stock, and his new passion became the subsidiary Curtiss Engineering Corp.-a huge research and design "think tank" on Long Island. In 1918, by some estimates, the Curtiss Co. controlled three-quarters of America's aerenautic business. Glenn Curtiss was barely 40 year old.

Reviewing the 1924 National Air Races, Time magazine put Curtiss on the cover and wrote: "[H]is works were everywhere present, his name on every man's lip .... At least every other [)lane of those assembled bore a Curtiss motor. Not one plane hut bore some evidence of the contributions he has made to mankind's knowledge of the air and his On his agility in it."

Not quite 20 years had passed since Tom Baldwin bustled into Curtiss's motorcycle shop and the Curtiss name had become known worldwide. But, genius or not, engineering developments and intricacies of business administration were exceeding the capabilities lent by Curtiss's eighth-grade education. He spent much of the '20s developing southeastern Florida (particularly Hialeah and Miami Springs) and marketing his "Aerocar' travel trailer. In 1930, he celebrated the 20th anniversary of his Hudson flight by piloting a Curtiss Condor passenger liner along the same route.

Two months later, at the age of 52 years, complications from a simple appendectomy surgery killed him. The man who had challenged gravity and won was felled by a seemingly inconsequential operation. Flowers were dropped front airplanes onto the crowd at his funeral in Hammondsport, which was within sight of the winery where he had piloted his first flights 22 years before.