Unlocking the Sky (18 page)

Even with all the delays and false starts, not to mention the early hour on a Sunday morning, at least a hundred spectators are on hand to see him off. Unbeknownst to him, it is but a dim preview of the public interest that lies ahead.

As Curtiss recalls, the extended delays had “gotten somewhat on my nerves.” But with the morning calm and bright, he resolved “it was now or never.” From his perch on the makeshift runway, he notes the direction of the smoke from factory stacks to judge wind direction and readies for takeoff. According to Jacob Ten Eyck, serving as the official Aero Club starter, Curtiss’s wheels leave the ground at exactly 7:02
A.M
. As planned, Ten Eyck signals his assistant to wave a white flag from the top of a nearby warehouse visible
from the train. At the sight of the flag, the engineer of the train blows its whistle and heads off in a synchronized start down the tracks along the east side of the Hudson.

By wire, the whole Hudson River valley quickly learns of Curtiss’s successful takeoff. In Poughkeepsie, according to one account, the bell in the city hall steeple chimes with the news, while in Manhattan people huddle around bulletin boards at the offices of the
World
and the
Times
and in front of smoke shop windows to see phoned-in reports of Curtiss’s progress. Anticipating a glimpse of the spectacle, people also begin gathering along the waterfront parks of the city and on the roofs of apartment buildings that offer a view of the Hudson.

Curtiss rises to an altitude of 700 feet and flies straight down the middle of the river. With the Hudson spread out below him like a wide, glimmering road, he notices with fascination that from above he can see through the clear water to deep beneath the river’s surface.

“I felt an immense sense of relief,” Curtiss would write later, to be finally airborne on such a beautiful, cloudless day. “The motor sounded like music.”

It is clear sailing for the first leg of the journey. The machine handles perfectly. When the train first comes into view alongside the river, Curtiss veers toward it to fly alongside. He can see Lena leaning out the window, waving her handkerchief and later a large American flag. Henry Kleckler, too, pops in and out of the train window, nervously flapping his cap. With both train and airplane traveling at roughly fifty miles an hour, Curtiss remembers: “It was like a real race and I enjoyed the contest more than anything else
during the flight.” The train and the airplane weave together and apart along the voyage. Sometimes, as the tracks move away from the bank or the train slows around curves, Curtiss flies far out ahead only to find that the train is back by his side on straightaway stretches of track along the river.

With little instrumentation, Curtiss has no way to determine his speed other than the strength of the wind against his face. Because he has no altimeter, he can similarly only guess at his altitude. And the deafening drone of the engine behind his head shuts out all other sound.

Nonetheless, he feels in complete control of the airplane and intensely alert to the tiniest details around him on the crystalline day. Below him, Curtiss sees groups of people staring from the riverbanks and boaters waving; the captain of a river tugboat toots its horn; although Curtiss can’t hear it, he sees the blast of white steam rise eerily silent into the air below him.

Sooner than expected, Curtiss sees the distant outline of the Poughkeepsie bridge spanning the Hudson eighty-seven miles from Albany, roughly marking the halfway point of his journey. He must land to fill his tank with gasoline. Peering out from his open-air perch, Curtiss soon spots Camelot’s open grassland and bounces to a landing on its bumpy field, where he had arranged to have gas and oil waiting for him. But despite the best laid plans, there is no gas or oil to be found.

It is 8:26
A.M
. on a Sunday. Perhaps, Curtiss guesses, the local garage proprietor is at church. If so, however, he would seem to be in the minority. According to a newspaper account, church attendance in Poughkeepsie that day falls off so sharply that the Reverend William H. Hubbard of Mill Hill Baptist Church chastises his flock—and Curtiss—for desecrating the Sabbath.

Fortunately, the field in which Curtiss has landed is no more than two hundred feet from the road; already automobiles are pulling over by the dozen, and a crowd of almost a hundred excited spectators congregates around the plane. Curtiss explains his predicament and asks if anyone can spare him some gas and oil. At least a dozen offer their assistance. He gratefully accepts some eight gallons of gas and a gallon of oil from two New Jersey motorists who help fill his tank from spare cans in their touring cars.

By this time, the tracking train has long since pulled off on a siding near Camelot, and its passengers come jogging excitedly across the meadow. Henry Kleckler, like a doctor rushing to the scene of an emergency, is in the lead. He inspects the
Albany Flier
with meticulous care, checking the engine and each of the aircraft’s wires and struts. Lena rushes to her intrepid husband and affectionately takes his measure. Post adds a handshake and a pat on the back, and the news photographer snaps a picture of Curtiss standing beside the airplane. And, within the hour, Curtiss is back in the air, his ears still ringing from the roar of the motor.

As he recounts: “Out over the trees to the river I set my course, and when I was about midstream, turned south. At the start I climbed high above the river, and then dropped down close to the water. I wanted to feel out the air currents, believing that I would be more likely to find steady air conditions near the water. I was mistaken in this, however.”

As Curtiss drops down close to the water, a gust of air tips his wing dangerously high and he almost touches the water. “I thought for an instant that my trip was about to end, and made a quick mental calculation as to the length of time it would take a boat to reach me after I should drop into the water,” Curtiss remembers.

Yet even worse trouble lies ahead.

Twenty miles south of Poughkeepsie, the river carves a steep fifteen-mile-long gorge in the so-called Hudson Highlands near Storm King Mountain and Breakneck Ridge. The spot funnels treacherous wind currents above the river. Aware of the danger from his research and reconnaissance, Curtiss tries to climb above it, rising to an altitude of roughly 2,000 feet. But it is not high enough. Just past Storm King Mountain, as Lena watches, increasingly frantic and helpless, from the train, a cross current tilts the
Albany Flier
sideways, and the plane drops more than a hundred feet within seconds. Momentarily losing control, Curtiss is nearly thrown from the airplane. “It was the worst plunge I ever got in an aeroplane,” Curtiss says later. “My heart was in my mouth. I thought it was all over.”

As the wind steadies, Curtiss is shaken but he regains control of his aircraft. Ahead, he can just make out the northern tip of Manhattan and the outline of the fifty-story-high Metropolitan Tower—the world’s tallest building—above the line of the horizon.

Just as Curtiss begins to feel elated that he is so near the end of the trip, he notices that his oil gauge reads perilously near empty. Like all of Curtiss’s airplanes to date, the
Albany Flier
requires the pilot to lubricate the engine through a manual control. While in flight, Curtiss must pull the lever on a hand-operated oil pump roughly every ten minutes to assure the smooth running of the engine. With his recent ordeal at Breakneck Ridge, Curtiss’s first thought is that he must have inadvertently “been too enthusiastic” with the oil lever. In fact, although he won’t discover it until later, the airplane has been seriously leaking oil for some time. In any event, with the prospect that his engine could freeze up at any time, Curtis knows he must quickly land to replenish his oil.

Nervously winging east at the northernmost tip of Manhattan
where the Harlem River curves around at the Harlem Gorge to meet the Hudson, Curtiss looks for a little meadow at Inwood—one of many such spots he has chosen as possible landing sites. There is no time to lose. Spotting nothing more suitable, he makes an emergency landing on a sloping lawn that rises a hundred feet above the Hudson. Safely on the ground, he breathes a sigh of relief and realizes that he is inside the city limits. It is 10:35
A.M
. In just over two and a half hours of flying time, he has covered 137 miles, averaging nearly 55 mph.

Curtiss has landed on the grounds of the estate of the late financier and leather merchant William B. Isham, now inhabited by Isham’s daughter and her husband, M. P. Collins. They jump up from reading the Sunday newspaper when they hear the roar of the approaching motor. They have just been reading about the proposed flight and are stunned to see Curtiss’s airplane bouncing up their sloping front lawn. Collins rushes to greet the unexpected visitor. Holding out his hand to Curtiss, he says he is delighted to be the first to welcome him to the city and congratulate him on his successful journey. “I am also glad,” he says, “that you picked our yard as the place to land.”

At the Isham estate, Curtiss telephones the
New York World
with the news that he has landed within the city limits. He will, he says, continue on to his planned landing site at Governors Island as soon as possible.

Having technically fulfilled the contest’s requirements—and with only one stop instead of the two allowed by the rules—another aviator might have pronounced the flight complete. But not Curtiss. He says later that he thought of all the spectators in the city counting on his arrival. Doubtless, he thought also about the thrill of being the subject of their adulation. Regardless of his motive, as
one magazine writer noted, his decision to fly on over Manhattan was “a magnificent sportsmanlike thing that won him the unbounded admiration of all New York.” Having refilled his oil tank, he lifts off at eighteen minutes before noon, heading for Governors Island and glory.

After a dangerous and tricky takeoff down the sloping cliff over the river, Curtiss once again rises over the open Hudson, this time with the shimmering Manhattan skyline beckoning him onward through the clear midday sky. As he approaches the city, he is overwhelmed by the reception. Crowds are everywhere: on rooftops, in trees, and packed many deep along the riverbanks. Passengers on ferryboats and ocean liners crane to railings and wave wildly in the air to him. And people on scores of crafts large and small dotting the Hudson cheer him on as well.

“New York can turn out a million people probably quicker than any other place on earth, and it certainly looked as though half the population had flocked to Riverside Drive or out onto the rooftops of the thousands of apartment houses that stretch for miles along the river,” Curtiss recalls. As he says later, he had never experienced anything so dramatic and inspiring.

In no time, the Statue of Liberty—Curtiss’s sought-after landmark of the finish line—stands close before him. Turning westward, he remembers, he triumphantly “circled the Lady with the torch” and headed as planned for the parade grounds at nearby Governors Island.

It is just past noon and, after a perfect landing, Curtiss emerges from his airplane to cheers from scores of enthusiastic U.S. Army personnel at the small base there. It has been, to say the least, a full
morning, including an unprecedented two hours, fifty-one minutes of flying time.

Despite their own timely arrival in Manhattan, the passengers on the
New York Times
train fall behind while trying to make their way to Governors Island from Grand Central Station. Nonetheless, a representative from the
World
—already on hand—rushes up to congratulate Curtiss and make arrangements to bring him back to the city to receive his $10,000 award.

Making his way toward the ferry arriving from Manhattan, Curtiss is reunited with Lena as she rushes ahead of all the others. Perhaps because she was always nervous about the trip, or because she watched him the whole way, including the rocky turbulence at Breakneck Ridge, Curtiss notes that her embrace is a bit tighter than he expects. Nor does she seem shy hugging him with some abandon in front of all the soldiers. Lena is so happy Curtiss completed the trip safely, in fact, she is only too eager to reenact the embrace, as she will remember, “ever so many times” at the request of the news photographers.

After a formal luncheon at the Hotel Astor, Curtiss is escorted to the Pulitzer Building, where the
New York World
holds a press conference open to all journalists—even those from the train-hogging
New York Times.

Naturally, the New York press crowns Curtiss “King of the Air.” The
New York Evening Mail
rhapsodizes about “the courage of the man” who made the flight even though he knew all along that “a broken bolt or some little thing gone wrong might dash him to death.”

The fact is, though, the reporters are not sure what to make of Curtiss. He is, of course, an intrepid and accomplished aviator. But
he is so reserved and unassuming the reporters have to work hard to make him seem like the glamorous hero their readers must surely expect.

Curtiss “speaks quietly” and “is not at all forward,” the reporter for the
New York World
writes. But, he adds, “there lurks within him the element of enthusiasm that goes to make up great adventurers, and it speaks out from his eyes, which are the most expressive part of his face.”

The gala event comes two days later: a formal, gentlemen-only dinner in the Hotel Astor’s main banquet hall amid chandeliers, gilded sconces, and potted palms. The black-tie affair, hosted by Pulitzer and the
New York World,
is presided over by New York’s mayor, William Gaynor, and the elite guest list of roughly one hundred includes New York financiers, military brass, and wealthy aviation enthusiasts.

Although Curtiss is still no public speaker, he is at least getting more proficient at ducking speeches. He tells the assembled diners that he “planned everything about the flight in advance except the possibility of making a speech.” Still, he does have something to present to Gaynor. The mayor of Albany, James B. McEwan, gave Curtiss a letter to carry aloft and deliver to his counterpart in Manhattan. Although Curtiss already delivered it in person at city hall, he and Gaynor reprise the delivery for the assembled dignitaries. The letter offers little more than greetings and platitudes, but everyone present recognizes its symbolic significance: it is the first airmail letter ever delivered in the United States.