It was not long before the name of this young mechanic began to appear repeatedly in connection with new motorcycle speed records. His name was Glenn H. Curtiss, and he won race after race. His prize money was not spent foolishly, but put into his experiments with gasoline engines. In 1904, the pioneer American dirigible balloon builder, Captain Tom Baldwin, saw a Curtiss motorcycle in California. One look at the engine sent him scurrying to Hammondsport, New York, where he begged Glenn Curtiss to build him an engine for a new dirigible he was building. Curtiss built the engine, the first Curtiss engine to function in the skies. He also flew Tom Baldwin’s dirigible, but he was not enthusiastic over the idea of flying. “Not bad sport,” he remarked the first time he flew the dirigible, “but there’s no place to go.” Curtiss had heard of the flights of the Wright Brothers, but he was skeptical. Before long Glenn Curtiss had another visitor. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had long been interested in the problems of flight, and had organized the Aërial Experiments Association to encourage aëronautical efforts in this country. After talking for hours, Dr. Bell converted Curtiss to a belief in the future of flying and persuaded him to join the experimental group. [Illustration: 1908 WINSPAN 40 FEET LENGTH 20 FEET GLENN H. CURTISS WAS THE NEXT AMERICAN TO FOLLOW THE WRIGHT BROTHERS IN BUILDING SUCCESSFUL AIRPLANES. POWER ONE 4-CYLINDER 40-HP. ENGINE CURTISS’S EXPERIENCE IN BUILDING MOTORCYCLE ENGINES LED HIM TO DESIGN AMERICA’S BEST AIRCRAFT ENGINES. SPEED ONE HOUR 40 MILES RANGE 1,000 FEET CEILING 500 FEET PAYLOAD ONE PERSON CURTISS WAS ABLE TO STUDY THE WORK OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS, AND AS HE WAS A NATURAL MECHANIC, HE BUILT SUCCESSFUL PLANES FROM THE START. HIS ENGINES WERE WELL BUILT AND HE SOON BEGAN TO TAKE THE LEAD IN MAKING SPEED RECORDS. CURTISS USED BAMBOO FOR THE FRAMEWORK OF HIS EARLY AIRPLANES. HE WAS THE FIRST TO DEVELOP A TRICYCLE LANDING GEAR, USING WHEELS INSTEAD OF SKIDS. FROM THE TIME OF HIS FIRST FLIGHTS CURTISS WAS A LEADER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN AVIATION. HIS FIRST GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENCE OF FLIGHT WAS THE INTRODUCTION OF THE INTER-WING LATERAL CONTROL SURFACES, THE FORERUNNER OF THE AILERONS.] [Illustration] In November, 1907, Glenn H. Curtiss, in company with two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy of Dr. Bell’s group, and an official Army observer, Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, started to work on a new airplane. Using all of the available existing flight research and the ingenuity of Glenn H. Curtiss, the group finished their first plane in March, 1908. On March 12 Baldwin flew it 300 feet. Curtiss then designed an improved plane, the _June Bug_. With it he won the _Scientific American_ contest by flying over a measured kilometer course on July 4. [Illustration] AMERICA’S SECOND PLANE