The Curtiss Flying School was started by Glenn Curtiss to compete against the Wright Flying School of the Wright brothers. The first example was located in San Diego, California.[1]
The Wright brothers had a keen interest in their competition, sending the lesser known Lorin Wright to spy and take photographs at the New York facility for a 1914 lawsuit.[2]
Curtiss started the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station on a 20-acre tract east of Newport News (VA) Boat Harbor in the Fall of 1915 with Captain Thomas Scott Baldwin as head. Many civilian students, including Canadians, later became World War I flyers. Victor Carlstrom, Vernon Castle, Eddie Stinson and Gen Billy Mitchell trained here. The school was disbanded in 1922.[3]
Students would work toward completing the Aero Club of America pilot's license. The initial cost was one dollar a minute for the four-hundred-minute course ($8,600 in 2010 dollars). In 1917 the U.S. Army took over operations during World War I. After the war, control reverted to Curtiss, who closed Newport operations in 1922.[4]
A large variety of aircraft were used for training, mostly designed and built by Curtiss, and still undergoing flight testing. Among the fleet included the first aircraft to take off from water.[5]
By 1929, the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce took over licensing of aviation schools. Curtiss schools were registered and required to give two weeks of ground school instruction to new pilots.[6]
- ^ "Glenn H. Curtiss". Glennhcurtissmuseum.org. Archived from the original on 2013-04-14. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
- ^ Fred Howard (1988). Wilbur and Orville A Biography of the Wright Brothers. Ballantine Books. ISBN 9780345353931.
- ^ Annual Newsletter, Newport News Historical Committee, 1989.
- ^ John V. Quarstein. World War I on the Virginia Peninsula.
- ^ Edith Dodd Culver. Talespins a story of early aviation days.
- ^ Popular Science. July 1929.
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