January 10, 2023 Reflections from Hammondsport, NY

The Liberty Gazette

January 10, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Glenn Hammond Curtiss. Had you been born around 1880, you would have said in 1900, watch that man. He’s going places. People in his hometown liked him. After his father died, when Glenn was about five, he went about town with a screwdriver, asking merchants and homeowners if they had anything that needed fixing. The man of the house at an early age, he took care of his little sister, Rutha, who had become deaf from meningitis. He was competitive, too. The invention of the bicycle had allowed people to “move up” from four hooves to two wheels. He found like-minded men and they all raced against each other for the title of fastest cyclist. Glenn won and won and won again. He was strong, and he built good bikes. Because everyone loves a winner, everyone wanted a bike like Glenn Curtiss’. Voila! A business! Curtiss Bicycles. Hammondsport, New York (his father’s ancestors had founded the city). 

Technology moved fast, too, but Glenn kept pace. He didn’t invent the motorcycle, but he bought a V-8 engine and mounted it on his bicycle. He set a speed record with it in 1907. 136 miles an hour. “The fastest man on earth,” they called him.

Glenn met the most beautiful woman ever, Lena Pearl Neff, a local gal, and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her mother wasn’t sure, but her father could tell. He’s going places.

Business was good, and despite personal tragedies, including the death of their first son at 11 months, he and Lena carried on. Together. He was curious and smart. He solved problems. He made things work. After his first flight in a powered balloon, he said, “I think I can make it go faster.” 

He also cared deeply about people. It is, therefore, no surprise that his business grew. Everybody liked Glenn. Everybody, that is, except Orville and Wilbur. They did not like the competition as the world raced to be the first to build an aeroplane that would carry people. Even the French were nicer to Glenn Curtiss than the Wright boys of Ohio. They were smug with their wing-warping idea and interconnected rudder. They’d found a way to steer a glider and accused him of patent infringement.

Warping wings? He could do better than that. He made ailerons. But those Wrights ran crying to a judge and put Glenn out of business for a time. Around 300 employees out of work. That’s when Henry Ford stepped in. “Let me know when you need me,” he offered. He disliked those boys from Ohio. Ford told him to make the controls work independently (not interconnected) and funded the legal team to fight the potential monopoly from an overly broad patent. 

All U.S. patents were invalidated during WWI, and Curtiss-built aircraft became the only U.S. aircraft to see service in the war. There’s a lesson in this: Don’t be greedy. Ironic karma will get you.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com