1912 CURTISS HEADLESS RACER

When I was asked to build a copy of a Curtiss pusher I had no thought of what fun it was going to be. Especially the research.

Numerous copies of the Curtiss had been built. In its lifetime, more copies were built than factory built. Glenn Curtiss didn't mind and, in fact, adopted some features that he saw on copies. A number of modern copies have been done and I really did not want to do another. Then I ran across a rather unusual Curtiss pusher.

In the book, "Curtiss, the Hammondsport Years", is a brief mention of a 1912 Headless Racer. There is a small, head on, photo taken at the Grand Central Palace Aeronautical Show in May, 1912. There is also a three view drawing. Dimensions cannot be read on the drawing, but a sidebar gives some overall dimensions. The drawing was done in 1973. The ribs can be seen in the photo and drawing and since the wingspan is given as 17 feet, rib spacing appeared to be 12 inches. The chord could be approximated at around 50 inches and I started to build wing sections with this information.

At the same time I went to more sources for more information about the plane.Inquiries were made to NASM, the Curtiss Museum, the Curtiss Foundation and the Society of Air Racing Historians. The answer from all was that they had never heard of the airplane. Had I not had a picture, I might have been persuaded that it never existed.

NASM offered to sell me photos, some of which were actually other Curtiss types., at rather exorbitant prices.

In the meantime, a search of records was made in Chicago. The racer had been built for the Gordon Bennett Cup Race scheduled for Sept. 1912 in Chicago. This showed that, apparently, only three airplanes took part in the race and the Curtiss was not one of them. It was found, however, that the Curtiss did take part in the Cicero Meet the week following the race and another photo was obtained from the old records. Now we had two pictures of the plane.

Another set of drawings also turned up. The were done by the same person and showed the same date but, they were different. They showed the span as 21 feet. After some study, we decided that this was correct and if the rib spacing was changed to 15 inches, the span would be 21 feet. A decision was made to scrap the 4 wing sections already built and to start over.

Now a third set of drawing surfaced.They are, apparently, from "Aero" but are not dated. They do appear to come from the period. The printing was such that most dimensions could not be read but it was apparent that we were finally on the right track.

Then an email was received from the Curtiss Museum requesting my mail address. They had something to send me. Itf was a copy of an article in the May-June 1912 "Aeronautics" describing the show in New York. The Curtiss was featured. The article mentioned that drawings of the planes in the show were located elsewhere in the magazine. I asked the Museum to take another look and 10 days later received the rest of the article. It contains a very good description of the plane. It mentions the color and type of covering used. It gives the location of the CG. The accompanying drawing gives all dimensions which can be easily read. The new wings panels that I had started to build are correct to within a fraction of an inch.

We now have enough information with which to build a very accurate copy of the airplane even as to color. I mention color as this is one thing that is very difficult, if not impossible, to determine on these old airplanes. Several years ago I saw a program on TV about Bleriot's Channel flight. One of those interviewed was a woman who had been at the takeoff as a child of 9. As I watched the show I thought of one question I would have given almost anything to ask her. What color was the airplane?

More to follow.

Julius Junge SAA 1558