Curtiss & Newport News aerial photos

I know, I promised aerial photos, and they're here, but I like to start off with a nice photo to kind of "set the hook", so to speak.  The Jenny guys here will notice this right off, but this appears to be a really early JN, to me.  If I'm correctly reading a great article sent to me by Brian Karli, it combines the undercarriage of the J and the vertical stabilizer of the N.  It doesn't have equal span wings as a JN-2 is described, so could this be a JN-1?  In any case, I love this photo.  I always loved the looks of the Avro 501, and this retains just enough of that look.

I believe I own the camera that this photo was taken with, and I have to say it's amazing that any of these photos came out in focus.  This is not your basic image-stabilizing, auto-focus camera!  You figure way ahead of time what your exposure needs to be, and about how far away you think the plane will be at the moment you decide to trip the shutter.  I don't think you could physically focus while shooting. When your subject is coming at you at fifty mph, or whatever the approach speed is in a Jenny, you have a very short window of opportunity to get it right.

So, Ivan or someone at the school took a few aerial shots of the school and of Newport News and I noticed a few interesting things in them.  First, the school.  I know it's difficult to tell by this photo, but if you look at this photo at the Smugmug.com site, you should be able to see that the building is smaller in this photo than in the next one. (you can view the photos there in a higher resolution)  You can also see in this photo that they are in the middle of construction on the expansion.  There's another fun airplane in that photo.  A model N!  The Jenny came from two distinct lines, the J and the N, and I've never ever seen a photo of the N.  Look to the right of the hangar, and you'll see what looks like a JN, but with inter-plane ailerons.  Fun, huh?

So, in the span of time that Ivan was here (three or four months) they've expanded the hangar by about double, or maybe more.  I noticed a couple of other things while examining these photos.  In the first photo, follow the road that parallels the body of water, and look at the field directly in the center of the photo.  You can make out the runway!  You pilots probably noticed that right off the bat - it dawned on me much later.  They obviously would taxi along the beach to (or from) the hangar.

I also got a kick out of the ferry, heading in to nose into that structure behind the hangar.  The square-rigger at the pier was a real bonus.  A scene right out of another time.

These next photos give us a little more modern perspective.  In Newport News at the time, the big industry was shipbuilding at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company.  Some very impressive ships were constructed here, including some which were later instrumental in the Pacific Theater during WW2.  Another large operation was the coal port, and while I don't have any real bearings on where everything was located, I assume that the coal port came first, then the shipyards.  The first photo was marked #2, and the coal cars can be seen on a series of sidings at the very bottom right of the photo, to the right of the coal pier.

This photo of the shipyards will wrap up the post.  There's a lot going on down there!  The thing that impressed me most about this photo is how everything inside the shipyards is black!  Can you imagine working on those greasy docks?  At first, I thought the photo was underexposed, but seriously, look at everything around the buildings in the yards, even the ships... they are grey or white.  The place is all black!

Before I finish, I just keep finding all this interesting stuff, tonight!  The "FJC", that you see on many of these photographs were the initials of a photographer that Glenn Curtiss hired to photograph all the goings on at the school.  His name was Frank J. Conway, and he took some great photos!  We have him to thank for what looks like about 30-40% of the photos in Ivan's collection at Newport News.  I'm guessing Ivan bought them from Frank.  Frank did a portrait of Ivan in the Model F which is classic.

More people and airplanes in the next few posts.  May I ask you to do me a favor, and +1 this site on Google, or share it on your Facebook page?  'Like' is nice, but a 'Share' is the best way to reach a wider audience for the collection.  Thanks very much!

-kpw

Scenes from the Curtiss School

I think I've been misstating the name of this place.  I've been seeing it referred to as the Curtiss School, and the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station, but not as a factory.  Ivan referred to it as the Curtiss Company.  I think the two that fit most closely are school and station.  According to the Aero Club's publication in 1915, (Flying vol 4) they explained that the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station already set up a base to expand aviation in the area, and Curtiss partnered with them.

According to the article, Curtiss planned to send Bert Acosta and Victor Carlstrom to teach students on "land machines", while Walter Lees and Victor Vernon would instruct on "water machines".  Curtiss planned to send four Model F flying boats, three JN's, and one Model 3.  In the photos I've seen, there is at least one J.N., at least two Model Fs, an at least 2 variants of Model Rs.  Curtiss also used the station as a test facility, where the Speed Scout  (as you can see in the above photo) and twin J.N. were flown.

So, Ivan flew with Walter Lees exclusively in the Model F, and I count just shy of 30 lessons with Lees and close to 120 landings from his logbook.  He was at the school from early April, 1916 to at least June 28th, which is his last logbook entry there.  He wrote there that he "flew alone for Curtiss Diploma.  Lees let me do all flying.  Take off, 5 figure 8s and one landing".  His logbook shows a tad over seven hours instruction with Lees.  Total time of instruction to the point his earned the diploma was 14 hours, 24 minutes.  Note that he didn't solo in the plane, he really just got a checkride.  His logs don't show a truly solo flight until September of 1916.  I'll post his diploma at the end of the section on Newport News.

Here are a couple of photos of Model Fs, and JNs.  The first JNs that appear in his books are 4b models, but not at the Curtiss school.

Just a little question on this JN.  Actually two: What model is this, and is there something interesting going on with the ailerons?  Leave me a comment, I'm really curious here.  Actually the same thing applies to the Model F in the second photo, but I never noticed it in the Palm Beach photos.

I'm not seeing the same thing on this JN's ailerons.  Strange.  This is one of my favorite photos of a Jenny in Ivan's collection.

Next post, I'll put up a number of aerial photos of the Curtiss School.

-kpw