Wednesday, September 14, 2011

WNY's Unknown Stories - Buffalo's 1st International Airport, New York.


BUFFALO, N.Y.- The waterfront beckons on a nice sunny day. And as Barbara Bernat watched her granddaughter splashing around at Lasalle Park, she had no idea she was standing on a spot where history took flight.

"I had no idea, I thought it was a harbor with all the ladders and stuff."

What many think is a boat launch at the south end of the park actually has a legacy of aviation.

It was June 29th, 1929, as a crowd and anticipation grew to a fever pitch, the huge Sikorsky sea plane churned into the water. It Carried 8 passengers on a groundbreaking flight. At 11:05 it took off, 45 minutes later, she touched down in Toronto, greeted by another huge crowd on the shores of Lake Ontario, completing Buffalo's first international passenger flight.

But this was by no means Buffalo's first brush with the flying boat.

Glenn Curtis had been experimenting on Keuka Lake, but wanted to go bigger and moved to Western New York to build flying boats for the U.S. Navy.

Paul Faltyn of the Ira G. Ross Aerospace Museum says, "We had the natural resources, we had the lumber, we had the aluminum, we had the workers, we had the lake and river, we had the rail transportation...the skilled labor. So it really all came together that western new york had the suppliers and the technical support at the time to develop the boats."

And it was Rueben Fleet, a former world war I pilot, who really took the industry to a new level here. He came to Buffalo to start building trainers and flying boats and founded Consolidated Aircraft in a plant on Elmwood avenue. In fact, the building is still there and until recently, housed the M. Wile factory outlet store.

In 1935 Consolidated, and for all intents and purposes the Buffalo seaplane business, moved out to San Diego where the climate is more conducive year-round, to these flying boats. But even with our winters, Faltyn says that a 45 minute seaplane ferry service to Toronto might find some appeal, even today.

"Sure it could still be a viable opportunity."

An opportunity launched 72 years ago from a now-crumbling chunk of concrete in Lasalle Park.

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