December 2005- In the February 2005 issue of Piper Flyer, we did a feature story on a particular historic aviation event that occurred nearly a century earlier in Upstate New York, and a re-creation of that special event last year.
To quote from the opening paragraph of that article, titled “Mother of All Seaplanes:” On September 15th, 2004 and again on September 19th, 2004, Captain H. James Poel—a 61 year-old retired American Airlines Boeing 777 captain—made the first flights in a reproduction of the 1911 Curtiss A-1. The Curtiss A-1 “Triad” was the United States Navy’s first airplane and the first amphibious aircraft to be flown in this country.
The reproduction A-1 (built, owned and operated by the Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, N.Y.) made its initial flights from the southern end of Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes district of upstate New York, the very location from which Glenn Curtiss had staged the original A-1 flights in 1911.
As the basic root of the family tree for all seaplanes that have followed it for the next 93 years, we present the story of this unique reproduction aircraft and the firsthand experiences of the pilot who flew it.
This past summer we had the opportunity to visit the Curtiss Museum and spend time with Jim Poel (the pilot of the A-1 reproduction aircraft), Art Wilder (director of the restoration shop at the museum), and a number of the other volunteers who are continually kept busy on various projects.
One of them—the building of yet another reproduction aircraft—is even more of an undertaking than the A-1 project had been—and we’ll have more details on that in a moment. But first some details on the museum itself, which is well worth a trip to see if you’re even slightly interested in historic airplanes.
Located on Route 54, one-half mile south of Hammondsport, N.Y., the museum is in the middle of central New York’s picturesque Finger Lakes district. The nearest airports with General Aviation facilities are Penn Yan (KPEO)—22 miles away, and Elmira (KELM)—35 miles away.
The Curtiss Museum is a handsome and carefully crafted gallery that gives the public an opportunity to become up close and personal with an interesting collection of Glenn Curtiss and upstate New York aircraft, motorcycles, engines and other related paraphernalia.
The museum is easy enough to spot from the highway because a Curtiss C-46 Commando transport from World War II is parked on the front lawn. Be sure to look at the material inside the museum on how they got that airplane (it can be described as a DC-3 on serious steroids, if you’re not familiar with this large twin-engine transport) to be positioned where it is now.
Except for a few selected holidays, the museum is open year-round and every day of the week (check the website, or call the museum at 607-569-2160). Hours vary slightly with the seasons, but are basically 9 to 5 (10 to 5 on Sunday). Admission for adults is $7, with discounts for seniors, students and families.
The museum suggests a minimum visiting time of one hour, which would be barely enough time if you intend to spend even a handful of extra moments taking in the numerous details on exhibit.
Out on the floor with lots of interesting brethren was the A-1 itself—the reproduction that the museum created and Jim Poel flew for the first time in 2004. By the time you read this, the A-1 is expected to have flown again at their annual Seaplane Homecoming held every September.
After having seen the pictures of the reproduction A-1 on its initial flight, it was quite a special treat to get a private tour of the airplane and all of its many intricacies from Capt. Poel. When you spend time inspecting and learning about a reproduction like this, Jim Poel’s words from that initial interview with him after the first flight can really ring true:
“…This is the spot where Glenn Curtiss lived and worked in his early days in aviation, and Keuka Lake is exactly the spot where Curtiss conducted his initial flights of the original A-1. It was, frankly, quite a thrill for me to share what probably were the same feelings that Glenn Curtiss had when his original A-1 lifted off from the very same spot on the very same lake.”
But the big news at the moment is what’s happening in the back room—the restoration shop, where visitors are welcomed to take a peek if they like. Amid the piles of tools, the stacks of wood, and what appears to be barely understated disarray (“I know right where everything is,” Art Wilder assured me) is the skeleton of their next reproduction—the Curtiss America.
Designed and built at the Curtiss facility in Hammondsport in 1914, this twin-engine flying boat first flew from the same area on Keuka Lake that the A-1 first flew from three years earlier in 1911. The America was intended to be a transatlantic machine, and its history—all documented, and with lots of supporting vintage photographs—has all the literal ups and downs of most of the aviation projects of that era.
It’s easy to forget these days, with computer assisted engineering to support every project, that in the old days it was mostly just the hunches of the folks in charge that made the difference between success and failure.
The Curtiss flying boat America was built to compete for the London Daily Mail’s £10,000 prize for a nonstop transatlantic crossing—a prize eventually won in 1919 by Alcock and Brown in their modified Vickers Vimy. The Curtiss America project was financed by department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker, and the pilot of America was scheduled to be Englishman John C. Porte.
Unfortunately, the North Atlantic flight project was abandoned when World War I broke out, but by then the airplane had successfully flown and it would become the basis for various future flying boat designs.
From the Curtiss Museum point of view, the restoration shop people are relentlessly pressing ahead with their reproduction of the America in hopes that this big flying boat will fly on schedule (from their track record so far, I’d say that this group of volunteers aren’t particularly interested in building only static display aircraft and they’ve certainly proved themselves to be up to the task of building flyable ones!) sometime in the summer of 2007.
As this project continues, we expect to provide more details in Piper Flyer as we move toward the day when, once again, a brand-new Curtiss Flying Boat is expected to leave the surface of Keuka Lake and takes to the sky on its initial flight.
Make plans to take a look at the Curtiss Museum and the Curtiss America project sometime between now and then, and mark off some time in the summer of 2007 if you’d like to see, firsthand, the recreation of another memorable aviation moment from the past.
There seems to be a very good chance that the museum’s staff of volunteers will be able to make their planned launch date. Odds also seem very, very good that this restoration of the Curtiss America will fly just as well as the original had when it first lifted off Keuka Lake nearly a century ago.
Piper Flyer is planning on letting our members know more about this event whenever there’s more news for us to report.
Editor-at-large Thomas Block has flown nearly 30,000 hours since his first hour of dual in 1959. In addition to his 36-year career as a US Airways pilot, he has been an aviation magazine writer since 1969, and a best-selling novelist. He owns an L-19 Bird Dog, which he contends is a straight cross between a Piper Super Cub and a highwing Cessna taildragger. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
