AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2020 - 66

muddy horse track and rose 20 feet off the ground, flying
the craft for 5,090 feet. He was awarded the Scientific
American Trophy, and the publicity overshadowed the
latest feats of the Wright brothers. While Curtiss was
awarded the first Aero Club of America pilot license
it was not because of that flight; it was in alphabetical
order and the Wrights had the wrong name.
Bell was a fan of Curtiss and called him "the greatest
motor expert in the country." Bell and his wife, Mabel,
funded the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA)
and Curtiss was its director of experiments. Thomas
Selfridge was a member. When Orville Wright demonstrated the Wright Flyer in September 1908 in Arlington,
Virginia, Selfridge was his passenger. The crash of the
aircraft killed Selfridge (the first fatal airplane accident)
and the AEA disbanded.
Curtiss was called upon to build an aircraft for the
Aeronautical Society in New York and he modified the
June Bug, shortening the wings and adding ailerons, as
well as painting it yellow, to sell the Gold Bug for $5,000.
The sale angered the Wrights, as they believed their U.S.
patent granted them a monopoly. The brothers sued
the Aeronautical Society and demanded the Gold Bug
be destroyed.
The lawsuit lasted for eight years as both Curtiss
and the brothers continued to achieve success in new
designs, especially Curtiss (flying boats, the JN-4). The
feud ended with the start of World War I. The U.S. War
Department contacted Curtiss and Orville Wright and,
according to history, told the two to come together. The
settlement "took over the Wright and Curtiss patents

66 | AOPA PILOT March 2020

and administered a cross-licensing agreement that
applied to all members of the association," according
to author William F. Trimble. The Wrights and Curtiss
each received $2 million in royalties (worth $32 million
today). The Curtiss-Wright Corp. was formed in 1929.
Curtiss moved to Florida where he established 18 more
corporations, before he died in 1930 at age 52.
A walk through the 60,000-square-foot Glenn H.
Curtiss Museum will illustrate this tale and much more
of Curtiss's rich history. There are more than a dozen
aircraft, motorcycles, automobiles, and more housed in
a former winery building.
The Finger Lakes region is a summer resort area
with boating and swimming as the draw, and a fall
destination for leaf peepers and winery tours. For
outdoorsmen, there are waterfalls, hiking trails, canyons, and ski areas. The 11 lakes-so-called because the
long slim lakes look like fingers-are situated between
Syracuse and Rochester, New York. Seneca is the deepest and Cayuga is the longest. Native Americans believed
the long north-to-south lakes were the fingers of The
Great Spirit touching the Earth.
Hammondsport is located at the southern end
of Keuka Lake. Unlike its other lake brothers, Keuka
is Y-shaped and was once called the "Crooked Lake."
The 20-mile lake is the home of Finger Lakes Seaplanes
(see "Two Men and a Seaplane," p. 63), which offers the
added pleasure of flying over the many wineries of the
Keuka Lake Wine Trail. From the air is a marvelous way
to see the cascading vineyards flowing down the sides
of the cliffside lake coastline.

AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2020

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