by Paul R. Spitzzeri
One of the signal events to take place in our region in the early 20th century was, unquestionably, the Los Angeles International Air Meet, held from 10-20 January 1910 at the Dominguez Ranch in Compton, this just a little over a half-dozen years after the Wright Brothers made their epochal flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. A couple of prior posts here have touched upon the competition, including one sharing a very rare snapshot of three renowned early aviators, Lincoln Beachey, Glenn Curtiss and Roy Knabenshue, in and next to a “flying machine,” an another showing a commercially published photo featuring a star of the meet, Louis Paulhan, whose rivalry with Curtiss was a prime element.
While the Homestead’s collection has quite a few other photos, professional and personal, from the event, the featured artifact from our holdings for this post is a page from the 11 January edition of the Los Angeles Express, which, like its contemporaries, such as the Herald and the Times, devoted a good deal of space in its coverage over the eleven days of the meet. A banner headline across the top of the page reads “LOS ANGELES WAY AGAIN IS EMPHASIZED FOR ALL,” which is certainly telling with regard to how boosting the Angel City and environs was seemingly as important as covering the aviation events.
One obvious way to measure the economic impact on the holding of the competition, as with, say, conventions, was through the effects on the area’s hotels. So, the paper remarked. in an article titled “LOS ANGELS HOTELS IN AVIATION VORTEX”:
With their brains as wildly Paulhaning and Curtissing as any aeroplane, Los Angeles hotel clerks today tried often in vain—in the big downtown establishments, at least—to house the persons who arrived to attend the aviation meet.
Every once in while when they finished explaining to some man who had registered early in the morning that they were still unable to find apartments for him and he turned away grumbling, they were heard to mutter something which sounded suspiciously like “Dill-Gosh It!”
And the people keep flying [well, by train and ship, mostly] here to see the aviators fly! Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii and all parts of the East are represented and telegrams for reservations indicate that many more persons are on the way.
Among the individuals mentioned at major hostelries like the Angelus, Alexandria, Hayward, Hollenbeck, Lankershim and Nadeau were an aircraft company official from San Francisco, a Mexican mine owner, a Hawaiian land baron, a former mayor mayor of Cincinnati, a retired Navy officer and business figures and capitalists of many kinds, as well as a Stockton doctor who “has deserted his patients for a short time in order to watch the flying machines.” Also out for the meet were several players on the Los Angeles Angels of the professional Pacific Coast League, with pitcher George Wheeler claiming that, if no one was killed during the meet, “I’ll have the nerve to try and do some flying myself before long.”
Another crucial aspect of the meet, its success and what it portended for the future was embodied in another article’s title, “AVIATORS SAY CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IDEAL FOR NEW AIRSHIP RECORDS.” The piece began with the comment that,
Universally praising the atmospheric conditions of California, the greatest aviators in the world, after going into the air here, are more positive than ever that new records in aeronautics will be accomplished before the close of the meet.
With a high sky [cloud cover?] and but a slight wind there is no reason, so the experts say, why new marks in air piloting should not be established.
Glenn Curtiss’ representative, Jerome S. Fanciulli, was paraphrased as suggesting that “something of a sensational nature in the way of record-making would be accomplished,” noting that, while the weather was good that day [the Express was an evening paper] it would likely improve later during the meet. As for Curtiss, he opined “it is a good flying climate . . . I have been impressed with the weather, and when it clears it should be all that a man going up into the air could desire.” He cited flags and the fact that some were flapping, but others still, as evidence of the excellent environment for flying.
Aviator Charles K. Hamilton simply asserted that the greater Los Angeles weather was the “greatest in the world” and amplified the point that “climatic conditions could not be better” and added “I do not know where else in the world you would find such favorable conditions at this season of the year.” Other than the possibility of some rain, “the normal conditions are ideal.” James C. Mars offered that “it was more than we expected when we left terra firma” and stated “there could have been no better conditions at any place where I have made flights.”
Paul W. Beck, a first lieutenant in the Army who became one of the first four students in the U.S. Army Signal Corps instructed by Curtiss and who was assigned to observe the meet as part of his duties, was also appointed a judge for events and he remarked,
In my experience with aeronautic conditions I have never before met with any that could compare generally with this. The air is clear and crisp without being disagreeable to operators or spectators. The air is ideal for the meet and words fail me when I think of why may be accomplished before the meet is over.
In fact, the first day of competition brought a new record, which was “that of the distance at which an aeroplane leaves the ground after it has been put in motion.” It was reported that Curtiss began his second flight of the day a bit south of the large grandstand’s center and by the time he hit the middle, some 40 to 50 feet in height, “made almost in the twinkling of an eye, the machine soared from the ground and went swimming away.” This left the aviator exclaiming as he disembarked from his craft, “that was the quickest I have made. I did not cover more than 50 feet before I was in the air.”
An important legal conflict was also covered by the Express in its article concerning remarks made by Cortlandt F. Bishop, an heir to the Lorillard tobacco fortune then controlled by the prominent Duke family and president of the prominent Aero Club of America. It was noted that “his special mission [was] to take official cognizance of any new records, for which he is ardently hoping,” but the focus of the piece concerned his views on an injunction Orville and Wilbur Wright received against Curtiss, Paulhan and other flyers on an allegation of patent infringement of their airplanes.
Acknowledging his financial interest with Curtiss and his airplanes, but quickly noting that he didn’t believe this was a prejudice concerning the legal question at hand, Bishop told the press,
It is my belief that the action of the Wrights is a great blow to aeronautics . . . so that the science of aviation may be set back a decade, or even more, in its progress.
It seems that the Wrights do not want any person to fly unless they receive some royalty . . .
Now, as a matter of fact, there is a considerable technical difference between the manner of control of aeroplanes as performed by the Wrights and that utilized by Curtiss . . .
In the near future, however, aviators will continue to occupy the firmament without paying tribute to the Wrights, who take a new view of the old near-apothegm that the air, at least, is free.
The legal success of the Wrights (Wilbur died in 1912 and Orville retired from business four years later, upon which the Wright company combined with Glenn Martin) continued through all of their lawsuits filed to protect their patent, while Curtiss continued his work and also sought to limit competition, though the result almost certainly was the impeding of aviation advancement and progress. Once America entered World War I and planes were needed in large numbers, the federal government pushed for the creation of a Manufacturer’s Aircraft Association, which allowed for cross-licensing through a “patent pool and which became a private entity until the late 1970s.
Another major article on the page highlighted Paulhan, the French aviation legend called by an attendee of the meet, the “Barney Oldfield of the Air,” the comparison being to the most famous race-car driver of the age. The Express referred to the “Gaul gull” as something of an analog to Oldfield in that “both annihilate distance with a reckless disregard for conservation of space, and each stands a swell chance of breaking his neck” each time they climbed into their machines.
The paper continued that “if anything goes wrong with their speed-burning appliances, one is as certain as the other of hitting the ground with a dull, sickening thud,” and it was very much true that aviators and race-car drivers were killed with great frequency compared to later periods. Of course, “the only difference in this respect is that Paulhan is in a position to hit it a little harder than Oldfield” and it was added that “he is a skyrocket, and some day he may come down like one.”
While there were many other pilots of note from his country, “were he the only one his capers in the circumambient would be sufficient to spread the fame of French aviation around the world with a few laps to spare.” His renown at the meet was such that Paulhan “had not been in the air five minutes until the thousands who viewed his dashing drive stood convinced that h is all that had been claimed for him, and then some.”
Paulhan was deemed “indifferent to danger” as “he navigates the air with a seemingly reckless daring” though he also “operates with consummate grace and skill, and seems to be complete master of the steed which he rides.” The Express continued,
It is this air of abandon that makes him the idea man-bird, the personification of the graceful feathered beauty that sweeps through the solitudes of the sky without aid of the motor or gasoline. He and his machine seem a single being. He appears to vitalize the machine that bears him aloft, and the rectangular planes become graceful wings—the wings of Paulhan—in the vision of the enthralled throng.
Asserting that the flyer’s pride was typical of the French (and somehow distinct from the American version), the paper commented that, at the meet, “he preens his plumage perfectly for each flight” and accepted as natural and expected “the merited ovations which thunder upward to him as he achieves the lofty feats that never cease to thrill.”
Adding that Paulhan was an engineer in the building of the war dirigible, the Ville de Paris, as well as its pilot and that “then he was only a fledgling . . . as aviationists go, the article concluded with the remark that,
Proud as a peacock, Paulhan is no spring chicken in the flying business . . . Now he is a swift-going eagle.
Under the heading of “AVIATION NOTES,” it was recorded that after parts of Curtiss’ propeller shattered when his plane’s wheels shot dirt onto it, there were attempts by some in the crowd to gather up souvenirs, although the pilot beat them to the punch by gathering the pieces so he could attempt a repair. When he made his first ascent, the band hired to provide musical accompaniment to the flights stayed silent in awe until a judge snapped them out of their reverie.
Attendance was such that, when it was learned that announcements and starting of events were in the middle of the field and in front of the grandstand, a throng hightailed it for the best seats. The cool weather, however, made it tough for those selling soft drinks, especially as the sun hid behind the clouds by the middle of the afternoon, so that “the air was biting in its chilliness.”
On the first day of the meet, Beachey and Knabenshue “performed many evolutions in the dirigible in front of the stand, circling, sweeping downward, swooping upward and furnishing a syndicate of thrills. Paulhan was said to have been very French in his “jerky good-bye kisses” to his wife as he prepared for takeoff. Yet, while it was admitted that his performance was considered “remarkable” and “spectacular,” his penchant for “swoops above the grandstand and sweeps above the crowds lining the rail” on the field were dangerous, although they “caused an outburst of applause at his daring audacity.” This led an unidentified figure in aeronautics to decry these feats and insist that Paulhan “should keep out in the course.”
The 11th was to include “the tests of the pets of local inventors” as there were to be inaugural flights of new craft first before the regular program was to be carried out “as it will then be known what machines have qualified. Lastly, it was observed that,
Los Angeles is embracing the opportunity to do a little advertising on its own responsibility during the meet. A monster poster has been erected in front of the grandstand at the aeroplane camp, showing the population of the city for several years and the slogan of 1,000,000 in 1920.
The Angel City had around 320,000 denizens when the meet was held and growth in a decade was about 80% to more than 575,000, while the county population was a little north of a half million in 1910 but almost hit that million figure in 1920 when the total was about 935,000, an increase of some 85%.
Lastly, the Express briefly cited Curtiss for the view that “the Los Angeles meet has started off with a larger attendance than the meet last year at Rheims, France,” this being the Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne held from 22-29 August 1909 and which had the distinction of being the first international air meet and a major advancement in the public advancement of aviation. Curtiss told the local media that,
I was surprised to see such a great crowd. I was positive there was much interest in aeronautics, but did not believe it would reach the height it has. You have every reason to be proud of the manner in which the people have turned out on the first day of the meet.
Given that the Homestead has other artifacts related to the Los Angeles meet in its collection, we’ll look to share more of its history in future posts, so keep an eye out (up?) for those.