From the September, 1976 issue of Vintage Airplane (All back issues are archived in the Members Only section).
By Merill Stickler
Curator of Curtiss Museum Hammondsport, NY 14840
All Photos by Mike Mandiak.
June 23, 1976, the long awaited day of the bicentennial celebration dawned with an overcast sky on the sleepy cross roads of Pleasant Valley nestled between green hills near Hammondsport, New York, the heart of the finger lake country. There was a spontaneous air of expectancy, however, because a collection of rather quaint and delicate flying machines, with their crews, had gathered on the little grass field along the Bath-Hammondsport Road. It was as though time had slipped back to the turn of the century when Dr. Alexander Graham Bell’s “boys” of the Aerial Experiment Associa tion trundled their fragile “aerodrome” from its tent to test the stillness of the morning’s air. That quiet time, of little wind, just after dawn and just at dusk were the hours so much appreciated by those fledglings of the air.
Click here or on the image below to read more and see the photos.
