Decades before the term ‘Buffalo Wings’ evoked the image of a plate of fried chicken parts covered in hot sauce, the wings produced in Buffalo were covered in fabric and aluminum. Buffalo Wings flew in defense of freedom in two world wars. Machines built in Buffalo broke the sound barrier, pioneered vertical flight, lifted astronauts off the surface of the Moon, and trained others to fly the Space Shuttle. For More information about these images, go to post: “Four Aviation Milestones Produced in Buffalo.”
Man-Powered, Gas-Powered, Pigeons. Buffalonians Tried Them.
The various bicycle clubs thrived in Buffalo for many years. Many of the members satisfied their mechanical curiosity by graduating to the automobile. Many preferred paying attention to the affairs of the skies. Other members became interested in ballooning or racing pigeons.
The Carrier Pigeon Club of Buffalo took an interest in the work of American John Montgomery, who made his first successful glide in 1883. German Otto Lilienthal was, eventually, more successful than Montgomery. His first attempts using wings strapped to the arms of the pilot, to be flapped like a bird, were failures. But a biplane (two-winged) glider successfully flew in 1891. Lilienthal was killed in 1896 when a flight attempt went wrong, but he left a great deal of documentation that was used in experiments by members of the Carrier Pigeon Club – and by a pair of Brothers named Wright.
The automotive factions joined to form the Buffalo Automobile Club in 1900, and in 1903 became one of the first members of the American Automobile Association. Their clubhouse is a national historic landmark, located in the Clarence Town Park on Main Street.
The Buffalo Aero Club also began holding regular meetings in 1900, three years before the Wright Brother’s first flights at Kitty Hawk. In 1910 the Aero Club became officially recognized by receiving a charter from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale of France, and incorporating in the State of New York. John M. Satterfield, leader of the group during this period, became the Club’s first president. Officers of the Club included prominent representatives from business and industry. Their surnames would be familiar to many from Western New York: vice-presidents, H. A. Meldrum, Howard A. Forman, Robert K. Root; treasurer, George P. Urban, Jr.; secretary, Dai H. Lewis.
The first flight sanctioned by the membership of the Aero Club happened in 1906 when a dirigible was flown on Main Street. Newspaper accounts tell us that all street car traffic was stopped and school children were released early to view the flight. In April, 1910, an aircraft flight took place at the Buffalo Country Club, where pilot A.L Pfitzner, successfully flew an aircraft of his own design. (The Country Club hosted the 1912 U.S. Open and is known today as the Grover Cleveland Golf Course, one of three municipal courses operated by the city of Buffalo.) At the Country Club the Aero Club constructed storage sheds and facilities where aircraft could be assembled, in hopes of attracting more aviators to the site. That part of the Club is now part of the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center campus, on Bailey Avenue north of Winspear.
Pfitzner’s life came to an untimely end just a few months later. In July of 1910 he committed suicide in a small boat off the coast of Massachusetts. A note found in the stolen boat asked the finder to return the boat to its owner. A report soon after the event, in the magazine Aeronautics, noted that Pfitzner had been “despondent” for some time.
Another notable early flight was Lincoln Beachy’s 1911 trip that originated from the Buffalo Aviation Meet at the Driving Park at Humboldt Pkwy and E. Ferry St. Beachy, one of the best-known flyers of the day, flew his Curtiss biplane from the east side of Buffalo to Niagara Falls, where he descended into the gorge and flew under the Honeymoon Bridge to the delight of an estimated 20,000 spectators. Beachy, in another flight, is also credited with making that same Curtiss airplane the first to be looped.
In 1916, as the United States prepared for the possibility of entering Europe’s war (World War I), the 40-member Aero Club with Satterfield as president raised $10,000 to fund an aviation capability for the New York militia. The funds allowed for pilot training and aircraft purchases. The Aero Club hoped that its members and aircraft would go to war as a unit, but the Army (then in charge of air forces) scattered them across many units as it saw fit. Buffalonian Nathanial E. Duffy, who served as director of the Buffalo Airport for more than 30 years (1927 – 1960), became the first American to fly in World War I when he joined France’s Lafayette Escadrille squadron prior to the US’s official entry into the war.