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Sparsely populated, as evidenced by the once sparse scattering of farms, Long Island, still in its nascent state, had been carpeted with forests, but a single central clearing, the largest east of the Mississippi River, stood like an oasis in the desert. , and served as a spawning ground for aerial life. It was called “Hempstead Plains.” Almost predestined as the threshold of air, its flat, unobstructed expanses beckoned to flight, providing a site for aeronautical experimentation, flying fields, and piloting schools, an area where vehicles spread wings and rose from the womb that had contained them. incubated, chasing a promotion. path that would one day eclipse the atmosphere and connect the planet with its moon.
Located in the extreme east of the country, a dividing line that only pointed transcontinentally to the west or transatlantically to the European continent, the area, very close to New York, the most populous city in the world, only served to geographically cement this aviation base . .
Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the first to triumph aerially over Long Island in his Golden Flyer biplane, won the Scientific American trophy after making a 15-mile, 20-circuit flight around Mineola Airfield on July 17, 1909, drawing others inspired by aeronautics and the first commercial buyer of an airplane.
Booming aviation interest and experimentation, quickly eclipsing the confines of the tiny field, resulted in the establishment of the nearby Hempstead Plaines Airfield, whose nearly 1,000-acre stretch had sprouted 25 wooden hangars and grandstands by the summer of 1911. The Moissant school, the country’s first civilian institution of its kind, had opened with a fleet of seven Bleriot monoplanes operating from five structures. He subsequently issued the first female pilot’s license, to Harriet Quimby.
The soil of Long Island, which nurtures aviation as much as the grass, provided the setting for the first International Aviation Meeting the previous year at Belmont Park in Elmont, attracting American and European pilots who competed and set speed and performance records with a growing collection. of early designs, while Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn served as the origin of the first transcontinental flight flown by Calbraith Rogers in a Wright brothers-designed EX Vin Fiz biplane on September 17, 1911. It ended in San Diego, California, 49 days later . , despite a dizzying series of stops en route and accidents requiring rebuilding of the airframe.
The first US airmail route, albeit the short and temporary six-mile stretch from Garden City to Mineola on a Bleriot plane, also occurred that year.
Taking on a military role, Hempstead Plains Airfield provided the site for the training of New York National Guard pilots in 1915, and two years later, had become one of only two Army camps in the United States. United with a fleet of four Curtiss JN-4 Jenny aircraft. It had also been the year it had been renamed “Field Hazelhurst,” after an Army pilot who had been killed in a plane crash.
To meet the increased demand for army pilot training, field no. Field #2 was established south of the existing Hazelhurst Airport in 1917 and was subsequently renamed “Mitchel Field” in July of the following year in honor of then-New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.
The first regularly scheduled airmail service, which took place in May 1918 from Washington to Belmont Park with Curtiss Jennys, gave way to the first transatlantic crossing of heavy aircraft from Long Island to Portugal the following year with a trio of aircraft operated by the Navy, four-engine amphibious Curtiss NC Seaplanes, only one of which eventually made it to the European mainland after two intermediate stops in Newfoundland and the Azores.
The roots of many Long Island aircraft manufacturers were planted during World War I.
The “Golden Age of Aviation”, associated with numerous speed, distance and altitude records, resulted in two famous non-stop flights. The first of these, involving a single-engine Fokker T-2, resulted in a 26-hour, 50-minute transcontinental crossing from Roosevelt Field to San Francisco in 1923, while the second had been the world-famous, solo, by Charles Lindbergh. nonstop transatlantic flight four years later, on May 20, 1927, on the Spirit of St. Louis.
After its almost symbolic deployment in the mist-shrouded dawn before departure, the silver monoplane plunged into darkness, doubt, and the darkness of consensus belief about the attempt, but the small orange glow that streaked across the sky in the horizon somehow reflected promise and hope: a goal to aim for. However, from today’s point of view, France seemed equally infinitesimal in size. However, the precarious takeoff, prevented by mud and water, barely clearing the trees, served as the threshold for the successfully covered 3,610 miles across the Atlantic to Paris.
By 1929, Roosevelt Field, having been integrated with its former half known as “Curtiss Field”, had been considered the “World’s First Airport” due to its paved runways and taxiways, instrument flight equipment, hangars, restaurants, and hotels. , and by the early 1930s, it had been the largest such facility in the country with 450 grounded aircraft and some 400 moves per hour. It had also been home to the Roosevelt Aviation School, one of the largest civilian pilot training facilities in the US.
During a three-year expansion phase after World War I, which took place between 1929 and 1932, Mitchell Field became one of the largest military installations in the United States, with eight hangars, barracks, operations buildings, and steel and concrete warehouses. , and served as home to many fighter, bomber and observation squadrons. The first non-stop transcontinental bomber flight, operated by a B-18 in 1938, departed here, while two squadrons of P-40 Warhawks were based in the field during World War II.
In fact, the demand sparked by the war only served to deepen Long Island’s aviation core, resulting in an explosive spike in military aircraft design and manufacturing in 1945, by which time some 100,000 local residents had become involved. in aviation related jobs, primarily with Republic Aircraft. Corporation and Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, in a fusion of man and machine that had finally triumphed in the war.
The first of these, founded in 1931 as the Seversky Aircraft Corporation, moved to larger facilities, renaming itself the Republic Aviation Corporation seven years later and becoming the second largest supplier of fighters to the Army Air Corps due to copious amounts of P from top performance. -47 Thunderbolts sold to them.
The second of these, founded in 1930 by Leroy Grumman, became Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and had joined Navy and amphibious aircraft, the first included the FF-1 two-seater, F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, TBM / TBF Avenger, F7F Tigercat and F8F Bearcat, with the latter including Grumman Goose, Widgeon, Mallard and Albatross.
However, changing postwar conditions began to tug at Long Island’s aviation roots, as contracts for military aircraft no longer needed were canceled and encroaching suburbs choked Roosevelt and Mitchel Fields to closure. However, at that time its manufacturers had made more than 64,000 civil and military aircraft.
Transcending the atmosphere, aviation became aerospace.
Dr. Robert Goddard, who had successfully designed the world’s first liquid-fueled rockets in Massachusetts, received a $50,000 grant from Harry Guggenheim on Long Island for related research and testing, eventually designing a liquid-fueled rocket motor , a turbine fuel pump, and a gyro-controlled steering device.
Subsequently, eleven aerospace companies submitted a bid to design and produce the lunar module transfer component required of the Project Apollo lunar mission, allowing crew members to travel between the orbiting command module and the lunar surface, and NASA awarded the contract to Grumman in 1962. Two simulators, ten test modules, and 13 operational lunar modules were built during the Apollo Program, the most famous of which was the LM-5 “Eagle,” which broke away from the Apollo 11 spacecraft on July 20, 1969 and connected the first human. to be with the moon, leaving his mark and the very base of the Lunar Module as eternal evidence of this feat.
The seed of aviation planted on Long Island’s Hempstead Plains had sprouted and grown, connecting its own soil with that of its moon.