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| Walter being launched in F-Boat |
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Ray Morris came through Chicago on his way to the Curtiss Company in Buffalo. He saw the crate I was flying and was quite perturbed. A week later he had the Curtiss Company offer me a job as instructor on the Curtiss F-Boat at Buffalo. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I was married in June, 1915 and took Loa to Buffalo. I flew the boat from a hanger on the lake. We launched from a long, tough ramp. We turned the boat by hand in the hangar and moved it by gunning the motor. My first students were Al Johnson and "Fish" Hassell. I flew there in the fall and winter of 1915. Once I went to Hammondsport to test fly three F-Boats which had been sold to Colombia on Sunday. The Curtiss pilot, Walter E. Johnson, wouldn't fly on Sunday. The boats had to be shipped on Monday. It was the first time that I met Glenn Curtiss. He had several of us to dinner that night. He was surprised when I refused to drink champagne with him. I explained that I had promised my mother not to touch liquor while she was alive. In September, 1915, I took my first tests for my flying license. I had two very fine and distinguished men for my Observers. They were Mr. Charles Manley, who helped Langley with his first flying machine and Dr. Albert (Alfred) Zahm, on the staff of the Smithsonian Institute, who was and is known throughout the world as an authority on aeronautics. My license number was 55 and was granted by the Aero Club of America. 
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