Glenn Hammond Curtiss

“ I don't think there has ever been so remarkable a landing made with an aeroplane as Ely's, and probably never so much store put by the mere act of coming down in the right place. A few feet either way, a sudden puff of wind to lift the aeroplane when it should descend, or any one of a dozen other things, might have spelled disaster for the whole undertaking, deprived the daring aviator of a well earned success, and the world of a remarkable spectacular demonstration of practical aviation. ”

“ As for the passenger, he climbs into the flying machine, takes his seat beside the operator, and becomes at once the centre of interest to all the people standing by. If he is himself an aviator it is another matter, but if it is his first experience in the air, he is usually the object of a certain shuddering admiration, not unmixed with envy.
The motor is started, making a terrific noise that almost deafens him, and quite drowns the parting speeches and the efforts of the funny men present to improve the occasion. ”

“ The successful flying man and maker of flying machines, such as Glenn H. Curtiss has shown himself to be, realises how dangerous is failure, and builds slowly. He builds, too, on his experience gained from day to day; having infinite patience and dogged perseverance. And yet a great aviator must be possessed of such marvelous quickness of thought that he can think faster than the forces of nature can act, and he must act as fast as he thinks. ”

“ New York can turn out a million people probably quicker than any other place on earth, and it certainly looked as though half of the population was along Riverside Drive or on top of the thousands of apartment houses that stretch for miles along the river. Every craft on the river turned on its siren and faint sounds of the clamour reached me even above the roar of my motor. ”

“ The aviator jumps down, the passenger climbs out with somewhat less agility, perhaps, and expresses his very hearty thanks, the plane is turned around, the propeller started, and the machine flies off again, leaving the passenger to tramp slowly through the grass, contemplating the insignificance of the human creature who is forced to walk humbly along the ground. You may remember that the first time you descended from an automobile and began to walk, you seemed to yourself to be only marking time. ”

“ Here is a man who is a speed marvel who has beat the world at it. First on land, riding a motorcycle, next in a flying machine, and finally in a machine that was both water and air craft, which sped over the surface of the sea faster than man had ever travelled on that element, and which rose into the air and came back to land with the speed of the fastest express train; a man who traveled at the rate of one hundred and thirty-seven miles an hour on land, fifty-eight miles an hour on the water and who won the first International speed championship in the air. ”

“ He must be so completely in harmony with Nature and her moods that he can tell just when is the right time to attempt a dangerous experiment, and so thoroughly in control of himself that he can refuse to make the experiment when he knows it should not be made, even though urged by all those around him to go ahead. He must feel that nothing is impossible, and yet he must not attempt anything until he is sure that he is ready and every element of danger has been eliminated, so far as lies in human power. ”

“ If you can imagine how the water in a pail would feel as you swing the pail around your head so fast that not a drop spills, you can realise the sense of stability that the aviator feels as he whirls around a circular course at a tremendous rate of speed, in fact, once an aeroplane is up in the air, it is often safer to travel fast than it is to travel slow. ”

“ Wonderful keenness of feeling on the part of an aviator, akin to that remarkable sensitiveness which is exhibited by all blind people, may be highly developed–for an aviator is just like a blind person in the air as far as concerns seeing the eddies, gusts, and currents, which are so dangerous to the balance of the machine–but the ability to advance and go ahead against the wind is as far off as the wireless transmission of power is to-day. ”

“ The hydroaeroplane can already fly sixty miles an hour, skim the water at fifty miles, and run over the earth at thirty-five miles. Driven over the surface of the water the new machine can pass the fastest motor boat ever built and will respond to its rudder more quickly than any water craft afloat. Its appeal will be as strong to the aquatic as to the aerial enthusiast.
Flying an aeroplane is thrilling sport, but flying a hydroaeroplane is something to arouse the jaded senses of the most blase. ”

“ It was most desirable, not to say necessary, that the pupils should have a minimum of wind during their early practice work. Even the lightest wind may sometimes give serious trouble to the beginner. A gust may lift the aeroplane suddenly and then just as suddenly die out, allowing the machine, should it be in flight, to drop as quickly as it rose. Such a moment is a critical one for an inexperienced man. He feels himself dropping and unless he keeps his head clear, he may come to grief through doing too much or too little to restore his equilibrium. ”

“ How great, then, must be the changes to be brought about by the flying machine, and how strangely new the type of man that it carries up into a new world, under absolutely new conditions!
Each year there will be more need of flying men; so that in telling this story of a pioneer American aviator, his struggles, failures, and successes, it has been the desire to keep in mind not only the scientific elders who are interested in angles of incidence, automatic stability and the like, but also the boys and girls–the air pilots of the future. ”

“ CHAPTER IV FUTURE PROBLEMS OF AVIATION
In a consideration of the final structure of the Coming Aeroplane, we pass into the realm of pure prophecy, for the aerial liners and dreadnaughts of the future are still snug in the brains of men like Rudyard Kipling or H. G. Wells. My part in the consideration of what is coming is here confined to the consideration of the immediate, or at least the not far distant, future.
Biplanes will always be the standard machines in my opinion, because you can get more supporting surface for the same weight. ”

“ If the air is still and there are no wind gusts to strike the machine sideways and upset it, flying is easy, but if the air comes in gusts and is rolling and turbulent even the best and most skilful operator is kept busy manoeuvring the front rudder and endeavouring to keep the machine headed into the wind, and when it tips, moving the side controls to maintain the balance. With all of these movements it is no wonder that the aviator's mind must be active there is no time to think, every movement and act must be absolutely accurate and the body must be under full control. ”

“ Through the aeroplane and dirigible, man is effacing artificial barriers; he is bringing the rich closer to the poor, the powerful closer to the weak. No longer can unwise and selfish potentates, be they royal, democratic, or financial, send forth their armies to fight while themselves resting safe and secure at home. The king in his palace or the money baron on his private yacht is in as much danger from these air craft as is the high private in the muddy trenches at the front. ”

“ Maxim once more, that "the tenure of life of no automobilist is stronger than his steering gear."
It certainly is not looking too far ahead to forecast the entrance of the aeroplane into the commuter's life. The great mass of the people certainly will not take the air-line, any more than they are now coming in by automobile every morning, and yet how many business men–and not necessarily the richest–do make the trip, that twice a day they used to take in a railroad car, in the open air, with the exhilarating breezes of their own automobiles? ”

“ With perfect calm, without the least excitement, the aviator listens to the noise of the motor; he hears it run and carefully notes the regularity of the explosions. When all is ready, he waves his hand the signal for the man holding the machine to let go. The machine runs along the ground, gathering speed, bounces a little, so that one hardly knows when it leaves the ground; the front control is raised, and the machine is in the air. ”

“ Curtiss, if you can take a series of moving pictures showing a trip across the United States, I do not care if it takes you a year to get it and even though it is taken piecemeal, or one section at a time over the main cities on the way, I will pay you well for it. We will take the film, trim it down, and run it through at lightning speed taking our audience from New York to San Francisco 'as the bird flies' in twenty minutes."
The value of moving pictures taken from above and from a swift low-flying machine is apparent at a glance. ”

“ I proceeded on the theory that confidence is sure only when the aviator has a thorough understanding of his machine, and confidence is the absolute essential to the man who takes a trip in an aeroplane. If the aviator has not the knowledge of what to do, or what his machine will do under certain conditions, he would better not trust himself in the air. Once the men learned to make the runs and jumps successfully and to handle the machine with ease and confidence, they were ready for the next stage of their training before they could be trusted to make a flight. ”

“ Perhaps not these same business men, but a corresponding class, will undoubtedly reduce the dull hours of train travel by half and turn them into hours of delight by the popularisation of aeroplane transportation. As has been the case with every means of transportation that has shortened time of travel, the habitable zones around cities will grow larger and larger as places hitherto inaccessible open before the coming of the swiftest form of transportation known to man, and the only one not dependent upon the earth's surface, whether mountain, swamp, or river, to shape its course. ”

“ Of course it would be folly, in view of the list of accidents, fatal and otherwise, that the newspapers print and reprint every time a noted aviator falls, to assert that there is no danger in flying. I doubt if the American man, especially the American young man, would take to the aeroplane so enthusiastically if the sport were as safe as parlour croquet. There is, of course, always danger of something going wrong with an aeroplane in flight that may bring it down too quickly for safety, but unless the derangement is vital, an expert aviator can make a safe landing, even with a "dead" motor. ”

“ Landing is indeed one of the most important points for the amateur aviator to consider. If it is possible, watch all accidents and study them closely. I take every means I can to learn what causes an accident so as to guard against it myself. Strictly speaking almost everything about the art of aviation is being learned by experimentation and the causes of accidents, while not always exactly ascertainable, are of the greatest interest to builders and operators of flying machines, for out of the accidents of to-day often come the improvements of to-morrow. ”

“ The most interesting type of flying machine for sport and pleasure is the hydroaeroplane, and this is undoubtedly the machine with the greatest possibilities for the future. Indeed, it opens up an entirely new region of activity, as boundless as the ocean itself, and as various as the different bodies of water. Built along the lines of a motor boat with the addition of aeroplane surfaces or horizontal sails, this craft will be used for much the same purposes as motor boats are now, but in ways immeasurably more varied and more effective. ”