Unlocking the Sky (15 page)

The entire team handily travels through Paris in two cabs to the Gare de l’Est for the final train ride to Rheims. Leaving Shriver and Fisher in charge of the luggage, Bishop takes Curtiss for a quick visit to James Gordon Bennett, sponsor of the grand prize for the fastest 20-kilometer flight.

Through Curtiss’s ties with Bell and his association with the Aero Club in New York, he had met many wealthy socialites, but Bishop and Bennett are in an altogether different league. Bishop, second president of the Aero Club of America, is a full-time patron of the arts and racing sports, with a passion for ballooning and impeccably tailored clothing. James Gordon Bennett, who inherited control of the
New York Herald
from his father, is an infamous, irascible figure. Publisher of newspapers in New York, London, and Paris, he built his publishing empire through shamelessly self-promoting stunts like the “scoop of the century” of sending war correspondent Henry Stanley to the wilds of Africa to find explorer Dr. David Livingstone.

Like Bishop, Bennett has enjoyed a lifestyle of outsized grandeur. He spent summers in Newport, Rhode Island, where he
introduced his confreres to the game of polo and dared one friend into riding a polo pony to the upstairs floor of the most exclusive men’s club in town. He ran his operations primarily by cable from Paris because he has been all but run out of New York society. Among the incidents that led to his unofficial deportation, two were particularly infamous: careening naked at top speed around Manhattan in his horse-drawn carriage one drunken evening, and urinating in the fireplace at a party given by his fiancée’s family.

When Bishop and Curtiss arrive at Bennett’s well-appointed office, the publishing tycoon regards the aviator-mechanic from Hammondsport with a critical eye, noting his odd goatee and his wrinkled, store-bought suit. Lanky and gaunt, with a serious demeanor that verges on taciturn when he is nervous, Curtiss lacks the panache of most of the European fliers. Bennett greets Curtiss cordially, complimenting him on his fine sportsmanship in entering the meet. But he does little to hide his displeasure when he learns that Curtiss has brought his entire airplane in a train compartment on the way to Paris, and that his reserve equipment consists of one extra propeller. Unsure of what to make of the sole American contender for glory, Bennett just whistles and pulls at his waxed moustache.

Curtiss amiably ignores the skepticism of Bishop and Bennett. Yet the weight of his undertaking finally hits him full force when he reaches the race site, three miles north of Rheims, and finds his assigned hangar. It stands in a long row of new buildings housing the aircraft of the other contestants. Aviators, mechanics, and paying customers flock around unabashedly, eager to make his acquaintance.

Despite the steady companionship of his assistants and the avid interest of fellow aviators—many of whom, he is amazed to note, are conversant with all his exploits—Curtiss has never felt so conscious of his rural upbringing and lack of sophistication. As he walks down the line of hangars, he marvels at the opulence of the European fliers and their wealthy backers.

With their ground crews, equipment, and entire spare airplanes, Europe’s greatest fliers, Latham, Bleriot, Farman, Delagrange, Cockburn, Lefebvre, Paulhan, Tissandier, the Comte de Lambert, and many others, remind Curtiss of knights, with their many attendants and royal sponsors. Louis Paulhan’s attire adds to the impression of nobility; he favors wearing elaborate outfits sewn from brightly colored silks like those of a horse jockey. Hubert Latham has brought two fully assembled, batlike Antoinette airplanes, with wide-spreading wings and sleek, new, in-line engines. Latham fits the bill too. A dashing young man born into a wealthy family of ship owners, he has spent his adulthood hunting lions in Africa, exploring the Far East, and racing speedboats in France before discovering the airplane.

Gabriel Voisin is also on hand. Along with his brother Charles, Voisin has established the world’s first made-to-order airplane manufacturing business, building any designs sought by his often fanciful customers, as well as experimenting with his own boxy creations and those of his brother. He has come to Rheims with an entire field kitchen and the professional cooks to staff it.

Bleriot, fresh from his world-renowned, channel-crossing triumph, requires a series of sheds to hold the five airplanes he has brought to Rheims. Gleaming most threateningly among the fleet is a big monoplane he commissioned especially for the event. Bleriot, engineer and businessman, has been interested in the airplane since
1900, when he tried unsuccessfully to make an “ornithopter”—a flying machine with flapping wings. He made his fortune selling headlights for the thriving automobile industry and has spent the past two years so obsessed with flight that he has nearly bankrupted himself. Since his channel flight, however, Bleriot’s fortunes have changed as wealthy promoters have recognized the potential of enormous profits from his exploits. The squat, effusive Bleriot, with a big bushy moustache and birdlike beak, has brought a staff of six mechanics and a mind-boggling array of equipment and spare parts. His team even has a cleverly designed hydraulic machine to measure Bleriot’s engines’ horsepower so that, before starting out on a flight, they can make sure they are running at peak efficiency.

Glenn Curtiss has two mechanics, one small airplane, and a spare propeller.

Yet, if anything, the austerity and simplicity of his operation endear him to the press and other aviators. As one aviation aficionado puts it admiringly, “One of the most noticeable things about Mr. Curtiss is his American coolness. He and his mechanics do just what is necessary, and no more. His machine, like the way it is handled, is extraordinarily neat.”

The small airplane Curtiss has brought, the
Rheims Racer,
is a direct descendant of the
June Bug
but with considerable refinements. A biplane with a bamboo frame, its wings are khaki-colored and stayed by fine, steel-stranded cables. For the sake of simplicity and greater control, Curtiss and Kleckler have dispensed with the bowed-wing design of the
June Bug.
And, to make it as fast as possible, Curtiss has shaved its weight to roughly seven hundred pounds and increased the diameter of the propeller from six to seven feet, a change that required lifting the frame higher above the ground to provide adequate clearance. The steering wheel has also
been refined. Like its predecessors, it sits immediately in front of the pilot, serving as a rear steering-rudder when the wheel is turned in either direction; when pulled directly back, the steering wheel alters the inclination of the front elevating planes, giving ascending or descending control of the plane, a design pioneered by the Aerial Experiment Association that would stand the test of time.

Bishop has arranged lodging for Curtiss and his two assistants in the house of a local Catholic priest. But as it turns out, Curtiss, Shriver, and Fisher spend most of their days and some of their nights in the hangar. Bishop has also invited an illustrious assortment of visitors, including a bewildering array of earls and countesses not to mention their American Gilded-Age equivalents: Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Astors. Working with Shriver and Fisher to assemble the
Rheims Racer,
Curtiss greets them awkwardly as they gather respectfully outside to watch. They invariably marvel to one another at how small the plane is—comments that do little to bolster Curtiss’s confidence about the upcoming race.

And yet, Curtiss’s design is notable for its impressive ratio of power to its small size. As a result, it is the quickest machine of all those at Rheims to launch at takeoff. Much to the amazement of the other aviators, Curtiss sometimes manages to get his airplane aloft after rolling fewer than fifty yards.

As his one advantage, Curtiss had hoped to keep his 50-horsepower engine a secret, but Bleriot has learned of the powerful engine and ordered an eight-cylinder motor hurriedly built that is reputed to yield 80 horsepower. “When I learned of this,” Curtiss confided later, “I believed that Bleriot had the trophy as good as clinched.”

On Sunday, August 22, the Rheims meet gets off to an inauspicious start. The weather is awful for the first three days of the weeklong event: prolonged rain turns the field to mud. Even more alarming are the strong, gusty winds that preclude almost any possibility of flying. Most of the thousands of eager spectators are ill prepared for the inclement weather. Ladies in long chiffon dresses muddy their elegant satin shoes. Ankle-deep in some places, the mud swallows the tires of many arriving motorcars, forcing them in a humiliating, low-tech concession, to let teams of horses tow them out.

Yet even the bad weather cannot dampen the irrepressible excitement surrounding the prospect of competition among the world’s top fliers and fastest aircraft. Over the course of the week, the crowds keep getting larger, with the added glamour of attendance by royalty and titled nobility. In addition to the aristocratic cachet the organizers have sought, they also manage to attract a sea of “regular folk,” who buy cheaper admission tickets that allow them to watch the show from the open grounds. According to one observer on hand, the throng stretches literally for miles around the course, in some places as many as forty people deep.

The press, too, is caught up in the excitement. As one flowery newspaper dispatch to America crows: “Never since history began have there been witnessed such scenes of wonder…so presagent of a change in the life of man upon earth.”

Armand Fallières, president of France, along with leading members of his government, are among the dignitaries from a score of countries attending the meet. The king of Belgium is in attendance. High-ranking military observers, like General John French of Great Britain, have come to see what flying machines can actually do, as has a delegation of engineers sent by the emperor of Japan. David Lloyd George, soon to be British prime minister, attends Rheims
and is deeply impressed. “Flying machines are no longer toys and dreams,” he says, “they are an established fact. The possibilities of this new system of locomotion are infinite.”

Finally, toward the end of the first day, the weather clears just enough to fly. White flags appear on the distant hangars, alerting the public that a demonstration is about to begin. The three
Wright Flyers,
piloted by Paul Tissandier, the Comte de Lambert, and Eugene Lefebvre, take to the sky in a preliminary display.

Lefebvre ascends to three hundred feet, dives to within a few feet of the ground, then climbs while the Comte de Lambert flies beneath him. As a French correspondent puts it, the crowd is treated to a preview of “the wonders that the near future has in store for us.”

Excitement builds as the week progresses. Many aviation records are broken. At one point, seven airplanes take to the skies together, an awesome sight for aviators and spectators alike. Curtiss, however, holds back. With only one plane to gamble, he resists the urgings of others to enter any of the other competitions before the most prestigious speed race.

Curtiss does, however, make a number of short practice flights to get familiar with his new airplane and make sure it is functioning properly. Even these forays underscore the risk involved. At the end of one of his test flights, he lands off the track and is thrown out of the plane as it veers into a field of tall grain. Spraining his ankle, Curtiss is forced for the rest of the meet to walk with a borrowed cane.

During breaks from their avid interest in the action in the skies, Curtiss and his mechanics work with one all-important goal in mind: to coax as much speed as they can from their airplane. The Wright brothers, however, have something quite different planned. Having striven arduously to secure patents all over the world, they
now intend to control the field and collect royalties from all practitioners. And they decide to crack down on what they perceive as patent infringement at a time that will create maximum impact: just as the first international air meet heads into full swing. To their way of thinking, every airplane on the field at Rheims, except the three of their own models, infringes upon the brothers’ patents.

Five days after Curtiss sails from New York, Orville Wright goes to Berlin for a series of demonstration flights, in an agreement with the just-organized German Wright Company. Angered at all the press Curtiss has been receiving, he writes Wilbur before leaving: “I think best plan is to start suit against Curtiss, Aeronautic Society, etc., at once. This will call attention of public to fact that the machine [
Gold Bug
] is an infringement of ours.” And Wilbur responds: “If the suit is brought before the races are run at Rheims, the effect will be better than after.” With Orville in Berlin, trying to close a deal with the German government, Wilbur has busied himself filing suit against Curtiss. As he explains to Orville: “Trophies are one thing, business another.”

The Wrights’ opening salvo, the day Curtiss first assembles his plane in Rheims, is to file suit against the Aeronautic Society as the buyer of Curtiss’s
Gold Bug.
They seek a court order to stop the society from exhibiting the plane, asking for financial damages, and insisting that the plane be destroyed. Within a few days, the Wrights’ lawyers also serve papers in Hammondsport on Mrs. Lena Curtiss and Lynn D. Masson, secretary-treasurer of Curtiss’s firm, charging them with infringing their wing-warping patent. In Hammondsport, Judge Monroe Wheeler gives out a statement in his capacity as the Curtiss company’s president and head counsel: “These suits will be defended, and it will be the policy of the defense to disprove all claims of infringement.”

News of the Wrights’ suit spreads quickly, shocking the fliers at Rheims. The overwhelming reaction of the European aviators is antagonistic to the Wrights for trying to establish a monopoly on flight. A patent fight is bad enough, but the timing seems particularly vindictive, considering that Curtiss is the sole U.S. representative in a world championship contest the Wrights have refused to enter. Many of the French fliers offer moral support to Curtiss; after all, they too are vulnerable to the Wrights’ aggressive legal maneuvering. But, for now, Curtiss will bear the brunt of it.