Scientific American Trophy

Glenn Hammond Curtiss built an experimental airplane, the "June Bug", that responded so well to testing that he decided to enter it into a competition for the Scientific American trophy. Curtiss won the first leg in the 1908 competition, which involved flying in a straight line for a distance of one kilometer. On July 4, Curtiss piloted the "June Bug" across Pleasant Valley for a distance of 5,090 feet. It was the first officially-recognized, pre-announced and publicly-observed flight in America. It won Curtiss the first leg of the trophy and established him as America's foremost aviation pioneer.