This will be the eighth year in a row that Hammondsport has celebrated the annual Seaplane Homecoming.
This year on Sept. 17, 18 and 19 seaplane owners from all over the northeast and beyond will fly into this beautiful community on Keuka Lake and interact with the locals and enjoy the weekend in the Finger Lakes of New York State.
The Glenn H. Curtiss Museum of Early Aviation has sponsored this event because of the love of flight and history that has been a part of this organization since its inception in 1961. Beginning in the old Hammondsport School building, it graduated to its current location in 1992 on Route 54 just south of the village.
This year, the museum is celebrating the great historic 100th anniversary of the first solo flight by Blanche Stuart Scott — the first American woman to learn to fly an airplane. She was also the only woman that Curtiss taught to fly.
He was very reluctant to teach her because he was not convinced that women should be aviators and he would be taking a great risk with his business should anything go wrong. But, much to his surprise, after only a few lessons, Scott left the ground, climbed to about 40 feet and then made a perfect landing. In a very short time she became known as “Tomboy of the Air.”
Scott’s firsts didn’t end there. She was the first woman pilot in the U.S., although she never applied for a license; the first woman test pilot in the U.S. and the first woman to fly in commercial aviation exhibits and she became famous for her “death dive.”
“Glenn Curtiss made the seaplane a practical reality and is considered the ‘Father of Naval Aviation,’” said Trafford Doherty, director of the museum, adding, “That’s why our Seaplane Homecoming is such a fitting salute to this brilliant man from Hammondsport.”
Most of the excitement for the public will be on Saturday, when the seaplanes will be in full operation, and giving people rides.
A special highlight will be at 1 p.m. with the traditional “Parade of Seaplanes” which proceeds down the lake and back around over Pleasant Valley Cemetery and the Curtiss burial site.
For more information contact the museum at 607-569-2160 or check out the website at glennhcurtissmuseum.org.
