The first seaplane pilot

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While reading Jay Spenser’s highly recommended “The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings,” I learned that motorcycle and aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss was the first seaplane pilot and considered the father of Naval Aviation! Of course, having recently earned my Airplane Single Engine Sea (seaplane) rating, I was thrilled to learn this!

Curtiss was the first pilot to fly off the water on January 26th, 1911 (Rosebury, 1972), the first to fly an amphibious craft, and was instrumental in the development of seaplanes.

Curtiss at the controls of the A1 Triad in 1911; the world’s first amphibious craft. The “triad” being land, air, and sea. Library of Congress photo.
Curtiss A1 Triad (Curtiss Model E) on land; the world’s first amphibious craft and the first seaplane to be used by the US Navy.
Curtiss 1912 Hydroplane 2 view from Aero and Hydro magazine. Public domain image

In addition to being the first person to fly an airplane on floats, he partnered in 1912 with John Cyril Porte who recommended incorporating a “step,” a notch on floats that allows the back of the float to rise out of the water which eliminates the “suction” of the water, allowing for a shorter takeoff slide.

In 1912 Curtiss trialed a new design, The Flying Fish, which incorporated a boat hull as the pontoon, thus the first flying boat.

Curtiss flying boat being tested on Keuka Lake, New York (c. 1910-1915) – Library of Congress photo
Curtis Flying Boats in Hammondsport, NY, on Keuka Lake, one of New York’s “Finger Lakes,” 1913.

Naval Aviation

Curtiss aircraft were the first to fly off, and then later onto Naval ships, which is why he is considered the US “Father of Naval Aviation.”

Pilot Eugene Burton Ely departs the USS Birmingham near Hampton Roads, Virginia from a temporary deck in a Curtiss Pusher, 10 November 1910.
Ely, on 11 January 1911, landed the same plane on a makeshift deck on the USS Pennsylvania near San Francisco using an arresting cable, which marked the beginning of carrier deck operations.
Curtiss flying boat catapulted off the USS North Carolina in 1916
A flying replica of a “headless” 1910 Curtiss “Pusher” at the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (WAAAM) in Hood River, Oregon, which maintains one of the largest collection of still-flying antique airplanes anywhere!

The Curtiss Pusher was also the first airplane to fly over the Continental Divide, piloted by Cromwell Dixon in 1911 near Helena, Montana!

Note: All black and white photos in this post are in the public domain due to copyright expiration.

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