Cradle of Aviation museum acquires biplane built on Long Island more than a century ago, used to map aerial history

An antique post-World War I-era biplane, the type used to film some of the most iconic moments in U.S. and world history in the 1920s, returned to Long Island Monday, headed for restoration at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, more than 100 years after it was built at the Curtiss aircraft factory in Garden City.

The plane, a Curtiss Oriole, was shipped to the museum crated and in pieces, purchased from a private restorer in East Wenatchee, Washington.

It is one of just five known surviving Orioles worldwide, along with one in Florida, another in Washington, one in Norway and one at the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in upstate Hammondsport — and a plane Cradle of Aviation curator and historian Joshua Stoff said he's had his eye on acquiring for more than 25 years.

"This is part of our ancestry," Stoff said as volunteers, guided by museum restoration specialist Peter Truesdell, unloaded the fuselage, wings, wheels and assorted parts from a tractor trailer outside the restoration hangar on Museum Row at the Mitchel Field complex Monday.

"Long Islanders more than 100 years ago designed and built this airplane — and, the engine that powered it. Many might not realize this, but before there was Grumman — and, before Grumman anchored the aviation industry on Long Island — there was Curtiss."

As volunteer Rich Kalen, a retired longtime Grumman employee, said as he helped unload the Oriole: "Every plane built on Long Island counts. This is our history."

An aviation pioneer, Glenn H. Curtiss started building airplanes not long after the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight in 1903.

Curtiss first flew from Roosevelt Field in 1909. His factory building still stands at the corner of Clinton Road and Stewart Avenue in Garden City, now home to Nassau County BOCES. The front facade still reads "Curtiss Engineering Corporation." There's a historic marker on the site, as well.

While Grumman was known for its famous "Cat" series of warplanes, among them the World War II-era Wildcat, Hellcat, Tigercat and Bearcat, Curtiss built planes named after birds — notably the Robin, Oriole and Hawk. It also built the Jenny, an iconic aviation pilot trainer.

Northwest Airlines was founded with the acquisition of an Oriole in 1926, while the first scheduled airline flights from Roosevelt Field used an Oriole to transport wealthy passengers to the Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, a town famous for its midnight presidential primary voting.

The plane acquired by the museum was shipped from Long Island to Argentina in the 1920s, used, Stoff said, to conduct some of the first known aerial mapping of South America.

Another Oriole chronicled the historic North Pole expedition by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in May 1926, while still another shot footage of the Spirit of St. Louis over Long Island when Charles Lindbergh set off from Roosevelt Field on his historic nonstop trans-Atlantic flight to Paris in 1927.

All that Fox News "Movietone" newsreel footage shot from the air in the 1920s?

"Those were filmed from a Fox News Oriole," Stoff said, noting Fox, not to be confused with the Fox News Channel, kept a bright orange Oriole at Roosevelt Field — a model of which the museum has on display. An Oriole is prominent in the historic 100-foot-widemural displayed at the Cradle of Aviation, painted by Aline Rhonie.

The plane acquired by the museum is notable because it is constructed like a wooden boat, built from steamed, curved wood covered with fabric.

Adding to the find is that the museum has long had a rare Curtiss C-6 engine, the type that powered the Oriole.

"It's just an incredibly rare airplane," Truesdell said.

Truesdell and museum volunteers will now do a complete inventory of the parts delivered Monday — the shipment includes not only the fuselage and wings, but rims and tires, wing spars, an ultrarare engine radiator and even original wicker seats for the pilot and passengers — then will set about figuring out the steps needed to conduct a full restoration, which likely will include a visit to see the Oriole at the Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport.

The full restoration is expected to take several years.

"Planes like this just don't fall out of the sky," Stoff said. "They're hard to find and the public doesn't understand how many are complete wrecks when we get them, the restoration process that's involved. But this is quite a find for us ... I think it's just happy to be home, back on Long Island, where it belongs."