New York

Since 1912, when a young man named George Gray landed an open-cockpit biplane on a farmer’s field, aviation has played an important role in communities located throughout the 6 million-acre Adirondack Park. Through a range of historic images and postcards, Aurora Pfaff tells the story of pilots who linked communities by air, transported goods and people, and the small towns and airfields that they called home.

 

From the novelty of planes landing on skis and daredevil flying circuses to forest fire patrols, exploration of the vast backcountry, and toy deliveries by Santa, airplanes have opened the Adirondack wilderness and made remote communities more easily accessible for tourists and adventurers. Yet this golden age for aviation would not last, for as car travel became easier and more affordable in the mid- to late-20th century, air travel in the Adirondacks would fade in importance and necessity.

 

Aurora Pfaff is a writer and editor living and working in New York state’s Adirondack Park. She has a master’s degree in English from Harvard University, but as a child dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She finally took her first flying lesson in 2022. Images used in Aviation in the Adirondacks come from the Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, Historic Saranac Lake, Keene Valley Library, Piseco Lake Historical Society, Saranac Lake Free Library Adirondack Research Room, Town of Webb Historical Association, individuals, and other organizations.

Charles R. Mitchell tracks Curtiss's dizzying ride from a village bicycle shop to record-smashing motorcycle races and city building in the Florida land boom.

Glenn Curtiss beat even the Wright brothers (who sued him bitterly) to get pilot's license No. 1 in America. He teamed with Alexander Graham Bell, helped develop the moving wing part known as the aileron, introduced tricycle landing gear, made the first airplane sales, and turned aeronautics into a multimillion dollar business. His innovations ranged from the Curtiss Pusher to the hydroaeroplane, the flying boat, and the Curtiss Jenny. Curtiss, his engines, and his airplanes dominated the world of early aviation on this side of the Atlantic. Glenn H. Curtiss: Aviation Pioneer charts Curtiss's breakneck course across two continents, North America and Europe, setting speed and distance records, experimenting with military applications, always striving for a safer, faster airplane. Fostering both water flyers and shipboard landing, he became the Father of Naval Aviation. But even the skies were not wide enough for the busy brain of Curtiss.

During World War II, there was a famed B-17 aircraft named Hell's Angels. The men who worked together to keep the plane flying over Hitler's occupied Europe, those of the U.S. Army Air Force's 303rd Bombardment Group, were the first in the 8th Air Force to complete twenty-five missions from their base in Molesworth, England. These men, or "Hell's Angels" as they became known, went on to complete forty missions without ever turning back to base for mechanical failure of the plane. In The Original Hell's Angels: 303rd Bombardment Group of World War II, you will take an exciting historical journey to meet these men and to experience the total forty-eight missions they flew without having a member wounded or killed before the plane and members of its crew were commissioned to return to America for a war-bond tour. Also, you will learn how the entire 303rd became known as Hell's Angels, the first heavy bombardment group to complete three hundred missions from American air force bases in England.

Long Island is a natural airfield. The central area of Long Island's Nassau County--known as the Hempstead Plains--is the only natural prairie east of the Allegheny Mountains. The island itself is ideally placed at the eastern edge of the United States, adjacent to its most populous city. In fact, nowhere else in America has so much aviation activity been confined to such a relatively small geographic area. The many record-setting and historic flights and the aviation companies that were developed here have helped place Long Island on the aviation map. Through one hundred years of aviation history, Long Island has been home to eighty airfields. From military airfields to seaplane bases and commercial airports, the island has had more airports than any other place of similar geographic proportion in America. Most have vanished without a trace, but a handful remains. Long Island Airports is the first book to document the pictorial history of these airports and airfields.

From its art deco architectural design to its historic integrity and preservation, Floyd Bennett Fieldis a must-have for, aviation, and New York history enthusiasts.

Although New York City was slowly recognizing the need for a municipal airport in the late 1920s, it sought to regain prominence by constructing the most advanced airport of its day.

Construction in the far reaches of Brooklyn was started on October 29, 1929, the day of the stock market crash that heralded the Great Depression. The airport was named posthumously for Floyd Bennett, a Brooklyn native, Navy pilot, and Medal of Honor winner. Unfortunately, because of many factors--including poor timing, politics, and remoteness from Manhattan--the airfield was a commercial failure. Its advanced features, however, made it a mecca for private aircraft and the site of numerous record-breaking flights.

Aviation historian Richard V. Porcelli, author of Arcadia Publishing's NAS Atlantic Cityand numerous articles, tells how the Navy became an early tenant in a move that would impact the airfield's destiny. In 1941, the Navy's presence led to the establishment of NAS New York, which played a key role in the wartime delivery of planes from numerous area factories. After the war, it served as an important Naval Air Reservebase until its closure in 1971.

A comprehensive pictorial history of Farmingdale, New York's outstanding aeronautical achievements made by so many talented men and women over seven decades.

Farmingdale, located in west-central Long Island on both sides of the Nassau-Suffolk County border, was an important center of airplane manufacturing from the First World War until almost the end of the Cold War. Aviation pioneers like Lawrence Sperry, Sherman Fairchild, Leroy Grumman, Alexander de Seversky, and Alexander Kartveli directed the manufacture of aircraft, aircraft engines, and key subassemblies as they evolved from the propeller, biplane era to the jet and space age. Farmingdale witnessed the creation of such cutting-edge aircraft as the Sperry Triplane Amphibian and Messenger; the Fairchild FC-2; the Grumman FF-1, JF-1 Duck, and G-22 Gulfhawk; the Seversky P-35; the Republic Aviation P-47, F-84, and F-105; and the Fairchild Republic space shuttle tails and A-10 Warthog. Airplane manufacturing in Farmingdale ended in 1987 with the demise of Fairchild Republic, but its history still lives on today.

John F. Kennedy International Airport opened in 1948, after the realization set in that the newly built LaGuardia Airport was unable to handle the volume of air traffic for New York City.

Pushed through by New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the airport was to be located 14 miles from Manhattan, in Jamaica Bay, Queens, on the site of the old Idlewild Golf Course. For its first years, Idlewild Airport, as it was originally known, consisted of a low-budget temporary terminal and a series of Quonset huts. A major new building program began in the mid-1950s, and the airport rapidly changed from a ramshackle series of buildings into a glamorous-looking city. Renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1963, it has now grown to cover 5,000 acres.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, women were demanding more freedom. What could bring more freedom than a chance to fly? Women went up in those early wire-and-fabric contraptions to gain independence, to make money, or to make their names as pilots. They sought to prove that women pilots could do just as well as men—and some did far better. Flying High: Pioneer Women in American Aviation tells the story of Blanche Stuart Scott, who made $5,000 a week and broke forty-one bones; of Harriet Quimby, who flew the English Channel handily and then fell to her death in five feet of water near Boston Harbor; of Ruth Law and Katherine Stinson, who set American distance flying records—all before any of them were allowed to vote. Flying High: Pioneer Women in American Aviation also tells the tales of women behind the scenes—the financiers, engineers, and factory workers—from the earliest days of flying to victory in World War II. These stories of the first female flyers are told in rare, vintage photographs, many previously unpublished, from the archives of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum.

The waters of Manhasset Bay have long been an incubator for innovation and prosperity. While early baymen sought their livelihood through clam digging and fishing, a new industry by way of sand mining forever changed the bucolic hilltops that overlooked the bay. While the sand mining industry brought prosperity and notoriety, the industry's use of heavy machinery and hydraulic pumps leveled the peninsula, once known for its lush grazing pastures. During the early 1900s, areas such as Port Washington, Manhasset, and Great Neck flourished into commuter, suburban towns. Shifting from a farming to a suburban community, homes began to develop along Manhasset Bay. Urbanization brought new housing and businesses such as hotels and lavish restaurants. As an epicenter for aviation, the bay launched historic flights through a then-fledgling Pan American Airway Corporation on Manhasset Isle. Elite yacht clubs and grand estates dotted the shoreline, all catering to a growing population looking to the bay for its leisure and livelihood. The once-tranquil waters are now a hub for city vacationers, bustling commuters, and entrepreneurs.