I wish I could see this………

In the formative years of aviation, when the whir of a tiny engine overhead still drew gasps of wonder, the “America” was a gravity defying behemoth. It weighed 1 3/4 tons, had a 72-foot wingspan, and took off and landed on water. Its top cruising speed: A mere 65 miles an hour.

The twin-engine flying boat was created by the Wright brothers’ bitter rival, Glenn H. Curtiss, with one mission in mind: to vanquish the Atlantic. It was edging toward attempting the first transoceanic crossing in 1914 when war intervened.

“Getting the America off the water with enough fuel aboard was proving to be problematical _ that’s what they were struggling with when World War I broke out and put the kibosh to the whole thing,” said Trafford Doherty, director of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport in western New York.

Thousands of onlookers will get a taste of that bygone era Saturday when a near-replica of the experimental biplane roars once more across Keuka Lake next to this hill-framed village where Curtiss progressed from bicycle shop owner to motorcycle speed demon to aviation icon.

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