It was to take place 50 miles out to sea. John McCurdy was the Curtiss pilot tagged for the proposed first launch from a ship. The ship had been the largest ocean liner afloat between 1905-1907, until the Lusitania took that title. Their liner, the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, was chosen to be the vessel from which a Curtiss Pusher would take off.

The Hamburg America steamship line was engaged in the project. The premise was finding a way to speed transoceanic mail delivery. The plan was to fly an aircraft from an outbound ocean liner at sea, returning to land the airplane on shore. In 1910, the New York World newspaper came up with a feat worthy of Curtiss’ aircraft and his showmanship, as chronicled by Glenn Curtiss biographer C.R. A savvy showman and businessman, Glenn Curtiss was attuned to ventures that might cast airplanes - especially his airplanes - in a good public light. Those engines provided Curtiss’ entry into the fledgling aviation world. Glenn Curtiss was a world-record-beating motorcycle speed racer who built his own cycles and engines. Note the airplane’s V-8 water-cooled engine. Photographed at Birmingham, Alabama, in November 1910. Eventually, planes would be used for military, commercial, and passenger transportation purposes.Eugene Ely seated in a Curtiss Pusher biplane, with his wife, Mabel (Hall) Ely standing beside him. After World War I, there were many additional advances in airplane design that made flights much safer. Rickenbacker became known the flying ace for his aeronautical feats during World War I. World War I pilots usually were involved in reconnaissance, although there were some instances where pilots were involved in battles in the sky with another plane.

Airplanes were first used for military purposes during World War I, but only in very limited ways.

Pilots tried to achieve aviation milestones for the first time and get their names in the newspapers. At first, Americans viewed flying as an exciting form of entertainment - something thrilling to watch, but not something the average person would do themselves. That skepticism proved to be short-lived, and Americans became very interested in news stories about airplanes.Įarly airplanes were very dangerous, and there were numerous dramatic crashes. Only five Ohio newspapers covered the story originally, because the others refused to believe that flight was possible. Many Americans, including journalists, did not believe the story of the Wright brothers' first flight. The first flight only lasted twelve seconds and traveled 120 feet, but a later flight that day lasted fifty-nine seconds and traveled 852 feet. That first plane was very primitive, but within a few years, the Wright brothers, as well as other aircraft designers, had begun to make many improvements. The plane's designers were Dayton residents Orville and Wilbur Wright, who until that point had made a living by building bicycles. The first successful flight of a powered airplane occurred at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. Wilbur and his brother Orville built and flew the first mechanically powered airplane. Reproduction of a portrait of inventor Wilbur Wright from Dayton, Ohio, ca.

First airplane