March 12th marked 110 years since the first flight of the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) “Red Wing” on Keuka Lake in Hammondsport, NY. Glenn Curtiss was one of five members of the AEA (which also included Alexander Graham Bell) and the Red Wing set the stage for the tens of thousands of Curtiss and Curtiss-Wright aircraft to follow in the next forty years.
In this photo, Lt Thomas E. Selfridge’s Red Wing, the first Aerial Experiment Association airplane, makes its first flight at Lake Keuka, Hammondsport, N. Y., with Frederick W. “Casey” Baldwin at the controls.(Photo credit: Air Force Historical Foundation)