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May, 1911 AVIATION 11

[[image - Charles Francis Walsh]]

My First Flights

By Chas. F. Walsh

[The following story of his experience as a beginner, by Chas. F. Walsh, will be of special interest to readers of AVIATION since Mr. Walsh is the first Pacific Coast aviator to make application for an aviator's license. He has been exceptionally successful because he has kept at it when meeting discouragements large enough to discourage many a would-be aviator. Mr. Walsh is now filling professional engagements and expects to make flying his business, but no matter how many flights he makes none will be of as great interest to him as his first experience at Imperial Beach, the Motordrome and Dominguez field, of which he tells in the following article.—Editor.]

I first became interested in aviation in the summer of 1909, and was able to interest some friends and organize the San Diego Aeroplane Company. This company built a large monoplane designed by myself in which I used a 20 h.-p. motor which proved entirely inadequate for the purpose, as the machine weighed about 900 pounds. I took the monoplane to the Coronado Country Club grounds and before I could give it a try-out we had to leave it standing in the field all night. That night a terrific wind storm came up and turned the machine over on its back. This unlooked for accident occurred on the night of January 1, 1910. We succeeded in getting the machine righted once more, and on January 24 we were to use it in conjunction with Mr. C. K. Hamilton's machine for an exhibition at the track.

I thought that I would try out before Hamilton started, and ran the machine down the track, and turning it around, started back. When I found that I could not steer to the left, as the rudder was tied. I realized that if I kept to the course I was following I would collide with the Curtiss machine. The only thing I could do was to tun into the fence. It did not take me long to decide, and I took the fence route. I struck the fence at a speed of 35 miles per hour, and tore away all the running gear, letting down on the skids. I was thrown out but landed without injury to myself. Mr. Hamilton was the first one to reach me and congratulated me on my narrow escape.

After this trial I decided that I would build a Curtiss type machine and in thirty-one days I had a new machine completed with the help of one man.

After a couple of weeks of running around on the ground one day I happened to tilt the elevating plane at just the right angle and I was in the air at an altitude of twenty feet. It would be hard to describe the sensation that I experienced; I might say that I was overjoyed to think that I had at last