Curtiss Flying School - nnapprentice.com
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Curtiss Flying School - nnapprentice.com
CURTISS FLYING SCHOOL Newport News, Virginia SYNOPSIS: Between 1910 and 1915, Glen Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer and widely acknowledged founder of American aircraft manufacturing established a series of flying schools in the United States. One of these rudimentary institutions of flight training was created at Newport News Point. Curtiss purchased twenty acres of flat, undeveloped land on the shores of Hampton Roads in 1914 from the Old Dominion Land Company, which once owned most of the property at the lower end of the Virginia Peninsula. This particular Curtiss Flying School was originally given the grandiose name of The Atlantic Coast Aeronautical School, but soon became known simply as the Curtiss Flying School. Its original purpose was to train civilian wannabe pilots, but preceding and during World War I, the school also qualified several of America's World War I flying aces, including Eddie Rickenbacker. The school also trained several Canadian civilians, who later served with the Canadian Royal Air Force. A variety of aircraft, mostly designed and initially test flown by Glenn Curtiss, pictured on the right were utilized in the few short years that the Newport News school flourished. But wartime eventually led to the creation of military flying schools at nearby Langley Field and across Hampton Roads at Norfolk's Naval Operating Base. Faced with this competition, and limited space in which to expand, the Curtiss Flying School in Newport News was shut down in 1922. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The site selected for use as a flying school and the surrounding area abounds with both aviation and military historical significance. In 1862, the two day Battle of Hampton Roads took place just off Newport News Point, where a Union encampment called Camp Butler existed. On the first day, the CSS VIRGINIA rammed and sank the USS CUMBERLAND in the James River, just upstream of Newport News Point. Then she severely damaged, ran aground and burned the USS CONGRESS as her crew swam ashore. On the second day, the nature of naval warfare was changed forever when the ironclads USS MONITOR and CSS VIRGINIA battled to a draw. During the previous year, Union forces had conduced the first aerial reconnaissance supported by a naval vessel in American history over Hampton Roads. A manned hot air balloon, tethered to a small steamer, the USS FANNY, was guided near the Confederate positions in and around Norfolk. While under fire from rebel ground forces, the balloon's sole occupant mapped defensive positions at Sewell's Point and Craney Island. By the end of the 19th century, railroad baron Collis Potter Huntington had established Newport News as the eastern terminus for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, started a ship repair enterprise nearby that became Newport News Shipbuilding, and created the Old Dominion Land Company. In 1910, Eugene Ely, who was employed by the Curtiss Aircraft Company as a demonstration pilot, flew a Curtiss pusher biplane from the improvised flight deck of the USS BIRMINGHAM, which was anchored in Hampton Roads just off Newport News Point. Ely later successfully landed his aircraft on another US Navy vessel in another harbor, and American naval aviation was born. 2 FLYING SCHOOL SITE SELECTION AND DEVELOPMENT: History aside, the main attractions of the property procured by Glenn Curtiss was a mild climate and the land's undeveloped, open flatness, suitable for a dirt runway and easy access to the waters of Hampton Roads for seaplane operations. Its close proximity to the Newport News to Norfolk ferry landing, the community's Small Boat Harbor, the eastern terminus of a local streetcar line and Jefferson Avenue...albeit unpaved at the time...were probably additional considerations. And almost certainly, the Old Dominion Land Company, was willing to sell that land at an attractive price to Glenn Curtiss. By 1915, a large wooden hangar [shown below, under construction], several ancillary buildings and a seaplane ramp existed. These improvements, plus a single, rough runway just a few hundred feet long constituted the Curtiss Flying School at Newport News. Thomas S. Baldwin, an associate of Glenn Curtiss, was selected to be the head man of the Newport News school. Baldwin, born in the mid-nineteenth century, had been an adventurous hot-air balloonist before switching to heavier-thanaircraft in 1910. He then taught himself fly at age 56. He was often referred to as 'Captain Tom' by his younger subordinates. He also was known as the 'grand old man of aviation' by American aviators of that period. And rightfully so, for he held the following Aero Club of America licenses in his lifetime: • • • Balloon Pilot Certificate #1 Airship Pilot Certificate #9 Airplane Pilot Certificate #7 When America entered World War I, he volunteered for military service. Eager to benefit from his experience, the US Army put him in charge of their lighter-thanair program. He inspected...and perhaps flew...every airship produced by his command. When the war ended, he was 65 years old and held the rank of major. 3 AIRCRAFT AND INSTRUCTORS: The two types of aircraft employed in pilot training at Glenn Curtiss' several flying schools were the Curtiss-designed and built JN-3 or JN-4 "Jenny" biplane and the Model F seaplane. These aircraft, all bi-planes, were roughly the same size and had similar performance characteristics. A Curtiss JN-4 [left] had a wing span of a little less than 44 feet and a length of 27 feet. A single engine, rated at 90 horsepower gave this aircraft a top speed of 60 miles per hour. A JN-4's gross flying weight was less than 2,000 pounds. Its cost, in 1915 dollars, was $5,500. The instructor sat in the front cockpit; the student in the rear. The Model F flying boat was also 27 feet long, but had a wing span of 45 feet. Its single engine was rated at 100 horsepower and when aloft, the Model F could reach almost 70 miles per hour. One of these amphibian's gross weight was 2,500 pounds, and cost $6,000. Instructor and student sat side by side in a single cockpit. The school's initial staff consisted of six instructors, plus two test pilots, several engineers and mechanics. The first group of instructors, suited up to fly are shown on the left, with their boss, Thomas Baldwin in 1916. Aviators of the early 20th century, as might be expected were an adventurous lot. Many of them had been daredevil motorcyclists and race car drivers before taking to the air, and when not flying sometimes got into trouble with local law enforcement. The January 22, 1916 issue of the Daily Press included the following account of one student's 'need for speed': 4 "Vernon Castle, aeronautical student was summoned to appear in police court this morning on a charge of exceeding the speed limit with his automobile. Patrolman Smith, who is responsible for Castle's predicament, avers that the young man was rushing down Jefferson Avenue yesterday to the municipal small boat harbor in a racing car at a speed something like thirty miles an hour". It is not known if this fledgling aviator was given a warning or received a fine. Neither is it known if he stopped engaging in such activities, which were characteristic of the general public's perception back then of the irresponsible antics of youth. Nevertheless, curiosity surely overcame condemnation. Apparently, training flights, or perhaps, more likely occasional demonstrations to promote flying, drew crowds of local people to the flying school premises to witness aerobatics performed by the school's instructors. Judging from the civilians' attire in the following image, such events probably were held on Sundays. Citizens from Norfolk probably joined Peninsula residents there, following a refreshing ferry ride. 5 THE FOUR HUNDRED MINUTE FLYING COURSE: In order to obtain an Aero Club of America pilot's license, an individual had to pay a dollar a minute for the training offered at the Curtiss flying schools. Four hundred dollars was a substantial sum of money in the early twentieth century; equal to almost $9,000 in today's dollars. Most of that training involved hands-on flying in open cockpit aircraft, followed by the necessity to solo in order to successfully complete the course. Each student was required to maintain a log of his flights and other aviation training activities. Following is an example of such a log that has survived. No records could be found regarding the total number of students or their success/failure ratio at the Curtiss Flying School in Newport News. Likewise, it is not known how many students attempted to qualify in the school's seaplanes. Fortunately, one instructor did later record some recollections, some years later of what it was like to be a flight instructor there. An abbreviated version of his memories follows: 6 "The students came from everywhere; plain civilians, Army and Navy officers, National Guard and many Canadians. The flying was strenuous, but interesting. Each instructor had about ten students. The average length of a flight was twenty minutes, and each day of flying in good weather lasted about ten hours. "We were paid a guaranteed wage of $50 a week. When we flew more than five hours in a single day, each additional hour of flight training was worth $10. One week I made $350! "On Sunday, we often took local citizens aloft. One of my passengers was an old sailor who had been a crewman in the CSS VIRGINIA during the Civil War." When a student had satisfactorily completed the four hundred minute flying course at Newport News, including a climatic solo flight, he would receive a certificate. Most of the certificates that were issued at Newport News went to students who had trained in the landbased Curtiss 'Jenny aircraft'. The more treasured and relatively few certificates like this one were presented to those who qualified in Curtiss Model F flying boats. STUDENT STORIES: The school's students were an eclectic lot, whose backgrounds often had nothing to do with flying. For example, Vernon Castle [the 'speedster' previously mentioned] and his wife, Irene [depicted on the left] were professional ballroom dancers. To aid his native land in wartime, British-born Vernon Castle left Broadway and made his way to Newport News where he qualified as a pilot. He subsequently joined the Royal Air Force, but died in a training flight in 1918. Another civilian student was Geoffrey O'Hara, Canadian-born composer whose greatest contribution to the war effort was not his flying, but his still-famous patriotic and widely popular song of World War I; K-K-K-Katy. 7 Like everyone else, Walter Lees and his pregnant wife, Loa had to find their own living accommodations when they arrived in the Newport News area for him to provide flight training instruction to the school's students. They were fortunate to obtain 'housekeeping rooms' at one of the elegant homes on Chesapeake Avenue, which faced directly on Hampton Roads. Walter Lee's best memory of those days follows: "Our first baby was born March 9, 1916. I was at the station when Aunt Emma called and said Loa had started to have labor pains and was going to the hospital. I was so excited that Captain Tom said one of the instructors should fly me there. The hospital [old Buxton Hospital; now the Riverside Rehabilitation Institute] faced Hampton Roads. We landed right in front of the hospital and nosed our flying boat up on the shore. "I rushed into the hospital in my flying clothes, helmet and goggles, demanding "Where's my wife?' She had had to walk there and hadn't arrived yet." And then there was an army officer in the US Signal Corps considered too old and too advanced in rank to train as a pilot. So, Major...later General...Billy Mitchell traveled from Washington, DC over a number of weekends, and paid for private flying lessons out of his own pocket. Mitchell later became a strong advocate of and a leader in the development of the US Army Air Corps. His solo flight at Newport News on September 4, 1916 was less auspicious. After only four hours of dual flight instruction, he misjudged his landing and somersaulted. Hanging from his safety harness with feet dangling, Mitchell was physically unhurt, but his pride and reputation were. One of the instructors, using a hand-held camera kept at the school for just such occasions, captured this image of Mitchell's plane before he was helped out of his aircraft. For years after that, whenever an aircraft turned turtle on landing, it was called 'A Mitchell'! 8 THE SCHOOL 'CAMPUS': The wife of one of the school's instructor captured the feel of the flying school at Newport News when she penned the following description: "The Curtiss School campus --- if you could call it that --- consisted of an area at the water's edge where stood a small club house [right, partly hidden behind the stiff leg crane], an early version of a student center, and which also housed the manager's office. Nearby stood a huge barn like structure called a hanger. There were a few sheds scattered about which contained motor blocks for testing engines, the drone of which went on continuously. "There was the dope shop, which emitted the perpetual odor of banana oil, an ingredient of the dope used to varnish linen fuselage and wing coverings. There was no stockpile of spare parts in the repair shop. When a part was broken, the airplane had to be grounded until a new one could be made. There were a few spare wooden struts, one or two extra wooden propellers, a few bolts of linen, and an old foot-powered sewing machine. "There was also some extra wire and a few fittings, and the mythical "sky hook" which was part of the initiation at the Curtiss School. Rookie fliers often looked everywhere for the "Sky Hook" which they told snickering mechanics that their instructor had ordered them to take with them on their first flight. More than one fledgling flyer bit on that one! "At the water's edge there was a wooden landing ramp over which the flying boats and seaplanes were launched, and there was a flying field nearby which was actually only a strip cut through a farmer's hay field. That was the complete picture of the school, unless you included a restaurant across the road, called the Greasy Spoon, where the fliers gathered for a cup of coffee and a sandwich." 9 What the instructor's wife didn't mention was the inevitable card games that took place at the school when bad weather or other circumstances kept the students grounded. Perhaps she was unaware...or perhaps she didn't approve of such 'boys will be boys' activities. In either case, one of the school staff, who often took aerial pictures, captured such a scene in this photo, dated 1916. On April 8, 1916, members of the Aero Club, including Glenn Curtiss visited the Newport News flying school. In the center of the image, marked by a small star is Glenn Curtiss, who actually only visited the Newport News school infrequently. The imposing personage under the larger star is Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary [the handwritten identification on the photograph is misspelled]. Peary led the first successful expedition to the North Pole in 1909. His appearance at the flying school in Newport News was not mere happenstance. In 1916 he had become chairman of the National Aerial Coast Patrol Commission, a private organization that advocated the use of aircraft in detecting warships and submarines off America's east coast. Peary's involvement led to the formation of naval reserve aerial coastal patrol units being established during World War I; primarily to hunt U-boats. 10 AERIAL-RELATED ACCIDENTS: The Curtiss Flying School at Newport News Point had its share of aviation-related accidents. Rough landings in flimsy aircraft, often the result of trainees' lack of experience usually required repairs to the school's flying assets. General Billy Mitchell's previously described, embarrassing episode was not the only time a plane crashed on landing. Airborne structural failures were also experienced and usually resulted in total losses. Sometimes these more serious accidents resulted in injuries... and even some fatalities. In 1917, flight instructor Victor Carlstrom and trainee Cary Epes both died when one of their biplane's wing inexplicably collapsed while they were flying straight and level. Carlstrom had previously set world records for altitude, speed and distance in a similar aircraft. Epes was a youthful native of Newport News, so his sudden death was particularily shocking to the citizens of that community. In another fatal accident, an airplane crashed on landing and caught fire. Before the flames could be extinguished, both the student and the instructor perished. ANITA 'NETA' SNOOK: On a lighter note, the all male group of student flyers at Newport News were joined in October of 1917 by Iowa native Neta Snook. She was the first woman accepted by the Newport News flying school. How many other women ever undertook flight instruction there is not known. Her training advanced rapidly, but before she could solo, America entered World War I and the government shut down flight operations at the Curtiss Flying School. The Newport News school soon reopened under the auspices of the Army Air Service, but by that time Neta Snook had moved on to another private flying school to obtain her pilot's license. In addition to being the first woman student accepted at the Newport News school, she was the first woman in America to own an aviation business and to run a commercial airfield. But she is best known for helping Amelia Earhart learn to fly in 1920. 11 MANEUVERING AIRCRAFT: The land-based trainer aircraft used at the Curtiss Flying School were light enough to be pushed around by ground crews. They could also be taxied about the facility, but because they were 'tail draggers', their pilots had to swing them back and forth to be able to see where they were going. The flying boats presented an entirely different set of circumstances. To be moved about on land, they had to be first placed on small wheeled dollies. Then, when it came time for them to be launched over the beachfront into Hampton Roads, the amphibian aircraft were pushed by hand along a wooden ramp that extended past the low tide mark. Upon return from a successful flight, the process reversed. POSTWAR PROBLEMS: At the conclusion of World War I, the operation of the Curtiss Flying School reverted to Glenn Curtiss. But several factors prevented the school from remaining in business for more than another few years. The number of people anxious to learn to fly declined greatly, following the absence of any patriotic war-related incentive. Also, by that time, nearby military air fields were meeting the pilot training needs of both the US Army and Navy. In addition, aircraft developed during the war that had improved capabilities, could not be safely operated from the school's air strip. Simply put, landing or taking off towards Hampton Roads was too dangerous in a high-powered aircraft, due to the close proximity of the school's big hangar at the east end of the sole runway that was also too short for postwar aircraft. Water and maritime installations on two sides, and commercial and residential growth on the remaining two sides of the school effectively prevented any practical expansion of the school's facilities. This vintage aerial view, looking west and taken from one of the school's aircraft aptly illustrates the situation that ultimately resulted in Glenn Curtiss moving his Virginia-based operation to another of his schools in 1922. 12 NEWPORT NEWS POINT TODAY: Over time, all of the flying school's structures there disappeared. A parking lot for use by ferry boat 'walk-on' patrons occupied the hangar site. In 1938, a transmitter building [white structure, far left in this vintage post card image] and its associated tower for radio station WGH. It was located roughly in the center of the school's unimproved air strip. By 1957, completion of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel ended ferryboat operations, and traffic on that portion of Jefferson Avenue leading to the ferry terminal building dropped off considerably. Subsequent redevelopment of the Newport News Point area included creation of present-day, tranquil Lincoln Park, situated where Glenn Curtiss' biplanes and flying boats once buzzed busily about. The only indication in that area which indicates that a flying school ever was based near Newport News Point is this historical marker. 13 A PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT: When I was a young lad, I occasionally journeyed to Norfolk with my parents via one of the ferryboats that frequently crisscrossed the historic waters of Hampton Roads. On such brief voyages, my father would remind me of the Battle of Hampton Roads and its historic importance. But my mother, either coming on going...sometimes both...would retell one of my favorite family stories. Her oldest brother, Alexander Hazard Williams, Jr., [whose first name is my middle name...which is not a coincidence] trained as a pilot at the Newport News flying school when it was being operated under the auspices of the US Army Air Service. Although 'Uncle Alec' did not make it to France in time to fly in combat, his later life was filled with adventures. He was a shipping agent, stationed in the Orient after World War I, then a publicist who hob-nobbed with the rich and famous in New York City before and after World War II. During that war, he headed the nation's Fat Salvage Campaign (a short-lived activity about which I plan to write...someday). In parallel with all that he did to make a living, Uncle Alec also authored five books before passing away 'far too young' at age 58. He was like a sparkler...that burns brightly...but only briefly. Bill Lee April 2015 14
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