He attended the Hungary University of Technology before joining the Hungarian Army, serving as a Lieutenant in an artillery regiment before emigrating to the United States in the early years of the 20th century.

He designed and built the gasoline engine with which Curtiss won the overall speed event in 1909 Gordon Bennett Cup in Rheims, France.

[4] The same article refers to the "Wright suits" and their attempts to "build up their patent fences"; Pfitzner is quoted there as saying that "any one who wants to do so is welcome to use [his] panel invention without cost or fear of injunction".

In 1910 he joined the Burgess Company at Marblehead, Massachusetts, where he worked on the design of a biplane which also employed his sliding wing-tip principle.

[5] Pfitzner is reported to have been depressed by his lack of success;[6] on July 12, 1910, he rowed out into Marblehead Harbour with a suitcase containing his drawings.