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The Mountain Empire Bulletin, Jacumba, Calif. Vol. II No. 9 Sept. 1, 1936 Sec. 562 P. L. & R. 25¢ Presents The Early Bird Review [[line]] [[article]] LINCOLN BEACHEY DEFIES NIAGARA'S MAELSTROM [[line]] H. BEACHEY IS BADLY HURT IN FALL [[line]] BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Aug. 4, 1912 (E.B.)–In an aeroplane crash which terminated an exhibition flight here today, Hillery Beachey, 27 years old, and an airman since 1909, sustained a compound fracture of the upper right arm and possible internal injuries. According to Beachey's mechanic, a strange center section of the upper wing, working loose in the flight, caused the accident. "While the plane was being assembled," the mechanic said, "some of the helpers dropped a shipping crate containing portions of the wings. A strange center section resulted. The part tore loose from its moorings in the air. Diving abruptly to the ground Beachey crashed into a fence before the forward motion of his machine could be checked." Beachey is the brother of Lincoln Beachey, the noted Curtiss aviator. He began his aeronautical career in 1907, as a rigger for his brother, who was at that time a designer, builder and pilot of small dirigible balloons. Associated with Howard Gill, in Indianapolis, in the winter of 1909, the [[unreadable]] airman built and flew his first aeroplane, a Curtiss-type machine. The machine which he was flying today was a Hamilton biplane. [[/article]] [[line]] [[article]] BROOKINS STAR FLIES UP HIGH AT AIR MEETING [[line] INDIANAPOLIS, June 17, 1911 (E.B.) – The Wright exhibition team, composed of the four aviators trained by Orville Wright, at Montgomery, Alabama, last winter, concluded a six-day engagement, unmarred by serious mishap, here today. The Flyers were Arch Hoxsey, Walter Brookins, La Chapelle, and Ralph Johnstone. Orville Wright, who had accompanied his pupils to Indianapolis, opened the meet, held at the local speedway, with a flight in which he circled the track several times, giving a pretty exhibition of dipping and banking. Brookins was the next member of the team to get into the air. Making four circles of the field at a rate of speed timed at 55 1/3 miles an hour, Brookins landed, then took off on a second flight, lasting a half hour, in which he set a new American altitude mark of 4,384 1/2 feet. Brookins continued to star throughout the engagement. On June 14 he flew for nearly one hour in a stiff wind. On June 16 he made a new world's record for a quick turn in the air, getting his machine around the circle in 6 1/5 seconds. On June 17 Brookins bested his previous altitude record by ascending to 4,503 feet. On this day, Hoxsey, in flight became confused in his direction, and landed on a farm 2 1/2 miles from the speedway. Besides the Wright aviators five novice aeroplane pilots undertook to make flights during the meet. They were Capt. G. L. Bumbaugh, J. W. Curzon, Lincoln Beachey, (Continued on Page 3) [[/article]] [[article]] DEATH CALLS TWO AVIATORS ON THE SAME DAY [[line]] LOS ANGELES, December 31, 1910 (E.B.)–Today was indeed a dark day in the annals of American aviation. Hardly had the word of John B. Moisant's fatal crash at New Orleans has been telegraphed here, than Arch Hoxsey, the famous Wright aviator, who had earlier in the week broken the world's altitude mark with an ascent of 11,474 feet, plunged to his doom at Dominguez field. Hoxey's death followed an unexplicable crash from an altitude of about 500 feet. He was descending from a higher elevation when something went wrong with his machine causing it to nose over into a steeper angle, and enter a plummet-like plunge towards the earth. With the echo of the ensuing crash still hanging in the air, Hoxsey's faithful mechanic seized a broken piece of strut and began a tearful patrol of the wreckage in which his master's body was entangled. "They won't treat Arch like the crowd did Johnstone at Denver," he cried. "Just let anybody try to [[torn section]] morbid rush [[torn section]] spectators at [[torn section]] following a c [[torn section]] Johnstone was kill [[torn section]] ne member of the throng, during the frantic struggle for mementos which ensued, is said to have borne away in triumph a bloodied sliver of wood which had impaled Johnstone's body, and another to have stripped the gloves from the aviator's hands. Walter Brookins, a team-mate of Hoxsey, and of Johnstone, witnessed the accident today from a press box. Weeping he sought seclusion from the crowd. Hoxsey's 62-year-old, widowed mother, resides in Pasadena. [[/article]] [[article]] Moisant Falls NEW ORLEANS, December, 1931, 1910 (E.B.)–John B. Moisant, the American airman, who in the course of six months had achieved international fame, plunged to his death in a pasture 10 miles from this city this morning. Moisant was engaged in making a flight for the Michelin award on the last day allowed for competition. His crash was witnessed by the officials of the Federation Aeronautique International, who had come to the field to observe the flight. The aviator, in a Bleriot-type monoplane, had flown to the site selected for the Michelin trial from New Orleans, where he had been engaged in giving a series of exhibitions. Arriving at the field at 9 a.m. he had landed, then, after a brief stop for refueling and inspection, had again ascended. Moisant made several circuits of the pasture at an altitude of about 200 feet when apparently something wrong with the machine caused him to start a descent. As he turned in the face of a stiff wind, at about 75 feet above the ground, the monoplane began a headlong plunge to earth which the aviator could not check. As the monoplane struck the earth Moisant was hurled a dis- (Continued on Page 3) [[/article]] [[article]] RODGERS SOARS MOST HOURS AT MEET [[line]] CHICAGO, August 20, 1911 (E.B.)–The eight-day aviation meet, held in Grant Park, facing Lake Michigan came to a conclusion today with cash awards, said to total $80,000 being divided amongst the participants. T. O. M. Sopwith, the English flier, who used both a Bleriot monoplane and a Howard Wright biplane here, received $13,520 in prize money. Lincoln Beachey, the Curtiss aviator, who set a new world's altitude mark at 11,642 feet today, received $11,162. C. P. Rodgers, a recent graduate of the Wright flying school, received $10,785, and W. G. Beatty and A. L. Welsh, Wright fliers, received $6,625 and $5,621 respectively. Rodger's spent the most time in the air of any aviator who participated in the meet. Flying a total of 29 out of a possible 33 hours, his earnings in the daily duration events totalled, at the rate of $5 per minute, $8,700. Following his successful Chicago appearance Rodgers plans to have a special type biplane built by the Wright brothers, and will attempt to win the $50,000 prize offered by William Randolph [[unreadable]] for [[torn section]] coast to coast flight [[torn section]] gers is a great grandson of [[torn section]] odore Calbraith Perry, who in 1854 opened the ports of Japan to the world, and a grand nephew of Oliver Hazard Perry. [[/article]] [[line]] [[article]] JOHNSTONE UPS WORLD'S RECORD FOR ALTITUDE [[line]] BELMONT PARK, N. Y., Oct. 31, 1910 (E.B.)-On this, the concluding day of a ten-day International Aviation Meeting, held here, Ralph Johnstone, the Wright aviator, rose to 9,714 feet to set a new world's altitude mark for aeroplanes. In today's flight Johnstone climbed to 8,000 feet in 35 minutes, but a full hour was required to gain an additional hour of altitude. During that hour his goggles became covered with frost, and he had some trouble securing a clear vision; his motor stopped and he had to resort to a short earthward glide to start it again. A twine string tied to a strut served as a wind indicator. A recording barograph was the only instrument carried. "It was like an icy plunge after a warm bath," the airman described his venture into the upper atmosphere, after he had descended. Having reached the world record height Johnstone swooped down to earth in a long dive lasting only five or six minutes. He was numbed by the extreme cold of the upper levels, and had to be lifted from his machine. Johnstone was instructed in flying at the Wright aviation school at Montgomery, Alabama, earlier this year. Before taking up flying he was a world renowned trick cyclist, two of his stunts being a loop-the-loop and a thrilling down-the-stairs ride. One of his cycling engagements was an appearance at the New York Hippodrome. During the progress of the meet (Continued on Page 3) [[/article]] [[article]] [[image - drawing of biplane pointed downward with a bird beside it]] [[caption]] Beachey's New "Headless" Curtiss Biplane [[/caption]] [[line]] [[/article]] [[article]] DIVES OVER CREST OF FALLS INTO RISING CLOUDS OF MIST FLIES UNDER STEEL BRIDGE [[line]] NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y., June 27, 1911 (E.B.)-While 150,000 persons watched in spellbound amazement from the shore Lincoln Beachey, the intrepid Curtiss aviator, today rose in his fragile biplane from the local baseball park, circled shortly over the rushing waters below, then dived suddenly over the crest of the falls and disappeared in the spray below. The gorge into which the daring airman descended is only one hundred feet wide. Piloting his swift-moving craft with almost super-human skill, never rising to a height of more than thirty feet above the cataract, enshrouded in the mist, Beachey steered a course through the arches of a steel bridge, an almost unbelievable feat, then landed his tiny plane safely on the Canadian side. The gorge through which Beachey made his miraculous flight is one hundred and sixty-eight feet deep and four hundred yards long. The aviator is 24 years old. He began his aerial career as the pilot of a Heaton dirigible baloon, at Idora Park, Oakland, in a flight made in February, 1905, when he was 17 years of age. Beachey's success with the Heaton dirigible attracted the attention of Captain Thomas Scott Baldwin, the noted California aeronaut, who engaged him to fill an engagement at the Lewis and Clark exposition, at Portland, Ore., that fall. Piloting a Baldwin dirigible the youth is said to have made 21 voyages in the craft, returning successfully to his starting point at the end of each trip. In 1906 he became associated with Chas. C. Stroble and Roy Knabenshue in the construction of a dirigible, which he designed. A brother, Hillery Beachey, joined the enterprise as a rigger. This craft having flown successfully, young Beachey devoted the next several years to the design, construction and flying of the elongated type of lighter-than-air craft. During this period he was aided in the construction of his airships by Hillery, now himself an aviator. Some of the noted journeys made by Beachey in dirigibles, prior to joining the ranks of operators of heavier-than-air craft, include a flight of four miles in which he circled the Washington Monument and landed on the White House lawn with a message for President Roosevelt; one of the first aerial voyages ever made over New York City; and scores of exhibition flights at celebrations in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Jamestown, Cincinnatti, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Though today's flight has definitely placed him in the first ranks, to stand shoulder to shoulder with such noted American aviators as Wilbur and Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, Walter Brookins, Eugene Ely and Chas. K. Hamilton, Beachey's transition from a pilot of the lighter-than-air type of craft to a flier of the heavier-than-air machine, which he now uses, was difficult. "Flying did not come readily to me at first," he said recently. "But when it did come, it came big - and all of a sudden. [[/article]]
