The Air Meet That Almost Wasn't

For some time, Curtiss and the Wright brothers had been involved in a dispute which centered around the Wright's claim that Curtiss was using, on his aeroplane, a stabilizing devise the aileron. The Wright brothers claimed the aileron as their invention protected by patents. The Wrights had also projected their claims into the field of European litigation, including France, where they insisted that Henri Farman's aeroplanes likewise had infringed upon their patents.

The Wright brothers sued Glenn Curtiss as early as September, 1909, in an effort to preclude him from making or selling aeroplanes in violation of their patent rights. Upon hearing of the California meet, in which Glenn Curtiss and his team of exhibitioners were scheduled to take part in, they sought to prevent the event from taking place.

Paulhan and his company, consisting of his wife Celeste, Edmund Cleary, and two aviation associates, Didier Masson and Edward Miscarol, arrived in New York on January 3, 1910, with two Bleriot monoplanes and two Henri Farman biplanes representing the highest development of European aeronautical science to that date. Fearing that Paulhan's Los Angeles appearance would cause the Wright brothers great commercial damage, as soon as Paulhan set foot on American soil, Edmund Clearly was handed a Federal Summons directing Paulhan to appear in the United States Court of Appeals on the first Monday in February enjoining their use of their Henri Farman biplane.

The Wright brothers had also obtained a temporary injunction prohibiting the manufacture and sale of aeroplanes by the Herring-Curtiss Company (Curtiss's factory at Hammondsport, New York). Their suit also sought to prohibit Glenn Curtiss' participation in any air meet especially the Dominguez International Air Meet in Los Angeles.  Likewise, Paulhan was so enjoined from using his Bleriot Monoplanes.

A legal turn of affairs, however, was to work to the advantage of the Dominguez International Air Meet.  On January 8, in Buffalo, New York, just two days before the meet was scheduled to take place, a Federal Court granted an order suspending, pending final action, the temporary injunction obtained by the Wright brothers. The suspension was conditioned on the filing, by Glenn Curtiss, of a $1,000 bond which would be forfeited in the event that damages were awarded to the Wrights. The order, however, gave Glenn Curtiss specific liberty to make flights at Los Angeles, and elsewhere, during the time the patent action was in litigation.

Louis Paulhan

(c) Copyright 1997

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Mark J. Denger

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