A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Visitors to the 2014 EAA AirVenture this week in Oshkosh, Wis., can view an unusual aircraft making its first appearance at the air show: The Lark of Duluth, a fully flyable replica of the first airplane to carry a paying passenger. It is being featured in front of the show site’s vintage red barn for the entire week.


Over a span of five-and-a-half years the Minnesota-based Duluth Aviation Institute constructed the Benoist Type XIV flying boat as a tribute to the memory of the Duluth residents who owned the original Lark, which on Jan. 1, 1914, carried a lone passenger from St. Petersburg, Fla., across the bay to Tampa. The replica airplane, which was built with volunteer labor contributions from Institute trustees and local EAA members, recreated that historic flight exactly a century later.


“2014 marks the 100-year anniversary of commercial aviation,” said Sandra Ettestad, president of the educational organization’s board of trustees. “It is fitting that exactly 100 years later the replica of the world’s first commercial airplane, The Lark of Duluth, reminds us how primitive aircraft of that era were and yet how profound the vision of aviation pioneers was to set a course for the future.” A similar replica of the pioneering airboat exists in the collection of the St. Petersburg Museum of History.

Replica of World’s First ‘Airliner’ Makes Oshkosh Debut

100 years ago, a Benoist flying boat carried a paying passenger over Tampa Bay, and the rest is history.

2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

EAA AirVenture 2014

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