Floating and Flying

Some of America's earliest aircraft took to the air over Kingsley Flats
In 1904 "Captain T.S. Baldwin from California purchased a Curtiss motorcycle engine to power his experimental dirigible airship. Two years later, Baldwin moved his entire research and production operations to Hammondsport in order to work with Curtiss. Baldwin and Curtiss used a hangar on this site, then known as Kingsley Flats. Here, in June, 1907, Glenn Curtiss flew for the first time - piloting a Baldwin dirigible.

By 1909 Curtiss was using Kingsley Flats for test flights of the new airplanes he was designing and building. In 1910 he established the Curtiss Flying School here, and helped trained some of the nation's first generation pilots, including Blanche Stewart Scott, the first American woman to make a solo flight. This field also served as headquarters for the Curtiss Exhibition Company, a team of pilots who gave demonstrations and performed aerial stunts at fairs and air shows around the country.

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