US Military Vintage

Aviation Foundation of Long Island

Sparsely populated, as the scattering time thin farmhouses, Long Island, still the nascent state was busy with carpet of forest, a single, centralized clearing, the largest east of the Mississippi River, was like an oasis in the desert, and served as a spawning ground for aerial shots of life. It was called the "Hempstead Plains." Almost as if the threshold ideal for air as their apartment, unobstructed areas in the flight, providing a place of experimentation for aircraft, flying fields, and testing schools, an area where vehicles stretched wings and rose from the uterus, which had incubated, followed an upward path that might one day eclipse the atmosphere and connect the world with its moon.

Located on the eastern side edge of the country, a distinction he transcontinental Transatlantic or western European continent, the region around New York, the world densely populated city, has only served to cement This geographically Aviation Foundation.

Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the first through the air with his victory over Iceland in the long Golden Flyer Biplane won the Scientific American trophy after a 25-km, 30 circuits around the airfield flight of July 17, 1909 Mineola attracts other aeronautically inspired people and the first commercial buyer of the aircraft.

The growing interest in aviation and experimentation, quickly eclipsed the boundaries the small field, led to the founding of the Hempstead Plains airfield near his unit nearly 1,000 hectares had germinated 25 wooden hangers for the summer and resists the 1911th School Months, the first such nation civilian facility was opened with a fleet Blériot monoplane of seven operating five structures. Consequently, the first pilot's license at Harriet Quimby.

Long floor of Iceland, aircraft maintenance as well as the grass, the scene had provided the first International Aviation Meet last year at Belmont Park in Elmont, attracting both U.S. and European drivers, founded and managed records for speed and performance with a steady growth of the first collection drafts, and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn was conceived as the origin of the first transcontinental line flight Calbraith Rogers, one of EX Vin Fiz Wright Brothers biplane flown served on September 17, 1911. He finished in San Diego, California, 49 days later, despite a bewildering variety of road and stopped the necessary cellular reconstruction crashes.

The first U.S. air mail route, though short, temporary six mile stretch from Garden City to Mineola in a Blériot plane, it also came in this year.

Hempstead Plains airport, take a military role, provided that the site of the National Training New York Guard pilot in 1915 and two years later, he was one of only two Army-fields in the U.S. with a fleet of four Curtiss Jenny JN-4 aircraft. It was also the year he was "Hazelhurst Field," in honor of force pilot who lost his life in a plane crash renamed.

For a pilot training increased military Request to have on the Field No. 2 was created south of the existing airport Hazel Hurst in 1917 and was later renamed "Mitchel Field" in July of the following year, after then-Mayor John Purroy Mitchel of New York.

The first regular airmail service, appearance May 1918 in Washington, according to Belmont Park with a Curtiss Jenny, was the first heavier than air crossing the Atlantic from Iceland in Portugal the following year along with a trio of Navy-operated, four-engine, amphibious Curtiss NC flying boats, only one has finally reached the European continent, After two stopovers in Newfoundland and the Azores.

The roots of the long Iceland many manufacturers have been planted during the Second World War World

The "Golden Age of Aviation", a speed many, distance, and height records were linked two famous non-stop flights. The first of them, with a single-engine Fokker T-2, was transcontinental in a 26-hour, 50 minutes Crossing Roosevelt Field in San Francisco in 1923, while the second was Charles Lindbergh's famous solo, nonstop transatlantic flight four years later, May 20, 1927 was the Spirit of St. Louis.

After his almost symbolic roll-out in the foggy morning, before leaving was the silver monoplane in darkness, doubt and uncertainty reflects the conviction of consensus on the trial, but the tiny orange glow on the horizon, the sky somehow piercing promise and hope – a goal. From the perspective of today, however, that France seemed endless. However, taking the uncertainty, mud and water out to hinder the just cleared the trees, was used as a passing score covered 3610 miles across the Atlantic to Paris.

In 1929, Roosevelt Field, with its first half as "known integrated Curtiss Field," was the "First World Airport" because of its paved runways and taxiways, and instrument flight equipment, sheds, restaurants and hotels, and in the early 1930s, was the largest unit in the country, with 450 based aircraft and approximately 400 hours movements. It was also home to Roosevelt school of aviation, was one of the largest civilian pilot training in the United States.

During a three years, the stage of post-World War II development, between 1929 and 1932, Mitchel Field in the United States has developed the largest facilities military, with eight steel and concrete hangars, barracks, operations buildings and warehouses, and served as home for many fighters, bombers, and squadrons of observation. The first attack non-stop transcontinental flight, operated by a B-18 in 1938, went there and two P-40 Warhawk squadron was based on the field during the Second World War was the war.

In fact, the necessary war on request only served to deepen the core Long Iceland aviation, leading to an explosive climax of military aircraft design and production in 1945, when 100,000 people were around in the context involved in the use of aviation, including the Republic Aircraft Corporation and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation merged in a husband-and-machine, that finally triumphs in the war.

The first of these, founded in 1931 as the aircraft Seversky Corporation, moved to facilities larger, the Republic Aviation Corporation and reassignment is seven years later sold again and the second largest supplier of fighters of the Army Air Corps because of the higher yield abundant P-47 Thunderbolt on them.

The second of these, founded in 1930 by Leroy Grumman, was the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, and has been synonymous with naval and amphibious aircraft, which includes including former two-seater FF-1, the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat, TBM / TBF Avenger, F7F Tigercat F8F Bearcat and the and the second, the Grumman Goose, Wigeon, Mallard and Albatross.

Change, post-war conditions, however, started to move to Long Island roots in aviation, as no longer required for military aircraft contracts have been canceled and the suburbs encroach stifled Roosevelt and Mitchell Fields in the fence. Still had more than 64,000 civil and military aircraft were in place by Manufacturers hatched at the moment.

Transcending the atmosphere is transformed in the space of aviation.

Dr. Robert Goddard, the the world's first successful liquid-fueled missile was developed in Massachusetts, received a grant of $ 50 000 Harry Guggenheim Long Island Research and related tests to follow, and he eventually developed a rocket engine with liquid fuel, a fuel pump and a turbine control device of the gyro-controlled.

Eleven Air and Space Company after a tender for the design and production must transfer component of the lunar mission Apollo moon project, so that members crew to move between the Orbit command modules and the surface of the moon and travel to NASA Grumman contract awarded in 1962. Two simulators, ten modules test the lunar module and 13 operational during the Apollo program was built, had the most famous of these LM-5 "Eagle", which disappendaged was the Apollo 11 July 20, 1969 and joined the first man on the moon, a feat so that its presence and base of the lunar module itself as an eternal.

Aviation on Long Iceland is planted seeds had germinated and grown Hempstead Plains to connect their own land the moon.

About the Author

A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude Bachelor of Arts Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Associate in Applied Science Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale.  I have also earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, the Art and Science of Teaching Certificate at Long Island University, and completed a Multi-Genre Writing Program at Hofstra University.  At SUNY Farmingdale Aerospace I completed some 30 hours of Private Pilot Flight Training in Cessna C-152 and -172 aircraft.

Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center.

A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. I have made some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road.