Ithaca's Early Aviation History

Ithaca played a key role in the early aviation industry with the production of the Thomas Morse S-4 Scout biplane. All of the sites associated with the production and testing of the World War I-era plane are still extant.

For a brief time in the early twentieth century, Ithaca was a thriving center of the young aviation industry. The Thomas brothers—W.T. Thomas and Oliver W. Thomas—were aviation pioneers who produced early seaplanes. They came to Ithaca to establish an airplane factory on Brindley Street in 1914. The brothers soon joined with the Morse Chain Company to form the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation. The fledgling company produced hundreds of the World War I-era “Tommy” S-4 Scout planes right here in Ithaca, at the Brindley Street plant and at Morse Chain’s South Hill factory. The Thomas brothers also operated a flying school from a flying field next to Cayuga Lake at what is today Cass Park. The Thomas-Morse company briefly ran an experimental engine factory at what is today the Significant Elements architectural salvage warehouse and Historic Ithaca’s office. During World War I, Cornell University's New York State Armory and Drill Hall (now known as Barton Hall) served as an airplane hangar and site for classes in military aviation science.

The Ithaca Aviation Heritage Foundation honored Ithaca's aviation history by restoring a vintage 1918 Tommy plane and flew it on its centennial flight over the Ithaca Tompkins Regional airport in September 2018. The restored Tommy Plane is on permanet loan to The History Center in Tompkins County and is on display in the Exhibit Hall on the Ithaca Commons.