Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 54

aviation history

Glenn Curtiss
Bike Racer & Inventor
Part One (1878-1930)
By Bill Bath, Appraiser Fellow-Administrative Director, ISTAT International Appraisers’ Program Although Glenn Curtiss had no formal education, he was a man with an extraordinary range of abilities. As a champion bike racer, his world motorbike 136 mph record stood from January 1907 until his death in 1930. He designed and built one of the world’s first V8 engines, which powered not only his motorbikes but his dirigibles and seaplanes as well. A natural organizer, engineer and visionary, he created a large industrial organization and at the time the world’s largest wind tunnel near Lake Success on Long Island. The list of his achievements just goes on and on; yet the Curtiss P-40 fighter variants we are all familiar with were not created until several years after his death; by then Wright Aeronautical and The Curtiss Engineering Company had been merged back in 1929 to be renamed Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Back to the beginning. Curtiss was born in Hammondsport in upstate western New York on 21 May 1878; his father ran a harness business and died of a stomach infection when Curtiss was four years of age and his sister, two. Sent to live with his widowed grandmother, who eventual moved with her grandson to Rochester, he was soon dismantling old broken clocks and making them functional again. Back in Hammondsport in his late teens, he took an old decrepit bicycle and rebuilt it into a racing machine, beating the former local champions in the process. Soon he was repairing bikes as a steady business and opened a shop, rent free, repairing harnesses in a barn at the back. It was the advent of the motorcycle that quickly got the attention of the young embryonic engineer and entrepreneur. The first one was the Thomas Auto-Bi with a 20 pound, 1.5 hp engine installed high up in the frame. In 1901, a rough design for engine castings sent to a local foundry got Curtiss into the engine manufacturing business; he trademarked it Hercules. In 1903, he doubled the horsepower to 5 hp by adding a second cylinder for what is possibly the world’s first V-twin powered motorcycle and proceeded to win races and hill climbs. In January 1904, he set a 10-mile world speed record of 8 minutes 54 seconds on the sand at Ormond Beach, Florida, which stood for seven years. It was on 24 January 1907 at Ormond Beach that Curtiss set his long-

Glenn Curtiss on his V8 motorcycle, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1907.

54 The official publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading



Jetrader - September/October 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Jetrader - September/October 2011

A Message from the President
Calendar/News
Q&A: Henri Courpron
State of the Regions: Europe
Paris Air Show Review
Thank You Sponsors
All About Growth
Predictive Maintenance in Aging Aircraft Systems
Have Faith
Parts on Demand
Culture of Accountability
Aircraft Appraisals
From the ISTAT Foundation
Aviation History
Advertiser.com / Advertiser Index
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Cover1
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - cover2
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 3
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 4
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - A Message from the President
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 6
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 7
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 8
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Calendar/News
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 10
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Q&A: Henri Courpron
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 12
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 13
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 14
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 15
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 16
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 17
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - State of the Regions: Europe
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 19
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 20
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 21
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 22
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 23
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Paris Air Show Review
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 25
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 26
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 27
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 28
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 29
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 30
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 31
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 32
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Thank You Sponsors
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - All About Growth
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 35
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 36
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 37
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Predictive Maintenance in Aging Aircraft Systems
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 39
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 40
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 41
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 42
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Have Faith
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 44
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Parts on Demand
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 46
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Culture of Accountability
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 48
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Aircraft Appraisals
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 50
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 51
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 52
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - From the ISTAT Foundation
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Aviation History
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 55
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 56
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - Advertiser.com / Advertiser Index
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - 58
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - cover3
Jetrader - September/October 2011 - cover4
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