'History Detectives' episode about Curtiss seaplane to air
BY DERRICK EK THE LEADER

Trafford Dougherty, director of the Curtiss Museum, is interviewed for a story on 'History Detectives,' which will air at 9 p.m. Monday.

An episode of the PBS television show "History Detectives," part of which was filmed at Hammondsport's Glenn H. Curtiss Museum, will air at 9 p.m. Monday.

A segment of Monday's episode of "History Detectives" is about the NC-4, a "flying boat" designed by Curtiss, the museum's namesake.

Curtiss, a Hammondsport native, is considered a pioneer of seaplane design.

Shortly after World War I, an NC-4, built for the U.S. Navy by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, became the first plane ever to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

A crew from "History Detectives" spent a day filming at the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in early April. The show's host, Elyse Luray, taped an interview with Trafford Dougherty, the museum's executive director.

The mystery that Monday's episode of "History Detectives" attempts to unravel involves a California woman who believes she has a patch of wing fabric from the NC-4 that completed the trans-Atlantic voyage. One of the woman's relatives was the pilot on the historic flight.

The segment also examines why the NC-4's historic flight has largely been forgotten, overshadowed by Charles \Lindbergh's solo, non-stop crossing of the Atlantic eight years later.