Birdmen

by Lawrence Goldstone

  * * *

  *1 The Lewis gun would become a favored weapon of the British army in World War I.

  *2 Fanciulli had made an uncharacteristic error. The large government appropriations he was anticipating didn’t materialize until the United States entered World War I, by which time he had left aviation for the automobile business, where he remained for the rest of his career. He worked well into his eighties and died in 1986, age ninety-eight.

  *3 One month later, Germany’s Harlan manufacturing company unveiled the world’s first bomb-dropping apparatus linked to a bombsight.

  A Wisp of Victory

  On January 13, 1914, the three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a perfunctory and unanimous opinion, only three paragraphs long, affirming the district court ruling in Wright v. Herring–Curtiss. It opened, “A machine that infringes part of the time is an infringement, although it may at other times be so operated as not to infringe.” The judges went on: “As we are in full accord with the reasoning by which Judge Hazel (and Judge Hand) reached the conclusions that the patent in suit is a valid one, that the patentees may fairly be considered pioneers in the practical art of flying with heavier-than-air machines, and that the claims should have a liberal interpretation, it seems unnecessary to add anything to what has been already written.” And finally, “The decree is affirmed, with costs.”1

  Curtiss had at long last been crushed. He was left only with the option of appealing to the Supreme Court, but with monopoly rights at their zenith in American jurisprudence and only a dismissive appellate opinion on which to base his action, he seemed to have no chance.

  The appeals court decision liberated Orville, banished his doubts, exorcised his demons. “I knew in my own mind from the start that there was only one decision which the court could honestly reach,” he told reporters. “We took special pains to present our case fairly and at the same time get before the court all of the evidence, and I am not surprised at the result.” Although he would not yet talk of what specific actions the Wright Company would take, the monopoly he and Wilbur had so long sought now seemed his. All that was needed was to wait the roughly thirty days for the judgment to be filed. He wrote to Russell Alger on January 24, “These broad claims cover every machine of which I have any knowledge, flown either here or abroad. I am expecting to see you next Wednesday at the Executive Committee meeting at New York, when we will take up the matter of bringing action to stop further infringement.”

  But Orville’s view of how to do that differed from the New York financiers with whom he shared both the board of directors and mutual antipathy. They wanted to move ahead ruthlessly, eviscerate all competition, and either put other firms out of business or make them subsidiaries of the Wright Company. The means to achieve that end were certainly available. The Wright Company could now demand royalties and damages of whatever amount it chose for every machine that had ever been sold by any company, except Burgess–Curtis.

  But Orville refused. Whether he did so because of disinclination, a sense of fairness, fatigue, or some other reason cannot be determined with certainty but it is possible to get a hint of his thinking in an interview he granted to The New York Times in late January. The paper proclaimed that “for the first time” since Kitty Hawk, Orville had “ended a policy of silence” and told “the frank and full story of what it had cost he and Wilbur in money, industry, and patience to launch the aeroplane as a patented and protected device.”2

  Orville first decried patent laws that “made it impossible for any inventor without vast financial resources to obtain the fruits of his invention” and said that he would advise any young inventor to “absolutely withhold all knowledge of his invention from the public, and from the patent office as well, until he has obtained $200,000 in backing to be used in fighting through the tedious court processes.”

  As to the matter of most concern to everyone else involved in aviation, Orville revealed that he intended to ask 20 percent of the purchase price for every airplane sold by every manufacturer in the United States and Europe, the same percentage Wilbur had set before his death. Most airplanes sold for at least $5,000 (some twice that), and even using an extremely conservative estimate of 1,000 airplanes a year, for just 1914, at the 25 to 1 ratio of 2010 to 1910 dollars, the Wright Company would have cleared at minimum the equivalent of $25 million in royalties alone. Again following Wilbur’s dictates, Orville also reserved the right to ask that every manufacturer pay an equal royalty on every airplane sold since 1906—which was every airplane ever sold—in order to secure a Wright license. He insisted his fee structure was not an “act of harshness but an act of great benefit to aerial navigation.” Needless to say, other manufacturers saw things differently.

  Having established that he could demand damages from everyone in the business, Orville detailed what he would do: He would adopt “a policy of leniency.… Innocent purchasers of aeroplanes which were infringements would be protected and aeroplane manufacturers who had built machines without deliberately knowing they were infringing would be dealt with lightly.” Thus, while licenses and the 20 percent royalty would be required for future sales, no retroactive compensation would be sought.

  But not for Curtiss. Glenn Curtiss alone would be required to pay every last penny of royalties for every airplane he had ever sold, a sum certain to once and for all break the man responsible for Wilbur’s premature death.

  Orville gave his reasons for singling out one man. “The death of my brother Wilbur is a thing we must definitely charge to our long struggle, and I am sure that anyone who has not carried on a patent fight, with its endless mazes of delays, could not possibly understand what Wilbur went through. The delays were what worried him to his death. It wasn’t as if we were fighting a stand-up foe in a square give-and-take fight. We were fighting foes whose strategy was played in the dark.”

  Orville had an example of just how duplicitous his archenemy was. “ When I lay in the hospital at Fort Myer after the fall in which I was severely injured, three gentlemen asked to look over our wrecked machine in its hangar. An appointment was made for them, but they did not appear and the aeroplane was crated up. Later, when the guards were at dinner, one of the visitors took the parts of the machine out of its crate and measured each part. Later we found an aeroplane on the market duplicating the measurements of our own exactly.”

  This version of the events after Selfridge’s funeral was utterly fanciful. Not only did the testimony of those present not support any of Orville’s assertions, but even the Wrights’ previous accusations were at odds with what Orville was now alleging. And of course Curtiss was not even in Washington. Orville went on to present equally mythical versions of Curtiss’s visit to Dayton in 1906 and their interactions since. His contention that “every improvement on which we filed patent papers we found quickly added to the machines of our competitors,” meaning Curtiss, was blatantly false as well. If anything, the Wrights had taken to appropriating Curtiss’s designs, particularly in flying boats. All of Orville’s indictments led to the final damning conclusion. “All of this worried Wilbur first into a case of chronic nervousness, and then into a physical fatigue which made him an easy prey for the attack of typhoid that caused his death.”

  Curtiss was therefore being singled out because his lies, treachery, theft, refusal to play fair, and deceit in court had caused Wilbur’s death. Only by freeing other purchasers and manufacturers from the penalty being assessed Wilbur’s murderer could that point be made.

  Orville’s partners were furious. In their world, when the marketplace presented an opportunity, it was seized, not deferred—and it certainly wasn’t deferred to satisfy a personal vendetta. Orville’s strategy would make them a good deal of money, it was true, but not nearly as much as would be made in a true monopoly. There is no record of the conversations in the executive committee meetings but they were sufficiently acrimonious that by early March Orville was undertaking to buy out all the inves
tors in the Wright Company and become sole owner. His partners would haggle about terms but not one of them demurred.*1

  Curtiss was in Europe on a sales tour when the devastating decision was handed down. He cut short his visit and sailed for home. The court’s ruling not only threatened his business and his future in aviation, but might well cut short his latest project, the ultimate exploitation of the flying boat and the crowning achievement of his career.

  On March 31, 1913, Lord Northcliffe offered a £10,000 prize ($50,000) for the first crossing of the Atlantic in seventy-two consecutive hours from any point in the United States or Canada and any point in Great Britain or Ireland in either direction.*2 Changing aircraft would not be permitted and all landings for repairs or to take on fuel must be made on the water. He published the announcement in the Daily Mail on April 1 and opened the competition to all nationalities. Wilbur Wright’s old pupil, Count de Lambert, said the trip was feasible and that moreover, within ten years, the same crossing would be made in a single summer’s day. He said the two greatest obstacles to success were maintaining course out of the sight of ships and not smashing up when landing on the waves to refuel.

  Orville Wright scoffed that the journey was not possible at the current state of the art, which Northcliffe, an old friend and supporter, did not appreciate. Rodman Wanamaker, who had paid Augustus Herring $5,000 to exhibit the Reims Racer in the window of his New York store, decided the trip was indeed possible and that it should be made by an American. Privately, he solicited Curtiss to begin planning a design and offered to fund the project.

  Curtiss accepted eagerly but told only a few intimates at the plant of Wanamaker’s plan. He realized the aircraft would have to be larger and sturdier than anything he had built in the past and that meant a larger, more powerful motor. He worked all summer on the design of what would be called the “H-1,” all the while releasing two advanced models of flying boats, one of which seated four.

  By late autumn, the possibility of a transatlantic crossing began to be speculated on regularly in the trade journals, and Curtiss admitted “he had interest,” without indicating just how intense his interest was. A number of French aviators, including Roland Garros, were also purportedly in the process of designing the appropriate aircraft, as were two other consortiums in the United States. Orville Wright continued to think the idea ridiculous.

  In late December, just weeks before the court of appeals ruling, Curtiss admitted he was in fact tinkering with the design of a transatlantic flying boat and that he had fabricated a 200-horsepower motor to power the craft. He still made no mention of Wanamaker’s participation or that the effort had been ongoing for six months.

  From the moment the ruling did come down, Curtiss made it clear he did not intend to go quietly. On January 16, his plant manager claimed that Curtiss had “three other means of control,” two of which did not infringe the Wright patent, and said that production at Hammondsport would go on as before. The next day, Curtiss—by Marconi wireless—informed the American press that he intended to pursue the case to the Supreme Court and that in the interim, construction of the transatlantic flying boat would proceed.

  Orville jumped into the fray a few days later, reversing his position on the feasibility of the crossing and claiming that with Harry Atwood, he was now studying the transatlantic flight problem himself and the Wright Company might well undertake the crossing. He estimated that a Wright airplane might succeed in traversing the ocean in twenty-five hours.

  On February 5, in an address at the Aero Club dinner—the same dinner at which Orville was awarded the Collier trophy for his automatic stabilizer—Rodman Wanamaker revealed the full extent of the transatlantic project and his role in it.*3 “Mr. Wanamaker, in commenting on the proposed flight, declared that its accomplishment had been a cherished vision of his for years.” The motive was altruistic. “His purpose, he said, was in the interest of world peace and by this he explained that a trip over the ocean in one flight would awaken the world to the tremendous importance of aviation in warfare.” Finally, he “asked for the cooperation of all persons interested in seeing America first to conquer the air routes between the United States and Europe.”

  Wanamaker’s subtext could not have been more clear: Not only did Curtiss have a wealthy and powerful new benefactor, but to interfere with Curtiss—or to ask for money to allow the project to go forward—would be an act of greed and barbarity, and unpatriotic to boot.

  Orville, of course, could parry Wanamaker by building his own transatlantic aircraft, but, despite his pronouncements to the press, he had nothing even in the planning stage that could begin to achieve the goal. By the time Orville gave his interview in late February, he once more insisted “he did not take the matter of making a flight across the Atlantic seriously,” and then asserted, “I cannot do so and neither can any other aeroplane manufacturer who will speak frankly.” Curtiss’s claims to be building such a craft for the Atlantic crossing were “insincere,” simply a dodge to avoid the judgment of the courts. Orville demanded that Wanamaker cease aiding Curtiss with money or anything else. As with McCormick, Orville underestimated the degree to which men of great wealth refused to be pushed around. Wanamaker sent his “personal representative” to inform Orville that his “determination to keep Curtiss from building aeroplanes until he takes out a license from the Wrights would have no effect on the relations between Mr. Wanamaker and Mr. Curtiss” and “that the preparations for the expedition would be continued exactly as if no decision had been rendered by the Court of Appeals.”3 Curtiss added that the proof of his sincerity was that payment for the machine was due only after it had demonstrated it could carry the load necessary for the flight.

  Curtiss, to Orville’s astonishment, was on the attack again. Curtiss next replied to Orville’s assertions that he was responsible for the death of Wilbur Wright, categorizing them as “insinuations … I cannot believe Mr. Wright or any sane man ever made.” But he had other, more substantive intrigues in store. In the first, one of his new associates was about to take Orville’s vaunted new automatic stabilizer and toss it on the scrap heap.

  In 1912, Elmer Sperry, who had invented the gyrocompass and then developed a means to stabilize ships using gyroscopes, wrote to Curtiss suggesting that gyroscopic stabilization might be adapted for aviation.*4 Curtiss wrote back, “Recent accidents have caused people to appreciate the dangers of aviation. In some cases, accidents could perhaps have been prevented had the machine been equipped with this device.”4 Curtiss agreed to supply the aircraft; Sperry sent his son Lawrence to Curtiss for flying lessons. Soon afterward Lawrence set to work on the gyroscopic stabilizer. One year later, he was ready. Using two gyroscopes, his device would sense shifts in any of the three axes of flight and make corrections to maintain optimal stability. Gyroscopic stabilizers were as much of an advancement over Orville’s vane and pendulum system as ailerons had been over wing warping. On June 14, 1914, Sperry demonstrated his device in France, a triumphant flight in which Sperry, in a Curtiss biplane, took his hands from the controls and stood up while his mechanic crawled seven feet out onto one wing. The machine held attitude perfectly. Thus Orville had less than six months to celebrate his triumph before being left behind once again.

  Another of Curtiss’s counterattacks involved proving that while the Wrights might have been the first to achieve a successful flight, they were not the first to produce a machine capable of flight, and thus the breadth that their patent had been granted was undeserved. To demonstrate this seemingly indemonstrable assertion, Curtiss solicited the Smithsonian Institution. Remnants of Langley’s aerodromes were still crated away in their warehouse. Curtiss claimed that Langley had been correct in that the launching mechanism was all that was wrong with the craft, so Curtiss proposed to repair the doomed aerodrome and then fly it on Keuka Lake.

  Just one week after the appeals court decision, Curtiss put Lincoln Beachey up to request the artifacts in order to rebuild the aerodrome and f
ly it. Beachey famously observed, “You can fly a kitchen table if the motor is strong enough.” Charles D. Walcott, who had succeeded his close friend Langley as secretary, expressed interest, at least in allowing a duplicate to be built, and offered Beachey whatever help he needed. In fact, Walcott had been hoping for just such an opportunity to rehabilitate one of the Smithsonian’s most famed and controversial figures. But for reasons that would later become clear, Beachey never followed up, so a few weeks later Curtiss asked on his own. The trustees initially turned him down but by April Walcott had prevailed. Curtiss had the aerodrome and in Charles Walcott, Orville had a new and enduring enemy.

  Curtiss worked on the Langley, as the machine was now known, for six weeks. In late May, the newly “restored” aerodrome flew 150 feet on Keuka Lake and longer flights were made in the fall. That flight and the longer ones that followed provided fodder for the last, great skirmish in the Curtiss–Wright feud.

  Curtiss and his supporters insisted that his effort with the Langley was honest and straightforward and that all modifications were made in public and without artifice. The flight at the end of May was achieved with the addition of pontoons, it was true, but that was only because Keuka Lake was the only feasible launching spot and Curtiss wished to avoid the catapult launch that he believed had done in Langley in 1903. Every other piece on the craft was either original or fashioned to be identical to the original. Charles Manly asserted that the motor was the same as the one he had fashioned.

  Orville Wright countered that he had a witness who would prove that Curtiss produced a craft that bore only a superficial resemblance to the one that had plunged into the Potomac and almost drowned Charles Manly. Griffith Brewer, a British pioneer balloonist who had met Wilbur Wright at Pau and became one of both brothers’ closest friends, had proposed in early 1914 coming once more to America and writing a history of aviation. He was also the Wrights’ British lawyer and had often been a guest of the Wright family in Dayton. Orville suggested that Brewer first travel to Hammondsport as a journalist and observe Curtiss’s machinations with the Langley firsthand.