Unlocking the Sky (7 page)

In the spring of 1914, Curtiss vows to take his case against Orville Wright to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it is hard to see what legal grounds he might use to convince the high court to actually hear the case. Posturing aside, Curtiss stands in an extraordinarily precarious position. With few remaining options, the prospect of caving in to Orville Wright could mean his company’s demise. As J. Clarke explains in the
New York Sun:
“The patent situation gives Orville Wright a practical monopoly of the aeroplane industry in the United States and no manufacturer has yet been given a license.” In Curtiss’s case, Clarke reports, “the back royalties demanded by Wright would amount to more than the capital stock of the Curtiss Company and the Wright Company taken together, according to a statement of Orville Wright to the
Sun
representative in New York recently.”

What will Curtiss do? The looming questions about the viability
of his business only heighten the interest of the press. There always seems to be something new to report. One option that causes a good deal of speculation is that Curtiss might move his operation to another country to get out from under the cloud of the Wrights’ overly broad U.S. patent. According to Curtiss’s publicist Lyman Seely, Curtiss receives offers from at least three European countries. One foreign government, Seely tells reporters, has promised that if Curtiss relocates, it will guarantee to double what his firm earned in its best year at Hammondsport.

Meanwhile, in an effort to avoid infringing the Wrights’ patent, Curtiss is now producing airplanes with “nonsimultaneous ailerons.” Unlike the Wrights’ patented system, the flap on each wing operates independently. It is not an optimal system, but at least it allows Curtiss to continue to manufacture for the moment. Orville Wright has already threatened to haul him back into court over the matter. Consequently, that spring Curtiss begins to investigate the possibility of making his airplanes’ ailerons in Canada, going so far as to dispatch a member of his staff to price commercial real estate across the border.

Despite his seemingly insurmountable legal difficulties, Curtiss is aware that a key variable has changed. He has become the favored underdog and the tide of public opinion has swung to his side. One newspaper editorial from as far away as Jackson, Mississippi, sums it up that spring, noting that “the Almighty Dollar was looming up in the vision of Mr. Wright and his associates to the exclusion of all regard for the future of aviation or the good of humanity.”

With such public sentiment, after years of little financial security, Curtiss now finds that he has some powerful supporters of his own. Foremost among these is W. Benton Crisp, the most famous patent lawyer of the day, and the press notes with excitement his
arrival in Hammondsport that summer. Crisp, who heads Henry Ford’s legal staff, has just won a bitter and much celebrated case against a man named George Selden who claimed to have been the first to patent the motorcar. In fact, Selden, a lawyer and part-time inventor, did hold the first automotive patent but, somewhat like the Wrights’ claim, it was extremely vague and broad. Nor did Selden ever actually manufacture any automobiles. He chose instead to try to extract money from carmakers like Ford. The case drove Henry Ford to distraction; he was firm in the belief that patent protection should be used to bring new innovations to market, not to stifle competition.

Identifying with Curtiss’s problems, Ford has stunned the public by magnanimously offering Curtiss his winning legal team and any other help he might need in his case against Orville Wright. The reporters know Crisp’s arrival in Hammondsport signals that the case may still have some life in it after all.

For his part, Curtiss doesn’t seem outwardly discouraged by the dire state of the Wright lawsuit. Much to the endless fascination of the press, he even seems to be enjoying himself. There are few days off for Curtiss in the spring and summer of 1914. When he does take a break, the reporters often find him tinkering on some new idea or putting on some kind of show for their benefit. One hot day during this period, for instance, Curtiss rigs an engine to a pontoon to create a water craft he dubs a “sea sled,” precursor to a modern-day jet ski. The machine works moderately well but the major result, much to everyone’s amusement, is to land Curtiss repeatedly in the water.

Each day seems to bring new twists to Curtiss’s story. And yet, he appears to be at the top of his game. At the age of thirty-six, Curtiss has seen something of the world, and over the spring and summer
of 1914, he uses all his talents to oversee a multi-ring aviation circus, upping the ante by adding flaming torches to his routine just when the audience thinks he has already reached his limit.

That spring, taking advantage of the favorable attention from the press, Curtiss announces his new show-stopping venture: a plan to build a seaplane capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Underwritten by Rodman Wannamaker, an American airplane enthusiast and heir to a department store fortune, Curtiss’s proposal seems so outlandish that Orville Wright confidently tells the press that Curtiss will surely fail. After all, the proposal comes some thirteen years before Lindbergh’s historic nonstop crossing.

What would Orville say, reporters ask, if Curtiss were to succeed?

“I have not enough expectation that the craft will ever land near enough to any country where our patents are valid—that is, anywhere in Europe—to make it worthwhile to tell you what I would do in that case,” Orville snips. According to Orville, the whole idea is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Curtiss, he says, likely knows full well his machine will not be able to cross the ocean.

Even Curtiss might admit that the crossing is a long shot, but he cannot tolerate it when Wright impugns his integrity. As Curtiss quickly retorts, “The question as to whether or not I am sincere in this undertaking is answered by the fact that payment for the machine is due only after it has proved itself capable of carrying the load sufficient for the proposed flight. It is obvious that I would not undertake this arrangement unless I was confident of being able to produce the machine.”

Further, Curtiss adds testily, “I call attention to the fact that there has been considerable advancement in aviation since the Wrights made their machine. There are many practical engineers, aviators
and scientists who believe that the Atlantic will be crossed by aeroplane this year.”

The fact is, unknown to Orville, Curtiss had been quietly thinking of crossing the Atlantic for at least two years, ever since he perfected the flying boat. In 1912, Curtiss even discussed the matter with Lieutenant John Towers of the U.S. Navy and several other members of the U.S. Aero Club, noting that he was so encouraged by the success of his hydro-aeroplane, he had begun to take “great interest in the idea of a flight across the ocean by aeroplane.”

The plan took one step closer to reality in the spring of 1913 when Lord Northcliffe, publisher of London’s
Daily Mail
newspaper, offered a prize of $50,000 for the first transatlantic crossing in either direction by a hydro-aeroplane. According to the ground rules set forth for the competition, the vessel could touch down along the way if necessary, but would have to complete the crossing in seventy-two hours or less.

For Curtiss, the dream of an Atlantic crossing started to actually take shape early in 1914, when Wannamaker agreed to sponsor Curtiss to build the aircraft. With Henry Ford’s backing, the notion became a full-blown plan.

Orville Wright, despite his disparaging comments, was taking no chances. Apparently, Wright believed enough in the project to threaten to halt the effort with a court order as another alleged infringement of his now-obsolete wing-warping patent.

Luckily for Curtiss, Orville’s threat does little to scare off the project’s backers. After all, Wannamaker argues, the crossing will be an entrant in Lord Northcliffe’s contest; Curtiss will not be manufacturing the airplane for sale nor, strictly speaking, for exhibition proceeds and therefore cannot be accused of infringing any patent. Plus Wannamaker argues, his deal with Curtiss was negotiated in
February, prior to the court’s most recent ruling in favor of the Wright patent.

Orville must find these arguments persuasive and, in this case at least, backs off from his threat to shut the project down.

Activities in Hammondsport reach a dizzying crescendo of excitement on June 22, 1914, as the transatlantic aircraft—called the
America
—makes its public debut. On a sunny Monday afternoon, a crowd of nearly two thousand flocks to the banks of Lake Keuka to witness one of the world’s great wonders. Automobiles filled with spectators arrive from far and near. Men in boaters and summer-weight suits, and women in long dresses gather before a stage erected in the park by the water’s edge, while local boys in white shirts and knickers squeeze their way to the front for a closer look. All eyes are riveted on the sleek and enormous flying boat that promises to make the momentous ocean crossing. No fewer than three separate crews bring movie cameras to chronicle the event.

It is certainly unlike any airplane unveiled before. An enormous biplane,
America
has two sets of wings atop one another that stretch an unprecedented 74 feet across. Between the wings are fitted not one but two 100-horsepower Curtiss OX motors—the largest the company makes. Like many airplanes of the day, it is a so-called “pusher” aircraft: the motors drive two big propellers that sit behind the wings to push the craft forward.

Centered below the vast wings is a single fuselage enclosed in deep red, laminated silk with a V-shaped hull like that of a speedboat. And to face the rigors of the inclement crossing, the cockpit is fully enclosed, another virtually unprecedented development in airplane design. Sitting atop the boatlike hull, the cockpit looks like a
compact version of the wheelhouse on a tugboat, with a curving celluloid windshield to afford the craft’s two pilots a sweeping panorama of the world below.

The crowd presses as close as it can before the large, temporary platform erected on the edge of Lake Keuka, next to the lakeside spot where the
America
has been hauled. Glenn Curtiss stands confidently upon the stage, flanked by the two men he has tapped to pilot the flight, Lieutenant John Cyril Porte of the British Royal Navy, and George Hallet, one of Curtiss’s most trusted mechanics. With a nod to the British sponsors of the event, Curtiss has chosen Porte for his navigational expertise. Hallet, meanwhile, makes up for his relative lack of flying experience with an intimate knowledge of
America
’s mechanical systems. Presumably, if need be, he can make crucial adjustments to the aircraft en route. Hallet has even practiced changing spark plugs in mid-flight.

Also on stage is Katherine Masson, sixteen-year-old daughter of a well-known local vintner, who has been selected by lot to christen the aircraft. Her summer bonnet is set fashionably askew as she strives for poise before the unnervingly large crowd.

As Curtiss has recently announced to the press, the initial plan is to make the trip in three hops, flying from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the Azores Islands off the coast of Spain, a distance of some 1,200 miles, and from there to the coast of Spain, 600 miles, before embarking on the final 500-mile leg to England. Curtiss’s goal is to begin a quick round of tests and ready the plane for a July crossing to begin, weather permitting, when the moon is full.

After Miss Masson recites a poem composed for the occasion by none other than Dr. Zahm of the Smithsonian Institution, it is time for her to officially christen the aircraft by breaking a bottle of locally produced Great Western champagne across a scaffolding
erected next to
America
’s fabric-covered prow. But despite repeated efforts, she can’t seem to get the bottle to break. Lieutenant Porte comes to her aid with a little more force. But even he can’t manage to smash the bottle, leading Curtiss to intervene out of concern for the aircraft’s delicate hull. With the crowd in an uproar of laughter, Porte resorts to crushing the bottle with a handy sledgehammer, bathing himself and the others on stage in an explosion of spurting champagne.

Then, with the crowd still boisterous and elated, a team of forty men launches
America
into the lake. Despite the enthusiasm, however, it is too late in the afternoon to do much more and the festivities gradually draw to a close for the day.

After hours more of mechanical work assembling the machine and checking its fittings,
America
will have her maiden voyage the following day around 3
P.M.
, amid the cheers of the returning throng. Curtiss and Porte climb aboard and take a short spin. The craft skims the surface of the water, never lifting far from Lake Keuka, but the two pilots return beaming, obviously pleased with the initial trial. “She is as strong as a blooming rock,” Porte offers. “She has tons of horsepower and is very stable.”

“I am more than satisfied,” Curtiss adds. “We did more than I intended to do today. The boat has come up to my best expectation and there is no reason why she should not do the work she is built for.”

Before the week is out there is no doubt that the
America
is causing an unprecedented stir. Locally, photographer Hank Benner reports having sold an astonishing seventy thousand postcards of the
America
and, facing strong demand, plans to print more. Internationally, the plane is making waves as well. The eminent banking firm Lloyds of London, which originally posted betting odds at 47
to 1 against the success of Curtiss’s aircraft, revises its estimate more than sevenfold in Curtiss’s favor. The new odds of 6 to 1 against the project’s success do not exactly represent confidence in the
America,
but they do indicate the project’s apparent momentum. The transatlantic flight looks more practicable with each passing day.

As the pieces come together, Curtiss’s employees are gaining confidence as well. The 100-horsepower motors, for instance, prove themselves in the factory by running flawlessly nonstop for 100 hours. In fact, many of the workers are chagrined with the change at Lloyds of London. When the steep odds were posted, a group of workers at the Curtiss plant collected a pool of $2,000 to wager on
America
’s success. But by the time they cabled their bet, the enticing windfall had substantially diminished. Now if the flight proves successful, they will have to make do with a sixfold return on their investment.