by Dr VANCE J. HOYT

(continued from part 1).........Certainly this first competitive meet of the flying crates, held in a barley field on the old Dominguez Rancho south of Los Angeles, was not without its thrills and historical importance. It was the first time a flying machine ever got off the ground west of the Rockies. For eleven days straight, special trains carried thousands of spectators to the Dominguez fields to watch the “aviators” (as they were then beginning to be called) vie for $80,000 in speed, altitude, and distance prizes. The people just looked pop-eyed at the inventions of crackpots exhibited in tents. And when a flying machine, which today would he considered monstrous, finally got into the air and climbed to a few hundred feet, the crowd threatened to become delirious.

By now, aviation had produced a different type of airman from the cautious inventors and flying—machine builder— pioneers, such as the Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, Glenn Martin, Farman, etc. The new aviator was most likely to he some young dare-devil, formerly a motorcycle or automobile racer, who knew little of patience and nothing at all of caution. He did not own his machine, so he could afford to take chances, inasmuch as he had nothing to lose hut his own neck. He did not fly to prove anything, but just for the hell of it. He wanted to perform what were then considered spectacular stunts in the air while the inventor or builder stood on the ground biting his nails. He was the human aero guinea pig who revealed the structural defects or proved the virtues of the machine he flew.

Most of these intrepid birdmen have long since been forgotten. A few won lasting fame, such as Eugene Ely, who first took off and landed on a boat; Philip Parmelee, Charles Willard, and Louis Paulhan, who revealed the possibilities of the airplane as a military weapon; Lincoln Beachey, the stunt flyer, who could scoop up a handkerchief with a wing tip in much the same manner as a cowboy; and Hoxsey, the gentleman aviator who wore a pince-nez elegantly and was also the undisputed hero of the air during his short career. John B. Moisant was the only outstanding birdman of the day who was not present at the Los Angeles meet.

Before a daily attendance of more than 10,000 spectators, the above galaxy of birdmen; and others, did their stuff for a doubting and curious populace to prove that aviation was no longer a dream but a proven means for transportation. Trials for slow flying were made around the pylons, for the ability to remain in the air at moderate speed was considered a great safety factor, which is just the reverse of all the laws of heavier-than-air flight. Some of the machines were able to land at 20 to 30 miles an hour.

Little wonder that accidents were frequent with the crates, when the climbing prize of the meet, won by C. K. Hamilton, was only 30 feet per minute. His time was 12 minutes and 33 seconds for 364.5 feet. Compare that with today’s upward zoom of any of the hot-shot combat planes.

Gaining altitude was more important at that time than speed, for the powerplants of the crates were incapable of doing more than 50 miles an hour. The maximum in speed had been reached, but not so in respect to altitude if one had the nerve to go after it. So every birdman tried to outdo the others in reaching the stars in their daily flights.

During these contests the spectators were kept constantly on the edge of their seats, for accidents and thrilling escapes were plentiful. The 26-year-old Paulhan made a forced landing in his Farman biplane about a mile from the field, and mechanicians (as they were then called) legged it over there to pick up the pieces. Paulhan, however, escaped serious injury and his machine wasn’t damaged much. Repairs were made at the landing spot, and the dauntless little Frenchman taxied back to the grandstand with the members of his crew clinging to spruce struts and silk-covered wings.

On a record hop, Louis Paulhan's crate passes photographic balloon on way to Santa Anita.

Paulhan and Arch Hoxsey were the heroes of the meet. Paulhan won the $10,000 cross-country prize by flying 45 miles to Lucky Baldwin’s Santa Anita race track and back. Circling the pylons at Dominguez on another day, he flew continuously for 75 miles in 1 hr. 58 mins., until a leaky gas tank forced him down. He also was a close competitor for the altitude record. But Hoxsey, a Pasadena boy and “King of the Birdmen,” cinched this record, before he was killed during the meet, by climbing to 11,474 feet, 978 feet above La Gagineaux’s standing record.

Another outstanding feature of the meet was that of a curtain raiser on the drama of the two World Wars to follow. Lt. Paul W. Beck of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who was interested in the possibilities of air warfare, went aloft with Paulhan, packing three dummy bombs on his lap, the first to be dropped from an airplane. Blocked by the rigging of the plane, Beck had to hand the bombs to Paulhan to drop. One missed the target by 58 feet, another overshot it 66 feet, and the third missed the target by 113 feet. The biplane was only a few hundred feet above the ground, but Beck was enthusiastic. He promptly predicted that flying machines would be built for war purposes, with mechanical releases for bombs.

But of all the old birdmen, it was Eddie Stinson who first conquered the deadly tail spin. He had reached the maximum ceiling of 6,000 in a crate of his own make when he suddenly found himself on the way to earth, head first and spinning like a top. After trying all the tricks he knew, without success, and concluding he was a goner, he decided to get it over with as soon as possible and pushed the stick far forward. But instead of increasing his speed of decent, the plane, to his utter surprise, suddenly shot out of the spin while just a few feet above the ground. He had discovered that the way to get out of a spin was to push the stick forward not pull it backward!

“Speed! More speed!“ was the constant cry of the pioneer birdmen. ‘Give us speed and we call fly anything!” And with the advent of better light weight and high-powered engines, flying became a science, an art, rather than a dare-devil adventure.

By 1909, some of the crates had begun to shed their multiple wing and ‘‘float frills.’’ Blériot, with his mono plane, and Farman with his landing wheels, started a revolution in fuselage and empennage designs. The snowplow elevator moved to the rear, in common with tile rudder; the powerplants with traction propellers in place of the pusher type, moved in front of the birdmen, who now sat comfortably in a cockpit. Parasitic drag was cut to a marked degree, speed was stepped up, altitude records mounted higher and higher, accidents were lessened. Death was no longer the birdman’s co-pilot.

First transcontinental flight was made by G. P. Rogers in 1911. Trip took 59 days; flying time, 82 hours at 40 mph. Plane crashed frequently.

By 1912, the popular makes looked less like crates and kites, and began to take on the clean and streamlined appearance of the types we have today, although the biplane remained the favorite in design until after World War 1, for no logical reason. The Great experiment, however, was a proven fact; a thing of the past.

Earl Ovington flying the first U. S. airmail over Long Island, back in 1911.

The death-trap crates and their intrepid birdmen are long gone, hut their invaluable accomplishments made possible the foolproof masterpieces of aircraft we have we have today. Certainly, in the annals of aviation, their historical importance will live forever.