The
spirit of cooperation, expressed in pooling ideas and fame, which
the Wright brothers exemplified, is seen again in the association
of Curtiss with the navy during the war. NC is a fraternity badge
signifying equal honors.
Curtiss, in 1900, was--like the Wrights--the owner of a small
bicycle shop. It was at Hammondsport, New York. He was an
enthusiastic cyclist, and speed was a mania with him. He evolved
a motor cycle with which he broke all records for speed over the
ground. He started a factory and achieved a reputation for
excellent motors. He designed and made the engine for the
dirigible of Captain Thomas S. Baldwin; and for the first United
States army dirigible in 1905.
Curtiss carried on some of his experiments in association with
Alexander Graham Bell, who was trying to evolve a stable flying
machine on the principle of the cellular kite. Bell and Curtiss,
with three others, formed in 1907, the Aerial Experimental
Association at Bell's country house in Canada, which was fruitful
of results, and Curtiss scored several notable triumphs with the
craft they designed. But the idea of a machine which could
descend and propel itself on water possessed his mind, and in
1911 he exhibited at the aviation meet in Chicago the
hydroaeroplane. An incident there set him dreaming of the
life-saving systems on great waters.
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