1910: OH WHAT A BEGINNING!
Land a plane next to the white house? The President coming out to greet the brave pilot? It happened! October 14, 1910. President William Taft came out to greet English Pilot Claude Grahame-White who had arrived in a bi-plane. The plane was called a Farman. Less than a week later on October 22, the world’s leading pilots gathered at Belmont in New York for an airshow. The world’s most experienced pilot was there, Orval Wright. Orval had about 400 flights behind him at that time.
Two Farman bi-planes had already made headlines at the Los Angeles show, The Very First Airshow. At that show, a Farman set a new altitude record of 4164 feet. The pilot, or shall we call him performer, was Frenchman Louis Paulhan. Paulhan, using another aircraft, set a new air speed record of 54.7 mph. That show went on for ten days, and Paulhan carried off $19,000 for his performances. American aviator Glenn Curtiss was there too. He had been touted as “THE BIG ATTRACTION” for the 175,000 spectators who showed up.
Oh yes, quite a beginning for the airshow industry. Curtiss, by some accounts of that first airshow, was the one who set the speed record. Curtiss was the winner of the “Quick start” competition. In all, he won $6,500 in prize money. In that huge crowd was newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hurst. Mr. Hurst enjoyed his very first flight at the show. The pilot was…you guessed it…Lewis Paulhan. Now here is a surprise for you. The show included “bombing” demonstrations. The bombs were oranges, readily available in Southern California. That “act” was presented by two American flyers, Eugene Ely and Phillip Parmalee. Yep, that was one big exciting airshow. ORANGES! Paulhan also got in on the bombing competition. His “bombardier” was US Army Lieutenant Paul Beck.
Curtiss seemed to have a vision about the future of airshows. He believed the public was eager to see planes fly and perform. He formed teams of exhibition flyers who traveled the country presenting early airshows. The Wright Brothers had also formed similar teams, in the spring of 1910. They did not permit their teams to fly on Sundays. The teams were all male, while Curtiss had female pilots. Nor would the Wrights take females aloft as passengers. They held religious and social views forbidding certain things.
The Wright team disbanded in November of 1911 after the top two male pilots lost their lives in tragic accidents. They were Arch Hoxsey and Ralph Johnstone. Fans loved them. Media had named them the “Heavenly Twins”. First of the two to die was Johnstone. In November 1910, he was attempting a maneuver he called a “Spiral Glide”. The wings failed. Hoxsey was killed just one month later, on December 31st, while trying to establish an altitude record. While the Curtiss teams and the Wright teams flew, so did rivalry of a different kind between the two. The Wrights filed a patent lawsuit against Curtiss which dragged on for several years. It was all about aircraft control systems.
Curtiss became known as the “Henry Ford” of aviation. Curtiss briefly instructed and then hired, Charles “Daredevil” Hamilton. Hamilton had been a parachute jumper. He had a reputation for trying “ANY” stunt. Crowds loved him! During his exciting career, he survived more that 60 accidents. His many injuries brought about replacement of two ribs, made of silver. And metal plates were put in his head. Hamilton died in 1914, of Tuberculosis.
The only woman who ever took lessons from Curtiss was Blanche Stewart Scott. She too, became a daredevil performer and in September 1910 she became the first female to solo. By October, she was on the Curtiss airshow team. A third airshow team was also formed in 1910. The leader was John Moisant. This team hired TWO females. In our next installment, you can read their very exciting story, and you will read of three more female performers who accomplished unbelievable feats in the air to the delight of thousands of fans. OH YES, WHAT A BEGINNING! The beginning was the end for some. An expensive price was paid by many performers in those early days. Some experts estimate the fatality rate among them was as high as 90 percent. If that sad fact can be set aside, the airshow industry was truly off and running---or rather “flying”.
WHAT A BEGINNING!
Story by Wayne Gauldin